Original Birth Certificates (OBC)

My need to have access to my original birth certificate started when I was about ten years old. There was a bully in my class at school who didn’t believe I was adopted. He demanded proof. I don’t know why it was important to me to show him proof but I did ask my parents to see my birth certificate. I was shocked to see that I didn’t have the name of biological parents on it. Instead, my adoptive parents’ names where on it. I asked my mom why this was and she explained that after an adoption it was common for adoptive parents in the 1970’s to get an amended birth certificate. In Ohio, all the other information was correct, but the biological parental names where changed to the names of the adoptive parents. Now I love my mom and dad, but this just felt like a lie to me. My parents always treated me like their daughter, but by changing the names, I felt like it robbed me of any hope of finding my biological parents or any health history.

In 2017, all of that changed when I got my original birth certificate in the mail. When Phillip and I Googled the only parental name on it, the name of my biological mother, and we saw her Senior class yearbook photo, I was shocked by how much she looked like me. Finally, I had access to my past. A link to finding out where I came from. Granted, I was devasted and heartbroken when we found her obituary, but that obituary also gave me my Aunt Jill who was still alive, my sweet half-sister Juliana, and cousins. I finally had family who could tell me about my health history and share stories of my birth mother.

I’ve been following the fight of adoptees in Michigan to get their original birth certificates. Since my birth family came from Michigan, I feel a connection to them. I will support them in their fight to get what should have been theirs since their birth. No adoptee should be denied the right to know who they really are.