Adoption law reform. We’ve been saying those words for so many years. Many of us have expended hours, months, years of our lives to this end. To see the archaic 1955 Adoption Act and associated acts repealed.

And now, change is coming. Law reform is on the government’s agenda. They’ve convened a working group and outlined the scope of change.

So why am I not celebrating?

That episode where you realise your life is a 'statutory fiction'

If adoption secrecy were a game show, they’d call it called ‘How much do you really want this?’

Because I am adopted, I have no birth story. However, the state holds a large number of files on me. Legal documents, doctors notes, feeding recipes and home visit comments. Through these documents, I wish to build a picture of what happened to my mother and me.

While browsing Instagram, an image jumped out at me. A woman and her husband stand beside the bed of an exhausted mother who has given birth to twins. The woman, identified as the #IP (intending parent) has her hands clasped in prayer or gratitude. Her husband is leaning over looking as exhausted as the new mother.
Posted by a surrogacy agency, the photo features the photographer’s comments. (Yes, the IPs hired a photographer to cover the event.)

Dear Toni Street
Congratulations on the arrival of your child born through a surrogate. I have read of your frustration at the hoops you must jump through to now adopt him.
Thank you for lending your profile in support of a petition to update the Adoption Act 1955. By doing so, you are raising awareness of the inadequacies of this act.