At midnight this Sunday, Ontario's adoption records will be opened for the first time in more than 80 years.
For many, the new law gives them real hope of finding a parent or child. For others, it's bringing a page from the past that they don't want to read.
Access to Adoption Records comes into effect on June 1 following a long battle to open the records. An adult adoptee who is 18, or a birth parent of a child 19 or older, can access identifying info about each other.
Only a name from the time of adoption is provided, without a current address or marital status.
Cheryl Reynett worries that kind of search may lead to her. She was adopted as a baby 41 years ago and has no desire to be found.
"I'm who I am, and I don't want to explain that to anyone," Reynett said. "I have a mother, I have a father, and I don't have an association with my birth parents. I'm not interested in anything like that - they're strangers to me."
Reynett is filing a disclosure veto to prevent any contact.
Pat Kempf knows her birth daughter may do that, too. Still, she holds out hope.
More than 50 years later, the memories remain as painful as the day Kempf gave birth and placed her baby girl up for adoption on Feb. 24, 1958.
Now a mother to three grown children, Kempf's search for her firstborn has never stopped.
"I've been looking for her for so long, and it's hard, so I'm really hoping this new law is going to help people like me," she told CTV Ottawa.
Thousands of people are expected to access to website. The files will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr
