Remember how thrilled I was to learn that my adoption file existed in Cook County, Illinois? From the contents of that circa 1960s paper file came a report with new details about my hidden adoption.
The report sat in my inbox. Feeling excited, not knowing what I would learn, I clicked open a PDF from the Cook County, Illinois Department of Adoption and Family Supportive Services.
For $100, Cook County provided a two-page, double-spaced summary prepared by the county’s adoption specialist who pulled the information from my adoption file.
The name at the top of the page jumped out at me. Baby Girl W. Cook County identified me as Baby Girl W. after I was born but before I was adopted. (The report identified me by the complete last name of my birth mother’s husband but I’m using just the first letter of the name here.)
It’s hard to find words for how I felt seeing that name, my temporary name, on an official document. All my life, I’ve been known as Lynne Miller, Miller being my adoptive father’s name. It was surreal to see myself referred to by this other name. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the name – it appears on my original birth certificate – but it still jolted me .
The report consisted of three parts. Part A focused on my birth mother, Part B focused on my birth father and Part C was about me. The information came from my birth mother, Lillian, who was interviewed by a social worker four days after my birth.
The interviewer described Lillian as being 5 foot 3 inches tall, weighing 110 pounds, having a small physical build, with brown eyes, brown hair and an olive complexion. While I’ve seen plenty of old photos of Lillian, I’d never seen a written description of her appearance. I didn’t know she had an olive complexion.
Adoption File Reveals Details That Led to Adoption
In explaining why she chose to place me for adoption, Lillian said I was conceived while she was separated from her husband. After a four-month separation, Lillian and her husband reconciled and Lillian discovered she was pregnant. They knew the unborn baby wasn’t his. Lillian, mother of four children who ranged in age from 3 to 7, said she thought adoption would be best for Baby Girl W’s welfare. She was six months pregnant when she decided to give me up for adoption.
Lillian’s attorney, who made the placement arrangements, provided Lillian information about Claire and Bob, my adoptive parents and Lillian was satisfied with the information.
My birth mother stated her parents, George and Susan, were deceased but didn’t offer any details on when or how they had died. George had worked as a factory worker and Susan had been a nurse, Lillian said.
Asked by the social worker about her health, Lillian said she was in good health then, but 10 years earlier she had suffered a nervous breakdown that caused her to be hospitalized for three weeks.
Three weeks in a hospital! That stunned me. Lillian would have been 17. I hate to think how she was treated for a mental breakdown. This would have been 1953 in southern Indiana. I pictured men in white coats scrutinizing Lillian, nurses jabbing her with needles, wheeling her from one room to another, my birth mother crying or screaming or maybe unconscious, knocked out by powerful drugs.
Did the breakdown mark the onset of bipolar disorder, which Lillian had struggled with as an adult?
Adoption File Describes Birth Father
Lillian had known who my biological father was. What a relief! My sister had led me to believe Lillian was a carouser who wouldn’t have known who the father was and that troubled me. I didn’t want my birth mother to be that type of woman.
My birth mother’s description of my biological father Steve matched my understanding of him. Lillian said my father was a 35-year-old married auto mechanic. He stood 5 foot 9 inches tall, weighed around 160 pounds and had blue eyes, blond hair and a fair complexion. My biological father graduated from high school, then attended trade school where he learned how to repair cars. At some point, he served in the Navy.
What remains unclear to me is the nature of the relationship between my birth parents. Was I conceived during a one-night stand or did my biological parents have a longer, deeper thing? Lillian didn’t provide any details about the relationship to the social worker. Perhaps she would have been forthcoming if her husband and their lawyer hadn’t been in the room.
My Biological Father Didn’t Know About Me
Lillian told the social worker my biological father didn’t know about me. My bio dad apparently went back to his other life without knowing he had fathered a baby girl, his third daughter.
Now I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I’ve lost sleep over not knowing how much I weighed when I was born but it’s one of those little details that people who aren’t adopted learn from their mothers. Many adoptees don’t have this information.
In the last paragraph, I found the answer.
“Medical information regarding the child (Baby Girl W) at birth shows that the child was born full term at 40 weeks with a normal delivery without complications,” the report said. “The child weighed 7 lbs., 6 oz. at birth.”
Via email, I asked the adoption specialist a few follow-up questions. She told me the hospital discharged my birth mother when I was three days old. When I was five days old, my adoptive parents arrived at the hospital, court order in hand, and the hospital released me to their care.
The adoption was not a done deal. A case worker visited Claire and Bob’s home as part of a mandatory home study process. The report didn’t provide any information about the case worker’s observation. Once the case worker completed the home study, a judge finalized the adoption six months after my birth.
A couple of things in the non-identifying report are inconsistent. Blood relatives have told me Lillian came from Irish and Scottish ancestry yet Lillian told the social worker she was of German descent. Lillian said her father had died but my records show he was alive. Perhaps he was dead to her in spirit.
If you were adopted in Cook County, email Melissa Reyes at Melissa.Reyes@cookcountyil.gov or call 312-603-0552 to request the non-identifying information in your adoption file. It’s well worth the hundred bucks.
I’d love to hear what other adoptees discovered from non-identifying information. Feel free to leave comments.
Both of my parents were adoptees. My mom tried to get her file from Tennessee in the early 1990s. She paid $180 for non-identifying information was not of much help but she was devastated to learn her original mother had died. She was a Georgia Tann baby and no one told her the state of Tennessee passed legislation in the late 1990s that could have fulfilled her request.
In Oct 2017, after my mom had been dead for two years, I paid $150 and received her complete file that included photos of my grandmother and my mom as an infant and an amazing amount of accurate information that has proven invaluable (there was some obviously fudging by Georgia Tann in the file as well but thank goodness she doesn’t seem to have destroyed anything – like she did in subsequent years).
With some minimal information, I paid $100 to the Salvation Army for a scant few details about my dad that I did not have before but I was grateful for anything. His mother was unwed, had conceived him with a married man who was an un-naturalized Danish immigrant. I suspect he never knew he had a son and my dad was so very much like this man. I never thought I would know who he was but thanks to photo and naming breadcrumbs left for me by my paternal grandmother (clearly she knew who his father was) confirmed by DNA and the matching sites of Ancestry as well as 23 and Me that put me in contact with cousins who share the same grandmother, I am finally complete.
I have bumped up against sealed records in Arizona, Virginia and California. Since the adoptees, their original parents and their adoptive parents are ALL deceased it makes no sense to me that they absolutely deny me access as a descendant. I think it is bureaucratic laziness.
Best wishes. Knowing one’s origins is so important. I know this personally. There was a big black hole beyond my parents for over 60 years of my life. Now I feel whole + (the plus part is the adoptive relations).
Thank you for sharing your story, Deborah. I agree it is very important to know where we come from in life. It’s not right for bureaucrats to withhold these records. As much as I appreciate the non-identifying information I received from Cook County, I think I should be able to get the entire file. I’d love to know what the home study process was like. I’m so glad you learned some truths about your ancestors. Take care.