002 – When the Law is in the Way, Try DNA

Laura became a dear friend when we quickly bonded over being adoptees while working together. Laura had been searching for her family of origin for years, before the age of the internet, and the promise of consumer DNA testing linking long lost relatives. In this episode Laura reveals her childhood challenges to bond with her adopted family who were open about her adopted status in unhealthy ways. Their mental health issues and the emotional childhood that Laura lived, drove her desire to find her family origin, as the wondered about her biological mother every day.

The post 002 Laura R – When the Law is in the Way, Try DNA appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Laura: 00:00 From the beginning of doing that DNA test I specifically have looked at it as whatever comes of this and whether people are welcoming or they, they don't want to know me. I just have to accept it like, and I think as a message to other adoptees on that journey, you really need to get to that place. If you don't get to that place, you're going to be in potentially for a lot of pain.

Voices: 00:26 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 00:37 Who am I really? Welcome to Who am I really? A show about adoptees who have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and on today's show we have my former colleague Laura, Laura told me the story of how she had a challenging childhood in adoption. Had a struggle to gain identifiable information from her birth records out of New York state and her ultimate connection to her aunt through DNA testing and a happy family reunion.

Damon: 01:20 So thanks for coming. What, what do you have here?

Laura: 01:23 So that is the information that I received in 1999 it was the combination of a request I'd made to the State, New York State for non-identifying information, which you're allowed to receive without the consent of any party because it's not identifying as no names or addresses or anything attached to it. And I think I made the request like two years before and it came kind of, so it came as a shock when it actually came. I was like, wow, I didn't even remember like making the requests. It been such a long time before and we were living in Pittsburgh and I had just been accepted to law school.

Damon: 02:01 Wow. So this is a generic description of everything about your adoption situation,

Laura: 02:10 Right. It's like a time capsule. It's what was recorded between August 30th, 1968 when I was born and February 20th of 1969

Damon: 02:19 that's amazing. Wow. So let's start back at the beginning. First of all, you and I worked at HHS together.

Laura: 02:27 Yes.

Damon: 02:27 I remember one of the things that was a bond for us was the fact that we identified ourselves as adoptees.

Laura: 02:34 Yeah. And that walk in Providence from a restaurant.

Damon: 02:36 That's right.

Laura: 02:37 And I don't even know how we got onto that subject.