Now 51, Tina Williams is trying to track down her biological parents.
She was adopted as a baby and only recently gained access to her birth certificate through the Missouri Adoptee Rights Act.
Four weeks after gaining access to the record, she and her husband, John Williams, have run into familiar stone walls in the search for her birth parents. It's not an unusual situation, and that's why the two have created an adoption support group in Jefferson City. It's a gathering where people with similar experiences can gather and share their concerns.
The group held its first meeting Thursday.
"The purpose of the group is to provide a safe venue for those affected by adoption," John Williams said. "We want to have people come in and talk about their experiences - how it affects them, how it continues to affect them."
The Central Missouri Adoption Triad Support Group can be found on Facebook. Members are required to be at least 18 years old.
The meeting allows people - whether they are the adoptee, birth families or adoptive families - to talk about how adoption affects everybody involved.
John Williams said he understands a lot of folks think adoptions should remain "hush, hush."
"That's a mindset that needs to change," he said. "This is a way for people to get additional information out there."
Adoptees searching for birth certificates or their birth families go through a "rollercoaster of emotion," Williams said. The group is intended to help folks through the process.
The group meets at 6:30 p.m. the first Thursday each month at the First Assembly of God Church, 1900 Route C in Jefferson City. For details, call 573-742-9128 or visit facebook.com/groups/154016585385882/.
The support group is similar to groups in St. Louis, Springfield and other areas around the state, Williams said.
State Rep. Don Phillips, R-Kimberling City, himself an adoptee, authored the Missouri Adoptee Rights Act in 2016. For the first time since 1941, the act gave adoptees the right to obtain a copy of their birth certificates simply by requesting them online from the Missouri Bureau of Vital Statistics. As of Jan. 1, about 900 adoptees had applied for copies of their original birth certificates.
Phillips has introduced three more bills affecting adoptees in this year's General Assembly. House Bill 1713 would allow a birth parent or adoptee to request a contact preference form to accompany the birth certificate of an adopted person. It also would allow a birth parent to request a medical history form be provided to an adoptee.
HB 1714 would give a biological parent, biological grandparent or adult sibling of an adopted adult the ability to make a written request to the court to disclose information identifying the adopted adult's biological parents. Currently, only the adopted adult or their lineal descendants can make such a request.
HB 2319 would give adoptive parents or adoptive children more access to records and files from an adoption proceeding.
"Most of what I'm trying to do was removed from the bill as part of the compromise," Phillips said. "My new legislation would allow immediate family of adoptive family members access for ancestry reasons."
New rules created through the Adoptee Rights Act require women giving up babies for adoption choose one of three contact preferences - contact, no contact or contact through an intermediary.