- A Question of Trust
- Intro: The Birth of a Blog
- You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance: Part I
- Bad Romance, Part II: The Couch
- Bastard Package #1
- Hallelujah
- Born This Way
- Baby Girl X
- Another Victim of Love
- True Life
- The Girls Who Went Away
- Love and Other Drugs
- 11 Things Adoptees Love to Hear
- Uh, Never Mind
- Adoptee Kid Lit
- Bastard Princess and the Search for the Holy Grail
- MYOFB
- Awkwardness
- Baby Steps
- Faith, Hope, and Catholic Charities
- Special Delivery
- Green-eyed Monster
- !@#$
- Pandora
- Fantasyland
- Adoptees You May Have Heard Of
- Big MAC Attack
- Material Girl
- VISA and Mastercard Accepted
- Don't Hold Your Breath
- Our Love is Like a Constipated Cat
- A Question of Trust
- Adoption, Hollywood Style
- All in the Family
Faith, Hope, and Catholic Charities
Today I finally (OK, it took only a week) got an answer from the adoption search caseworker at Catholic Charities—1 week after requesting my birth file information. “Ann” explained that she’d successfully located my case file but hadn’t responded initially because there was just nothing to report. My material record, she explained, was nonexistent--nothing but an empty file. WTF?
“It’s very odd,” she’d said. Most case files, she explained, involved extensive paperwork documenting the ongoing informational exchange between social workers and adoption agencies before and after the adoption. At the very least, mine should have contained even basic, nonidentifying information such as my birthmother’s social status, physical description, age, educational status, etc. Mine would seem to indicate that, for some reason, none of these questions were ever asked of my birth mother—the only information in the file was that my biomom had originally lived in the western suburbs of Chicago, as I had. Even if I’d been abandoned, related information would’ve been in the file. We both found this curious, since I’d actually been born in a Milwaukee suburb. I wondered if my birth mother’s family had covertly shipped her off to a maternity home there, under the guise of “visiting an aunt,” as had so many other unwed pregnant women in that era.
It made me feel as if someone—possibly even my birth mother herself—had eradicated any trace of my existence. Had someone been paid to “lose” my file information? I can only guess.
Ann encouraged me to ask my adoptive parents whether they knew anything else about my birth mother’s history; the only thing I’d been told was that my birth mother had been young. I’m still not anxious to revisit this topic, although I bet it’s going to be a hot one for a while.
My next step? She pointed me toward the Midwest Adoption Center (MAC), which would be able to help me get classified information about and possibly connect with my birth family. First, though, I’d have to register with the State of Illinois Adoption Registry Medical Information Exchange (IARMIE). By doing so, I might be able to obtain my birth family’s medical history if they’d registered, and give them my information, as well. The IARMIE website explains it better than I can:
“The Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Information Exchange (IARMIE) program provides a means by which registrants may authorize or prohibit the release of identifying information, including a copy of the adopted person's original birth certificate, to others involved in their surrender or adoption. Confidential facts may be released to registrants only after at least two specified parties to the adoption have filed explicit mutual consent for the exchange of this information.
Vital medical information may be exchanged anonymously by an adopted or surrendered person (a person given up for adoption, but not adopted) or family members if the adopted person is deceased or birth parents and members if the birth parent is deceased through the new Medical Information Exchange. The availability of medical information is dependent on parties to an adoption voluntarily filing and agreeing to exchange these facts.”
And so I start from scratch, filling out new forms to be notarized and submitted. At some point after the IARMIE forms are submitted, a caseworker from MAC will be assigned to walk me through the process. It’ll be good to have someone on my side who knows the ins and outs of the system, I guess, although I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait to hear from them. Even if I do, will I ever learn any names? I wonder what my birth name was…wait--which names were popular in 1970? Stephanie? Tracy? Kimberly? Allison? Would that name still fit me now? My patience deficiency wasn’t doing me any favors.
After talking shop, Ann asked what I hoped to gain by locating my birth mother. I responded that I wasn’t quite sure yet—though I’m somewhat uncomfortable about having an ongoing social relationship beyond simply meeting. I told her that Mark had recommended the search to get to the root of my deep sadness, understand more about my origins, and maybe get closure of some kind. Maybe it would finally sink in that the surrender really had nothing to do with me personally—that I was a victim of circumstance.
She reacted to that with what sounded like doubt—clearly unsure that connecting could solve a lifetime of problems. She said that she’d been in the adoption world for many years, and that people searched for different reasons. She didn’t agree that separation trauma affects newborns as profoundly as Adoption Healing author Joe Soll states, either—because, she said, conscious memory doesn’t start developing until after 3 months of age (separation trauma affects unconscious memory). I didn’t want to debate her but was already feeling annoyed and invalidated, once again rebounding to the doubt I was already harboring about whether finding my birth mother would be the silver bullet that would somehow fix everything that had ever been wrong with me.
Instead, Ann suggested that the more likely cause of my funk was that that I’d been “slammed around” quite a bit emotionally courtesy of my initial abandonment at birth, Jeremy’s affair (she disagreed that the blame should always be a 50/50 split, by the way), and my mom’s symbolic abandonment. I told her I’d searched fruitlessly for local support groups and found it frustrating that the whole thing was more reflective of a transaction than anything intending to benefit adoptees themselves. She didn’t really sound interested in hearing about that.
