VT to MN – Day 8, A Rest Day

On September 23, 2014 By legitimatebastardIn Uncategorized

Tim is right: He misses his two Moms. It is not slang. It is plural. And I miss all four of my parents. …. Every adoptee has two sets of real parents.

ridinghometofindme

It’s hard to tell the difference between women’s pajamas and sweatpants. That’s not something that bothers me really, but it can be useful information to have when someone is walking toward you in a strange city, waving you down saying and saying “Hey!” from across the street to get your attention. Had I known they were sweatpants I would have been able to take a level of possible crazy off the table and been less nervous about what was coming my way. I had just given up on finding my Maui Jim sunglasses which disappeared sometime after 9pm last night, so I was hoping that was not an indicator of how the rest of the day would go.

There was nothing at all to be nervous about when Mrs Young came toward me from across the street. She was from on vacation with her husband from Detroit…

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VT to MN Day 9 – Dad

On September 23, 2014 By legitimatebastardIn Uncategorized

Tim says to post far and wide, so I am!

Help an adoptee journey home:

ridinghometofindme

A rest day was exactly what I needed. I actually slept in this morning! By sleeping in I mean I slept past 7 am, which I have not done since I started this trip. Joan was a wonderful host again this morning and I can not thank her enough for opening her home to me.

It was 30 degrees colder today than it has been the previous two days. it never came close to getting above 60. it’s a funny temperature zone for me when I am riding. Generally I would be completely bundled up, but my body has started to acclimate and I am taking the cold better than I normally would. It’s also a funky temperature range because it’s the middle ground for clothing. If it were just a little colder my actual cold weather gear would be perfect, but when…

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VT to MN Day 9 pics

On September 23, 2014 By legitimatebastardIn Uncategorized

Very happy to have hosted adoptee Tim Howard on his bicycle trip from Vermont to Minnesota to meet his blood kin and to raise awareness for Adoptees’ Rights. A joy to have him as a house guest, and a joy to lend a hand to someone who is on a life journey. May you find peace and a greater sense of self when this part of your life’s journey is over.

ridinghometofindme

Starting point with my very gracious host Joan

Something made me smile, I’m blaming the bacon

10 miles

20 miles

30 miles

40 miles

50 miles

60 miles

70 miles

View from camp 75 miles

If you would like to help support me on this journey and support adoptee rights/adoption reform, please donate at http://www.gofundme.com/Riding-Home-to-find-me

EVERY donation helps

Please share everywhere

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The Real Philomena: NPR Radio Interview and Commentary

On January 9, 2014 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Death and Dying, Missing Baby, Natural Mothers, Uncategorized

A radio interview with the real woman named Philomena who lost her three year old child to a forced adoption in Ireland. The movie, Philomena, is a fictionalized version of her search for her son.

I am glad that the discussion of intercountry adoption has been slowly turning in favor of examining what adoption means to the natural parents and their lsot children. This is a start. Discussion leads to action.

The movie depicts the result of barbaric behavior from Catholic nuns in intentionally separating a mother from her toddler son – because the mother “sinned” for being pregnant “out of wedlock”. The lesson? Realizing a mother loves her child, with or without marriage.

The further lesson? Bringing out to the open the cruel treatment mothers received in Ireland is not limited to Ireland. It has happened, and still does, all over the world. Babies are stolen and given up in forced adoptions all the time.

This movie, Philomena, quietly invades the viewer’s heart and mind. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How can we stop it? What are the humane solutions to teen pregnancy? What are the solutions to religious indoctrination that persecuted Philomena way back pver 50 years ago ? How can we educate deeply religious people and institutions as to the damage their social control has had, and still does, on vulnerable mothers and their innocent children?

There has to be a better way. Punishment of mother because she got pregnant before marriage is not the way to go. Removing her child from her caused Philomena a lifetime of pain. Her son, like millions of stolen children, grew up believing his mother didn’t want him.

This should not happen.

Now that you’ve seen the movie, do something. Get busy. We need you to help put a stop to stories like this. Contact American Adoption Congress, Adoption Crossroads, as a start. There are other groups, such as Origins USA. Find a local organization that is set for social and political action.

This is a side note to Mannix Flynn: the questioning has begun. People are starting to ask why this happened. People are asking who should be held accountable for this tragedy.

