Dear Mara Rigge (Mara aka Mommy),

Thank you for following Daddy Times Two and taking the time to comment on  my recent post, National Adoption Day .  I greatly appreciate you sharing your point of view.  I encourage you to comment more often as I would like to gain more insight into your personal perspective on adoption.  In addition, I want to know how you fit into the adoption triad.  Are you a adoptee, adoptive parent, birthmother or any combination of the above? 

As for me, the adoptive process has encompassed and shaped my entire life. It has made me who I am today. Adoption saved my son and me from unstable surroundings and endless poverty. I thank my parents for loving me, my son's birthmother/my birthmother for relinquishing us and God for his divine intervention. In addition, I thank the courts and legal system for protecting my son and me from a disruption during or after our adoptive proceedings.

The following list details my interactions with the adoptive process over the course of my life:

• I was adopted at birth through a closed adoption
• I was reunited with my birth parents
• I have buried my Father, Mother and Birthmother 
• I have assisted in reuniting many adoptees and birthmothers
• My partner and I personally experienced the loss of a child through our adoption journey
• We held our adopted son minutes after he was born
• Our family maintains an open adoption agreement with with our son's Birthmother and maternal biological family
• Our family continues to have direct contact with my son's Birthmother

I have come to realize, through the years, that a birth certificate or name does not define me.  It is life's experiences and the people that surround me that shape my world.  I did not ask to be thrown into the world of adoption. It was my fate! I am grateful for every place adoption has lead me.

The most important thing I have learned from my experience is to mindful of Pandora's box.  Original birth certificates and reunions do not bring personal peace.  In actuality, these two things can greatly complicate lives and bring waves of grief.

I wish you well on your personal adoption journey... regardless of the role you have been cast.  I respect you opinion but be mindful that your journey belongs solely to you.  Remember to tread lightly on the path of others.  It is not your place to tell their story or steal their joy. 

Best regards,
Brandon

FYI... viewers/followers can read Mara Rigge's original comment in the highlighted portion below.

"Every time a child is adopted, his/her original birth certificate (the child's truthful documentation of birth) is permanently sealed. He/she is issued a falsified birth certificate called an "amended birth certificate" that lists the adoptive parents as the child's biological parents. This falsifying of an innocent, voiceless child's birth record is discrimination and should be illegal. Do the children know they will NEVER be allowed to possess their truthful birth certificates? Average Joe's serve hard time in federal prison for falsifying identity documents, yet it is done legally all over this country in vital records' offices with the permission of judges and barbaric, antiquated state laws. The United States Constitution is violated every single time a person's birth certificate is sealed and falsified."