An interesting discussion with a fairly sympathetic ear, but it ended with me feeling as empty as my case file. Ann obviously doubted the validity of most of what I’d shared with her, which made me feel even more clueless. Who was telling me the truth? The authors of the books I’d read? Mark? The adoption caseworker? I guess I have to dig for the answer myself.
In a later conversation with Ann about getting whatever adoption records she had for me over to the State of Illinois Department of Public Health to prove that I’d been adopted there, she then told me that she had some nonidentifying information for me after all. Why had it suddenly materialized? I was too polite to ask (and, perhaps more important, was at her mercy). Whatever--at least she’s sending me the info for my records.
“It’s very odd,” she’d said. Most case files, she explained, involved extensive paperwork documenting the ongoing informational exchange between social workers and adoption agencies before and after the adoption. At the very least, mine should have contained even basic, nonidentifying information such as my birthmother’s social status, physical description, age, educational status, etc. Mine would seem to indicate that, for some reason, none of these questions were ever asked of my birth mother—the only information in the file was that my biomom had originally lived in the western suburbs of Chicago, as I had. Even if I’d been abandoned, related information would’ve been in the file. We both found this curious, since I’d actually been born in a Milwaukee suburb. I wondered if my birth mother’s family had covertly shipped her off to a maternity home there, under the guise of “visiting an aunt,” as had so many other unwed pregnant women in that era.
It made me feel as if someone—possibly even my birth mother herself—had eradicated any trace of my existence. Had someone been paid to “lose” my file information? I can only guess.
Ann encouraged me to ask my adoptive parents whether they knew anything else about my birth mother’s history; the only thing I’d been told was that my birth mother had been young. I’m still not anxious to revisit this topic, although I bet it’s going to be a hot one for a while.
My next step? She pointed me toward the Midwest Adoption Center (MAC), which would be able to help me get classified information about and possibly connect with my birth family. First, though, I’d have to register with the State of Illinois Adoption Registry Medical Information Exchange (IARMIE). By doing so, I might be able to obtain my birth family’s medical history if they’d registered, and give them my information, as well. The IARMIE website explains it better than I can:
“The Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Information Exchange (IARMIE) program provides a means by which registrants may authorize or prohibit the release of identifying information, including a copy of the adopted person's original birth certificate, to others involved in their surrender or adoption. Confidential facts may be released to registrants only after at least two specified parties to the adoption have filed explicit mutual consent for the exchange of this information.
Vital medical information may be exchanged anonymously by an adopted or surrendered person (a person given up for adoption, but not adopted) or family members if the adopted person is deceased or birth parents and members if the birth parent is deceased through the new Medical Information Exchange. The availability of medical information is dependent on parties to an adoption voluntarily filing and agreeing to exchange these facts.”
And so I start from scratch, filling out new forms to be notarized and submitted. At some point after the IARMIE forms are submitted, a caseworker from MAC will be assigned to walk me through the process. It’ll be good to have someone on my side who knows the ins and outs of the system, I guess, although I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait to hear from them. Even if I do, will I ever learn any names? I wonder what my birth name was…wait--which names were popular in 1970? Stephanie? Tracy? Kimberly? Allison? Would that name still fit me now? My patience deficiency wasn’t doing me any favors.
After talking shop, Ann asked what I hoped to gain by locating my birth mother. I responded that I wasn’t quite sure yet—though I’m somewhat uncomfortable about having an ongoing social relationship beyond simply meeting. I told her that Mark had recommended the search to get to the root of my deep sadness, understand more about my origins, and maybe get closure of some kind. Maybe it would finally sink in that the surrender really had nothing to do with me personally—that I was a victim of circumstance.
She reacted to that with what sounded like doubt—clearly unsure that connecting could solve a lifetime of problems. She said that she’d been in the adoption world for many years, and that people searched for different reasons. She didn’t agree that separation trauma affects newborns as profoundly as Adoption Healing author Joe Soll states, either—because, she said, conscious memory doesn’t start developing until after 3 months of age (separation trauma affects unconscious memory). I didn’t want to debate her but was already feeling annoyed and invalidated, once again rebounding to the doubt I was already harboring about whether finding my birth mother would be the silver bullet that would somehow fix everything that had ever been wrong with me.
Instead, Ann suggested that the more likely cause of my funk was that that I’d been “slammed around” quite a bit emotionally courtesy of my initial abandonment at birth, Jeremy’s affair (she disagreed that the blame should always be a 50/50 split, by the way), and my mom’s symbolic abandonment. I told her I’d searched fruitlessly for local support groups and found it frustrating that the whole thing was more reflective of a transaction than anything intending to benefit adoptees themselves. She didn’t really sound interested in hearing about that.
An interesting discussion with a fairly sympathetic ear, but it ended with me feeling as empty as my case file. Ann obviously doubted the validity of most of what I’d shared with her, which made me feel even more clueless. Who was telling me the truth? The authors of the books I’d read? Mark? The adoption caseworker? I guess I have to dig for the answer myself.
In a later conversation with Ann about getting whatever adoption records she had for me over to the State of Illinois Department of Public Health to prove that I’d been adopted there, she then told me that she had some nonidentifying information for me after all. Why had it suddenly materialized? I was too polite to ask (and, perhaps more important, was at her mercy). Whatever--at least she’s sending me the info for my records.