How Much Did My Adoption Cost?

On February 27, 2013 By legitimatebastardIn Uncategorized

Someone asked this question to adoptees a few months ago.

My Bill of Sale: $250.00 in legal fees paid by my adoptive parents to the attorney who represented my adoptive parents in this transaction.

That was my answer a few months ago.

I thought about it today and it occurred to me that there were hidden costs.

In addition to the hand-scrawled receipt in pencil from my adoptive parents’ attorney, there were these monies paid:

The Surrogate Court Judge of Erie County in the City of Buffalo, New York was paid for ten months of work, from the time that my father gave me to the care and custody of my pre-adoptive parents to the time the Final Order of Adoption was signed. All of the court staff that processed paperwork received pay checks also. The court-appointed attorney also received a pay check for his ten months involvement as he conducted an investigation (not called a home study in this private adoption back in 1956) of my pre-adoptive parents, and, as he researched my family background as to why my father agreed to relinquish his fifth and youngest child to this adoption. After the Finalization of Adoption was signed, the Surrogate Court Judge sent an Order, and that Order was handled by a chain of staff members who processed the paperwork and mailed out the Order to the Registrar of Vital Statistics in the State capital of Albany, New York. The Director of Vital Statistics for the entire State of New York became involved, and received a pay check, when he received the Order from the Surrogate Court Judge of Erie County. He then created a new birth certificate according to the information sent to him in the Order from the Surrogate Court Judge. That means that the Director of the Office of Vital Statistics of New York State, a man with a PhD in the Executive Division of the State of New York Department of Health, knowingly created a false document using false facts, then signed his name to it and affixed the raised State seal of New York State, thus certifying as true the facts set forth on the new birth certificate. He lied. He committed perjury by lying under oath. And he was paid to do so. Additionally, the Surrogate Court Judge of Erie County in the City of Buffalo, New York also sent an Order to the local Registrar of Vital Statistics in City Hall of Buffalo, New York to encode my actual birth certificate in some way to indicate that I had been adopted and that this birth certificate, still kept in the books in the local Office of Vital Statistics, was now under seal. This means that I (and the two parents named on the birth certificate) have been banned from obtaining a certificated copy of this true birth certificate forever.

And every person in the linked chain of authority received a pay check – a government pay check.

So, actually, to respond correctly to the question – “How much did your adoption cost?” – I can now say that I don’t know for sure.

I would need to find out the salaries of all the people involved, tally it up, and convert the 1956 – 1957 value of the dollar to 2013 inflation rates. When all of this is taken into consideration, I choke at the salaries paid and the income made at the transfer of a four month old baby to a new set of parents and a new life.

I struggle with how it feels to be given away freely yet other people – government employees – were paid to make sure this adoption was completed. These people were able to support their families with the salaries they were paid.

My father could not financially support all of his five children since he had to hold a job. The baby was too young and needed two parents, so my father relinquished me. The employees in charge made money off of his loss of his child and my loss of my entire family and the joy my new parents felt in receiving a new baby they could call their own.

How much money did my adoption cost?

I don’t really know.

But tax payers paid for it by supporting the government employees voted in office and civil service employees hired to keep the system working.

And the government employees were also paid to keep the records sealed and this adoption closed.

The human costs are incalculable.

Rest in Peace Reuben Pannor

On December 24, 2012 By legitimatebastardIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I did not write this obituary, but I remember the man. He was my mentor even before I knew him, back in 1976 when I read his journal articles. …. For my friend, Reuben, thank you for your wisdom. When I sat in my college library in 1976, reading your article entitled “The Effects of the Sealed Record in Adoption,” I photocopied it, tucked it inside my copy of The Search For Anna Fisher, and held my head up high. Your words gave me strength to move forward as an adoption activist. And I followed your work closely. You, together with Annette Baran, and Arthur Sorosky, went on to write what was later referred to as “The Bible of Modern Adoption,” The Adoption Triangle in 1978. We met at several adoption conferences. I am blessed to have known you. May you have a sweet journey in eternity. Peace, Joan

… … …

Remembering Reuben, July 4, 1922 – December 22, 2012, age 90

Reuben “Ruby” Pannor, a social worker and pioneer in the field of open adoption, died on December 22^nd, 2012, at the age of 90. A man overflowing with kindness and empathy, Reuben was universally loved by family, friends, colleagues, and all of those in the “adoption triangle” (birthparents,adopted persons, and adoptive parents).

