See chapter 13: False Allegations

.

When my adoptive parents “got” me, my natural father told them that my natural mother died of uterine cancer. Believing this, my adoptive mother worried that I might be susceptible to the same cancer. As a preventative measure, from my early teen years, I was seen by a gynecologist and had pap-tests every six months.

When I was 18 and found by siblings I never knew, my natural father, at our very first meeting, he said that he was so filled with grief at the time he gave me to my adopting parents that he didn’t really know the cause of my mother’s death.

Then, he gave me a certified copy of my deceased mother’s death certificate. Six months later, I was a Freshman in college. I went to the college library and looked up the terms in a medical dictionary. My natural mother did not die from uterine cancer, as I was told by my adoptive parents, and they were told by my natural father, she died of kidney cancer. So I had been worried about the wrong medical condition and had repeated pap-tests unnecessarily.

Several times over the past 41 years, I have asked various doctors the meaning of those words. Each time, the doctors verified that my mother died of cancer of the kidney.

It is vitally important that adoptive parents receive correct medical history for the infant they adopt, especially in the case of the death of one or both natural parents. In fact, a detailed medical history going back another generation or two or more is very helpful. What is also needed is information on sibling health and other relatives: grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.

Here is a scanned image of my natural mother’s death certificate as given to me by my natural father in March 1974. Note the words: carcinamatosis hypernephroma, which means cancer of the kidney.

………