If you’d known me then…

Back before I got sick you’d have thought I was an adoption success story. I’m not alone in being seen as having a positive adoption story, many adoptees now sharing online were also seen as adoption success stories until they started looking deeper into the effects, and they may still be seen that way to people around them. Some adoptees will always be seen that way and it may be their truth.

 

Adoption Awareness Month – Family History

As adoptees we have two different families; the family that adopted us, the family that we were born into. Both families shape who we are, what our family histories tell us also comes into play for many of us.

 

Just a wee bit late…

The National Council for Adoption has concerns on adoptees using DNA tests to find their families of birth and get health information. 

 

Family Health History Updates and Adoption

I read an adoption agency post on Family Health History, left a comment, went back to read it again and realized the post is from 2016.  My comment is still there pending approval, which I expected as I commented on the weekend.  The post was on what the adoption agency does with any family medical updates, note what they do seems pretty standard across agencies, something I’ve talked about before.  Adoption agencies can also charge an adoptee to pull their file.

Is the standard good enough is the question I’m asking you my friends.

If you answer in the comments:

1. Include your role in adoption (first parent, adoptive parent, adoptee).
2. Answer whether it is good enough to you, and why, if it’s not good enough, what should be done instead.
3. Include whether you’d have known to check with the adoption agency regularly for updated family health history.

Here is the post: Adoptees and Updated Medical Information

My comment is below, but please don’t click the ‘Read the rest of this entry’ until you’ve read the above post linked, so it’s read without my bias good or bad.  If you are going to comment, it would also be good to do that before you read my comment.

 

Just wow…

7 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Adopting

“6. The lack of medical information and social history is awkward, embarrassing, and frustrating.”

“Right now, forms are an annoyance. The amount of blanks I have to leave is frustrating. At some point, the gaps between what we know and what we don’t might be a source of embarrassment for my kids. I can say we have to accept unknowns (because we do), but it’s hard.”

Do you have any idea the number of adoptees out there who can only wish that the lack of FHH was just awkward, embarrassing, and frustrating…

…might be a source of embarrassment for your kids.  Embarrassment?  Try life-altering, life-threatening…

I’m going to stop here before I get really upset at the glibness displayed…

 

Talking about adoptees…

Recently, an adoptive parent was incredibly rude and dismissive about adoptees online, repeating the old trope that happy adoptees were too busy living their lives to be online in adoption groups, and the adoptees online had an agenda.  I took the exception to what she was saying about adoptees, but then had to remove myself because it stressed me out too much.  I don’t do stress.

But she is right.  I did come online because I had an agenda.

 

Dr. Oz your “Transformation Nation Million Dollar You” excludes adoptees

From the website: Dr. Oz’s Transformation Nation: Million Dollar You

Here’s how it works:

You’ll join Dr. Oz, Weight Watchers, Sharecare and a powerful team of health professionals to tackle the seven key steps to weight loss and healthy living. The new, healthier you could even be eligible to win a $1 million prize!

Kick off the program with our Ultimate Health Quiz, where you’ll get an overview of your health. Next, conquer the seven steps:

Tell a Friend

Official Weigh-in/Calculate Your BMI

Connect with Your Doctor

Learn Your Family’s Health History

Get More Sleep

Assess Your Stress

Start New Fitness Habits

Then show off your knowledge with the Final Health IQ Quiz. The public will vote for the participant it finds the most transformed and inspirational. The winner will receive $1 million and appear on The Dr. Oz Show.

(bolding and font changes mine)

They even have two helpful videos and family health history forms…

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/learn-your-family-history-pt-1

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/learn-your-family-history-pt-2

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/family-health-history-worksheet

Here is what I would say to Dr. Oz…

Dear Dr. Oz,

You say knowing your family health history can save your life.  Having knowledge that your family has a history of early age heart attacks and stroke can save your life and prevent events.  Well of course I agree with you, that knowledge would have changed my life.  If I knew that my family health history included multiple close relatives who had early age heart attacks and strokes, my doctor would have made different choices.  But you see, I am just an adoptee, and therefore not worthy of having that knowledge, or even the right to seek that knowledge.

Furthermore, you and most of the medical community at large, have not stood up and demanded better for us adoptees.  I doubt you even realize there are millions of adoptees in the US, who have no information that could be used to save them from events, that can take their lives in a heartbeat. 

If you cared, you would talk about it on your TV show.  You and the entire medical community would petition the government to change the laws.  You would stand up for us, because you deem it crucial to our health and future.

All I hear is the medical community telling those who have access to their family to do it.  For adoptees, all I hear is crickets…

Sincerely,

An adoptee whose life was changed forever, because no one did the right thing for all adoptees.