Reuben and his twin brother Harry were born on July 4^th, 1922, to Rose and Isidor Pannor in the small village of Slobodka, in Lithuania. The twins and their younger sister Esther spent their early childhood surrounded by generations of extended family. In response to growing anti-Jewish sentiment prior to World War II, Reuben’s immediate family immigrated to America when Reuben was eight years old.

Reuben grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, where his parents, early union supporters, worked as tailors in a factory. When World War II started, Reuben joined the Army Air Corps. Stationed on Fernando di Naronha, an isolated island penal colony 100 miles off the coast of Brazil, Reuben was responsible for predicting the weather over the Atlantic Ocean for use in military operations. He later awed his children and grandchildren with tales of befriending the island’s prisoners and his uncanny ability to identify clouds and forecast the next storm.

After World War II, the GI Bill enabled Reuben to obtain an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University. One day in 1948, he was visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where he repeatedly found himself gazing at the same paintings as Sydell Alpers, a Poughkeepsie girl who recognized him as one of those handsome Pannor twins. In Sydell, Reuben found a true match in temperament and intellect, a shared passion for social justice, and a soul mate.

In 1953, Reuben and Sydell followed Ruby’s twin brother, Harry, to Los Angeles, eventually moving to Pacific Palisades to raise their three children. For thirty years, Reuben worked at the nationally recognized child welfare agency, Vista del Mar of Los Angeles, where he became the Director of Community Services and later Director of Adoptions. Through his clinical work, he noticed that the needs of birth fathers had been overlooked, leading to the publication of his first book, The Unwed Father, co-written with Byron Evans. Through his interactions with birth parents, adoptive parents and adoptees, Reuben developed several key insights: that birth parents often suffered for years from their loss, that it was natural for children to wonder about their biological origins, and that adoptive parents’ relationships with their children were strengthened, not harmed, by openness about adoption.

In 1978, he wrote a seminal book, The Adoption Triangle, with co-authors, Annette Baran and Arthur Sorosky. This book argued that adopted children had a right to know about their origins and that laws preventing this were cruel and should be abolished. Reuben championed the belief that knowledge of one’s origins should be a civil right for all. Another book, Lethal Secrets, co-written with Annette Baran, addressed issues of secrecy and genetic heritage for those who had children through donor insemination. Reuben received numerous awards for his work, including citations from the City of Los Angeles, the State of California and the United States Congress.

Reuben touched countless lives and engaged in many communities. He was constantly sought out for his wise counsel. He always had time to listen and he gave the best advice. He was a prolific storyteller, captivating his children and grandchildren with long, creative tales he made up as he went along. Reuben inspired in his family a great passion for the outdoors. Yosemite Valley, Sequoia, The Sierra, the Colorado Rocky Mountains, and the Alaska wilderness were second homes. Closer to home, Reuben was frequently spotted walking his dog through the Palisades, engrossed in political conversations, and schmoozing in Mort’s Deli.

Reuben’s surviving family include his wife of 62 years, Sydell, his children, Suzanna, Gerry (husband Rick), Jonathan, and his grandchildren, Sarah, Michael, David, Viva, Golda, Ari, Jacob, and Sam. Reuben touched all who knew him with his unconditional love and is lovingly remembered for his profound compassion, commitment to reducing suffering, ready chuckle, and his smiling eyes.

A celebration of Reuben’s life will be held on Thursday, December 27, 2012, 1:00 pm, at Congregation Kehillat Israel, 16019 Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, California, 90272.

Letters/cards of condolence may be sent to: The Pannor Family, 14607 Bestor Blvd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lance Cope: Father’s Rights Denied by OXYGEN’S I’m Having Their Baby

On August 22, 2012 By legitimatebastardIn Uncategorized

iAdoptee posted a timely and urgent post on the most recent episode of OXYGEN’S TV Program “I’m Having Their Baby”: Actually, Oxygen, She’s Having HIS Baby.

Here is the father who stated that he does NOT want his baby given up for adoption:

Yes, I do agree that OXGYEN Channel is complicite in preventing a father his parental rights.

