 | http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/articles/2005/01/18/news/news03.txt
Search is so far fruitless
By Brandon Stahl
When Kristy Ringuette was three weeks old and given to her adoptive parents, an
8.5 by 11 inch document was given with her. That sheet listed only the first
names of her birth parents along with their ethnic background, weight and
height, education and the state in which Ringuette was born.
Ringuette's adoptive parents placed that paper in a photo album. Growing up,
she would often look at it, wondering who her parents were.
"I didn't know if something new would appear on that piece of paper or what,"
she said.
Twenty-seven years later, that's all Ringuette has had to go on as she searches
for her birth parents, something she's done for the last five years.
"I have no need for a relationship with my parents. It's not a void in my life
I need to fill," she said. "It's more of a curiosity: what they look like, what
there hobbies are, what kind of people they are, what kind of talents they
have."
But the search has been off and on, she said, mostly because she's hit so many
dead-end walls. The search process is already challenging, but it's even more
so for Ringuette. Not only does the document not provide her birth parents'
names, it leaves blank a space for the doctor's name and the name of the
hospital where she was born.
Her real birth certificate is sealed and kept with the state, which isn't
allowed to give it to her. Some states have begun to open up those documents,
but Minnesota and North Dakota are not among those.
Armed with the experience of searching as an agency administrator with the
adoption non-profit Permanent Family Resource Center, Ringuette has looked
online and posted queries on Web sites, followed leads, put her name on
adoption registries, taken out a classified ad in the newspaper, and asked the
agency that did the adoption for family medical information. Still, she has
only learned tidbits of information about her parents.
There would be an easier way: she could contact the agency that set up the
adoption. But they'll charge her $500 to assist in the search. That's not
something she's comfortable with.
"It seems like a lot of information that should be mine," she said."You're held
captive of that agency."
She's often quit looking, but she said she recently started it again.
"I've essentially gotten nowhere," she said. "That's where I'm at these days."
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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
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