You've Come A Long Way, Sandra Heath
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 07:03PM I received my adoption records in the mail Saturday. I knew there were 82 pages, because I had to pay the copying costs, but I imagined lots of legal crap and little substance. Instead, over half is ridiculously personal information about my birth mother and my parents.
My father would just die if he ever found out I was reading things about him in any kind of interview, much less a series of public welfare ones during an adoption process. That alone is worth the $200 I paid for this kind of scoop!!
It all starts in 1959 when, deciding against a private adoption agency for privacy reasons (that worked well for 46 years), they put their names on the Memphis, Tennessee, public welfare department’s list to adopt. They ended up with my brother, Pat, in 1960. They had no idea, poor things. It’s a good thing they got me next, because my motto was then and remains, “You’ll barely know I’m here”. I’m referred to as a “good, sweet baby” on at least 35 pages. My parents are referred to as “attractive” on just as many. That would make them both as happy to know as the good, sweet part about me made me.
A few things were news to me. For example, my mother told me that she was the one who couldn’t have children, but according to these pages, she wasn’t the one lacking in reproductive abilities. And, I was told that everything was lickety-split, like my parents were practically there as I popped into the world. Not exactly the case, because, apparently, I had a little stint at a Coston Boarding Home and was known as Sandra Heath (legally until 1965!).
















