Something lost...

I was keeping an anxiety attack at bay lat light. We have a small fireproof safe about the size of two shoe boxes to keep important, and some replaceable, papers as safe as we can. In this safe is a package with the adoption papers I signed and memorabilia from my daughter V's birth...along with her original birth certificate (OBC), the one that is sealed away for eternity, the ONLY copy that exists on the planet.

I had to go into this safe last night to retrieve something for my younger daughter so I thought I would take a walk down memory lane and look at my precious items from my oldest daughters arrival on the planet. One thing I was feeling I especially wanted to look at was her OBC...well it was not in the package. I tore that safe apart three times thinking, wishing, that maybe I slipped it in with some other pack of papers. Nothing. It WAS NOT in there!!!! My irreplaceable connection that said to the world that she was mine for a moment! I never realized just how much I treasured this piece of paper until it was gone!!

Trying to hold back tears I went downstairs to where I keep scrapbooks of all my children. I opened the small pink one of V's hoping maybe I put it in there, even though I distinctly remember not doing that because I didn't want to use any kind of adhesive on it. I looked through and behind every page and nothing. As I went to set it down a stuffed full envelope fell out with photos in it and the little hat they put on her right after birth. I had forgotten I put those there because they were things that I either didn't want to attach permanently that included photos that weren't all that great. Looking in I found the envelope for the OBC!!! BUT when I took out the thick card in there it was detached, or what I thought was attached. I started bawling and took the envelope to my room to at least have that and put it in the safe...then a this slip of paper fell out. THE OBC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until this experience I had NO idea how precious of a thing this little piece of paper this is. There are so many birth Moms and adoptees who don't have the privilege of obtaining or even looking at this seemingly insignificant piece of paper. It is a visual link between us that has been secreted away to pretend there was never a relationship between the two of us. So in that short span of time I had an insight to how thousands...millions of people feel at not having this privileged. I am even more enthusiastic to do the little part that I do in helping two very important friends of mine is giving adoptees open access to their OBC's.