PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Adoptees who have fought in court for two years to see their birth records will have to wait a little longer.

Blame the paperwork, not more legal squabbling.

The Oregon Health Division was expected to begin processing adoptees' requests for their birth records today.

"We are processing them in the order in which we received them," said Mel Kohn, deputy state epidemiologist. "We have at least a six-week delay before people at the end of the list will be processed."

Kohn said 2,272 requests already had been received by Tuesday, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor rejected an emergency request to delay Oregon's 1998 adoption records law from going into effect.

The decision ended two years of court battles begun by six women who argued the new law violates the privacy of people like themselves who gave up their children for adoption and started new lives.

Adoptees can find the application for their original birth certificates on the Internet. Those who filed applications early could have their certificates by next week, Kohn said.

Birth mothers have some say in the process. They can download from the Internet a "contact preference form" that would be sent to adoptees along with their birth certificates.

It gives birth mothers an opportunity to say whether they want to be contacted, prefer only to be contacted through an intermediary or whether they do not wish to be contacted. If they choose the last option, they also must file a detailed family medical history.

Thomas McDermott, a lawyer for the law's backers and the adoptive father of a 16-year-old boy, was jubilant Tuesday that his son and others would have the chance to learn about their pasts.

"What I've seen with my son is that he really yearns for a more complete picture of himself," he said. "It's a basic human right to know your heritage."

Frank Hunsaker, attorney for the six anonymous birth mothers, was bitter about the removal of the last legal roadblock.

"My clients are extremely disappointed and scared and even angry that their rights have been ignored by Oregon's voters and Oregon's courts," Hunsaker said.

He said giving adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates violates an implied contract the birth mothers thought they had - that their identities would be protected and that they would never be contacted by the children they relinquished.

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a similar open adoption records law from Tennessee, although that law was passed by the Legislature, not by the voters.

Tennessee and just three other states - Alaska, Delaware and Kansas - allow adult adoptees access to original birth certificates, which often have birth parents' names. An adoption records bill in Alabama is awaiting the governor's signature.