I will add that OXYGEN is also violating the rights of his child to his father.

The child’s rights to privacy are also violated.

Is there an attorney out there to help this father?

Is there an attorney out there to shut down OXYGEN and their TV Reality show “I’m Having Their Baby”?

This show goes agaisnt true family values.

Another Dead Mother as Proof that Adoption is God’s Will and Destiny

On August 17, 2012 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee False Baptismal Certificate, Adoption Psychology, Adoptive Parents, Death and Dying, False Information on Birth Certificate, Missing Baby, Uncategorized

This post is written as a response to an article in The New York Times in which the writer addresses adoptive parents who think adoption is God’s Will, part of God’s Plan, and their adoptee came to them by destiny and that “it was meant to be”.

After reading the article and a few comments, I dug out a photo, and wanted to write, but left the house for other obligations.

Turns out, while I was away, kostvollmers blog on Land Of Gazillion Adoptees, wrote his own blog post, Dear People Who Believe Placing Children For Adoption and Adopting Children Into Your Families is Destiny and part of God’s Plan. He posted a photo of his mother’s grave.

He had the same idea as I did.

And so, I have been moved to write my own answer to those adoptive parents who believe that adoption is God’s Will and destiny.

Yes, it is God’s will that my mother died, too.

This is my mother:

It was God’s will and His Plan for my widowed father that he relinquish me, his fifth child, born in January of 1956, to be raised the only child of my adoptive parents. Yes, it is destiny that my mother was dying while pregnant with me and her only purpose was to stay alive long enough for me to be born. But she lingered for three more months.

I was two months premature, almost died at birth and was placed in an incubator for two months. Then, I was taken to my dying mother’s bedside where my godparents, a priest, and my mother witnessed the Holy Sacrament of Baptism. I was Baptized under my legal and religious name, recognized by Jesus Christ himself, while my father was at home with his four older children. Three weeks later, his wife, and our mother, died.

The priest said to our father, “The baby needs two parents.” At the funeral parlor, a woman came up to my father and said, “I know someone who will take your baby.” So, my father, being the obedient Catholic that he was, took the priest’s words to heart. A woman who knew his deceased wife came to pay her respects. It must surely be God’s will, it must surely be destiny, that this woman appeared to my father at the exact moment that his newborn daughter needed a new family because, after all, the priest said that the baby needed two parents. And so it came to pass that my father handed me over to my pre-adoptive parents nearly one month after my mother’s death.

Praise the Lord, Alleluia!

My adoption became final one year and one week after my birth. Within the following three months, the government confiscated my birth certificate and placed it under seal, never to be opened, forever. Paperwork was sent 400 miles away from Surrogate’s Court in the city of my birth to the State Capital where all birth certificates created for NYS adoptees are made and filed. One year and three months after I was born, the Registrar of Vital Statistics set forth a new birth certificate in my new adoptive name, naming my new parents as my parents by birth, naming my hospital of birth, the time of my birth, and stating that I was a “single” birth and not a twin or a triplet. The Registrar then signed his name and affixed the raised State seal to this new birth certificate certifying that the facts stated were true. He lied. He knowingly created a false government document. He committed fraud and perjury as lying under oath is a crime. But, it was God’s will. It was destiny. He just had to do it since it was God’s Plan.

Three and a half years later, when my adoptive parents wanted a new baptismal certificate for me in the name they had given me, they asked their lawyer to do something. He did. He requested that the parish that performed my baptism in 1956 issue a new, amended, baptismal certificate in my adoptive name so that I could go to Catholic Schools and receive the rest of the Catholic sacraments. The parish pastor created a new baptismal certificate that stated that I, in my legal adopted name, was baptized on the date of my actual baptism in 1956, he named my adoptive parents, named my godparents who were my deceased mother’s brother and his wife, and then issued the new baptismal certificate in May of 1959. This Pastor knowingly issued a falsified baptismal certificate, yet he, being a representative of God, committed a sin by signing his name in witness and testimony that all the information was true as taken from Official Records of that parish church.

Yes, it is all God’s will. It is all destiny. Praise the Lord! I am Saved!

No, it is manipulation, magical thinking, and delusion. My mother’s cancer was not a gift. My father’s grief was not God’s Plan. My living a life devoid of my four older siblings, and they of me, was not destiny. The Lord did not save me.

The woman who told my father she knew of “someone who will take your baby” was the sister of the man who became my adoptive father.

The priest who said that the baby needed two parents was not concerned that the other four children needed two parents, too, he was only thinking that the newborn needed more immediate care. The immediate care could have been found by some charitable ladies coming into our home while our father was at work so that his family could have been kept together.

The only ones to have benefited out of this arrangement were my adoptive parents, Surrogate Court, the Registrar, and the lawyers.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I was raised a spoiled brat, got everything I ever wanted, lived in a house in the suburbs, went to private schools, had a bedroom all to myself, and my Mom made me dresses. Got “everything I ever wanted”? Except for my siblings and my father, except for my name at birth and baptism, except for peace of mind.

Because of this, I left the Church many, many years ago.

Now, all of my parents are dead. I spent part of the day visiting their graves, all of them, because of this magical thinking.

As for the government…

What a Day for Adoption Contradictions

On July 24, 2012 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Amended Birth Certificate, Death and Dying, False Information on Birth Certificate, Uncategorized

On one hand, we have the new reality cable TV show “I’m Having THEIR Baby” (https://www.facebook.com/#!/ImHavingTheirBaby) (OXYGEN premiered Monday July 23, 2012), which promotes the separation of mother and baby for the benefit of waiting adoptive parent wanna bees, and supposedly, for the pregnant non-mother and her newborn who will become an adoptee.

And on the other hand, we have these two contradictory reports about James Holmes, the gunman at the at the midnight movie premier of The Dark Knight Rises in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado (Friday July 20, 2012). One says that he was adopted (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178304/James-Holmes-Gunman-used-police-evidence-bags-hand-puppets-mother-admits-feared-disturbed-years.html#ixzz21aOHJZdz), and the other says that his lineage goes way, way back to the beginning of American history. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/22/colorado-shooter-james-holmes-family-history-goes-back-to-the-mayflower.html)

So, which is it? Was James Holmes adopted? Or was he born to the parents who raised him? Hmmm. I suspect that, if he was adopted, then the story on his lineage just might be true. After all, his adoptive parents have a birth certificate for him that says he was born to them and that he is their biological son. That makes the lineage real. If his lineage is “real”, might this adoptee be confused about his identity? And what of his two sets of parents? What were adoptive parents like? What happened that his natural parents relinquished him? If he is adopted, and his birthdate is now known publically, perhaps now his natural parents will want to make contact, or hide in despair and grief. And guilt.

And where do the baby brokers fall in this picture?

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Or maybe he really wasn’t adopted and this was just someone’s snide comment, like in The Avenger’s movie (He’s adopted – oh that explains everything! Laugh laugh, giggle giggle – Don’t be offended, it was just a joke!). Yeah, blame it on the adoptee. Everyone knows adoptees have “bad blood”. See a few bloggers’ takes on the subject: http://adoptedintheuk.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/all-joking-aside/ and http://73adoptee.blogspot.com/2012/05/avengers-why-is-making-fun-of-adoption.html.

Let me get this straight. People are making money off of pregnant girls and women, convincing them that they can’t possibly be good enough parents to their unborn baby so it would be so unselfish of them to give up their baby to older, wiser, and financially better off — more stable people, and then the adoptee grows up to be “disturbed”?

Something in this equation isn’t right. And that is adoption itself. Adoption is legalized kidnapping, especially pre-birth and at birth, as is promoted and exploited in Oxygen’s “I’m Having THEIR Baby” TV series. Adoption is legalized fiction, legalized lies, as in amended and falsified birth certificates. Adoption forces the adoptee to live a lie, and a series of lies. If this doesn’t mess with a person’s mind, I don’t know what does.

Suppose adoptive parents never tell their adoptee that he was adopted? And he finds out later in life, at age 40 or 50 or 60. What might that do to the adoptee’s psyche? Suppose adoptive parents tell half truths, such as, you were adopted, but then withhold vital information from the adoptee that he finds out during his early adulthood? My adoptive parents told me I was adopted, but they left out a critical detail: that I was the 5^th child born to married parents and my mother died when I was three months old. I can tell you, when I was found by these siblings I was never supposed to know, that lie my adoptive parents told, or rather the omission they committed, had a profound and lasting effect on me. Nothing like discovering that your parents lied to you: that destroyed my trust and self esteem. Not to mention a childhood in which I was raised an only child and deliberately prevented from knowing my own siblings. Now that is definitely a head trip.

