Just 17 birth records have been mailed this week, state officials say.
TRENTON -- More than 1,000 people who were adopted in New Jersey likely began a daily ritual on Monday of anxiously checking their mailboxes for an envelope from the state Health Department, fulfilling their request for a copy of their original birth certificate, and with it revealing some missing pieces of their identity.
But a state health department official on Wednesday made a plea for patience from the 1,018 people who have requested their birth certificates. On Tuesday and Wednesday, just 17 records had been mailed, and the pace is likely to remain slow for days and weeks to come, state officials say.
As the Christie administration begins complying with a law that settles a three-decade-old battle to unseal as many as 170,000 adopted people's birth records, it must first complete its obligations to an unknown number of birth parents who -- perhaps desperately -- do not want to be identified.
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The law, signed in May 2014, gave them until Dec. 31 to submit a form seeking the redaction of their names and any other identifying information to preserve their privacy.
Anthony Welch, the department's director of policy and strategic planning, told NJ Advance Media Wednesday his office continues to receive letters postmarked Dec. 31 and earlier. One letter arrived Monday with a Dec. 20 postmark -- a "punch-to-the-gut" sign that traditional snail mail was likely bogged down by the Christmas and New Year's holidays, he said.
Until the department is reasonably certain all requests for anonymity from birth parents have arrived, Welch said only those birth certificates for which both the adopted person and the corresponding birth parent have "matched" will be sent.
"We want to make sure we receive them. You can only imagine the concern if we were to send out unreacted birth certificates when there is a birth parent's request for a redaction in the mail," Welch said.
The department has received 488 requests from birth parents who want their names redacted, or blacked-out, from the birth certificate, Welch said. Birth parents who wish to be identified are not required to submit a form, yet 108 did so anyway, he said.
"We are a bit at the mercy" of the mail, he said, and "the processing times are all over the place."
"Please bear with us through this next couple of weeks," Welch said.
The law Gov. Chris Christie signed in 2014 was 34 years in the making.
Adopted people and their advocates argued that denying them their birth records violated their civil rights to know who they are, and their right to know their medical history. They were blocked by anti-abortion and religious leaders and legal groups who persuasively convinced lawmakers women who had gotten pregnant in the 1950s and 1960s believed their privacy would be protected when they surrendered their children for adoption.
A handful of adopted people who contacted NJ Advance Media say they have been told by health department employees on the telephone that it will take weeks before they receive their records. Some adopted people, who declined to be identified, said they submitted their requests months ago, hoping they would be among the first to receive their birth certificates.
Sally Teschon, 71, of Franklin Lakes said she is among them.
"I don't have a hole in my soul. All I want is my birth name," said Teschon, a retired speech and language therapist who has biological and adopted children. Her son is from Korea and offered to take him back there to search for his family but he declined, she said.
"I am very grateful I was adopted. It's a wonderful gift," she added. "There should be an age when an adopted child in the state of New Jersey gets his or her birth certificate. At some point a person has that right."
More information about the law is available on the health department's website, or by calling 866-649-8726.
Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.