Think Open Adoption is the answer? Think again. Open adoption is a legal adoption, complete with confiscated birth certificate which is sealed forever, a falsified birth certificate, a Final Order of Adoption, and a verbal agreement between the natural parents and the adoptive parents. The adoptive parents have all the control, the natural parents have none. This is not the same as a divorce and visitation court order. This is a total and complete makeover of identity and possession (not simple custody) of the adoptee. If the natural parents and the adoptee are lucky, and they are allowed to visit each other, perhaps there are siblings living with the natural mother who do not live with adoptee in the adoptive home. How does that adoptee cope with that? How do those siblings cope with the loss of their sibling? How does the natural mother cope with the loss of her child? She is, and isn’t, the mother. And where’s the father in all of this? Many adoptive parents deliberately derail his knowledge and consent for the adoption of his child because, well, it’s THEIR child, not his, in their eyes.

None of this is healthy. Everything about any form of adoption is traumatic and deceptive.

Want me to be more specific about that falsified birth certificate? The adoptee’s actual birth certificate is confiscated, not upon relinquishment, but upon finalization of adoption. The court places it under protective seal and the adoptee can never have it, ever. Then, the court sends orders to the State’s Capital where the Registrar of Vital Statistics takes the information given to him and creates a new birth certificate for the adoptee under the child’s new adoptive name. This new birth certificate is officially called an amended birth certificate. The adoptive parents names are substituted for the names of the actual parents, and the date and time of birth are recorded, thus giving the impression that these parents gave birth to this child. They did not. The Registrar knows they did not. But he signs his name and embosses the State seal on the certificate certifying that the information on the document is true. But the information is false: he created false facts on a government document. This is perjury: lying under oath. The adoptee thus receives a fraudulent birth certificate. And, the physician’s signature is not on this amended birth certificate: he did not witness this birth because this birth never happened.

So the adoptee grows up with lies. And contradictions. This is enough to drive anyone crazy.

So Oxygen promotes baby stealing in their new cable TV series “I’m Having Their Baby”.

So James Holmes may or may not be adopted.

Which is it? Is his lineage a correct bloodline? Or was he really adopted? That would negate the published report of his fine lineage of good America stock. And if he was adopted, that means he is somehow tainted, and we have a massive crime that needs explanation and blame.

But then we have the rainbow farters and the cool-aid drinkers who believe that separating a baby from his mother at birth and then adopting him into a loving home is a very, very good, great, wonderful thing.

And we have mothers who give up their babies fully believing that they “did the right thing”, but they are traumatized for the rest of their lives.

And we have babies who grow inside their mothers (http://findingchristopherfindingmyself.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-our-birth-matters.html) only to be ripped away from her forever. They are traumatized for the rest of their lives.

And please, don’t ask me to talk about adoptive parents. We hear too much from them.

And then, we have a Facebook message that reads: {A little late but this is the confirmation that he isn’t adopted: Just had a tweet from NY Post’s @Clayton_Sandell: Lawyer Lisa Damiani:”James Holmes is the biological son of Arlene and Robert Holmes. Even if he was adopted, they would love him the same.” Hope the media’s got it now.}

Really?

“Even if he was adopted, they would love him the same”. That sounds like an admission to me.

If it is true, that James Holmes is not adopted, then New York Post’s Clayton Sandell better publish a formal retraction in his paper for this tweet to be newsworthy, believable, and valid. And perhaps this lawyer, Lisa Damiani, better make sure that UK’s Daily Mail publishes a retraction as well.

The shootings happened. People are dead. Their loved ones are grieving. A man is in custody. All of this is very sad. I do not want to diminish what happened in any way.

So please, clarify. Is he adopted or not?

Oxygen: take your disgusting reality TV show off the air. Stop exploiting women, pregnancy, birth, fathers, siblings, and adoptees for your TV ratings and income. Baby selling is human trafficking.