Jennifer was perfectly comfortable with her adoption until her teen years when her self-awareness was heightened, and her desire to learn more about who she is bloomed. Protecting her parents feelings, she pushed away her desire to search for decades until one day her curiosity exploded again. In the end, her residual drive from her experience as a detective on the Chicago police force helped her to keep asking questions and pressing on with her search. Jennifer shares her warm feelings from knowing her birth mother always talked about her and her birth father’s family welcomed her w/ the same love they felt for her father.

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Jennifer (00:05):

She says, you know, when your mom would talk about you and say she had this baby in 64, you know, we just listened to her, you know, we didn't know cause they couldn't put a face or, you know, they're just listening to her, tell this story. So for me to start, this was like, you are real.

Damon (00:30):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I> who am I? This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis. And today you'll meet Jennifer. She's a recent transplant to Nashville, but she originally hails from Chicago's Washington Heights. On the South side, Jennifer told me she spent two years in foster care before being placed with her parents who were somewhat older. She was perfectly comfortable with her adoption until her teen years, when her self-awareness was heightened and her desire to learn more about who she is bloomed. Protecting her parents, she pushed away her desire to search for decades until one day. Her curiosity exploded again. In the end, her residual drive from her experience as a detective on the Chicago police force helped her to keep asking questions and pressing on with her search. This is Jennifer's journey. Jennifer was placed with her family from foster care. At two years old, her adoption was an open topic in her family and in her community. And she felt special because of it. But her teen years brought more self awareness and therefore more interest in the real meaning of what adoption actually meant for her.

Jennifer (01:57):

I was permanently placed there from foster care. I was in foster care for my first two years and, uh, it was great. You know, I always thought I was special here chosen and I never felt like that was a bad thing. I thought that was a pretty cool thing. Um, and everyone knew like, I, I don't ever remember like being sat down and told you're adopted, you know, so it was, um, yeah, it was something that was just kind of known to me and to everybody, you know? So it was in the family. Like there was no secret about that. And even in my neighborhood, you know, even, you know, even in a neighborhood, people knew and it wasn't a bad thing, you know, I just never felt that way now. I don't know what people were talking about, you know, amongst themselves, that, for me, it was a good thing.

Jennifer (02:47):

I think around adolescence though, I began to wonder, you know, like how this different, um, I guess, uh, status how that, what that really meant, what does it really mean to be separated from my birth family? You know? And I, I do remember thinking that maybe this isn't so cool, you know, like other people look like each other cause they were biologically related. And so if I look like someone in my family, it was just like happenstance, you know, because I wasn't biologically related and I did, you know, it was interesting. I looked like my first cousins, like we look alike. And so people would say, Oh, I knew that was a cousin. Cause you know, cause I know that is not because we're related by blood, you know?

Damon (03:42):

Right. Jennifer's parents were born in the early 20th century, her father in 1916, her mother in 1924. So they were older parents, almost like grandparents to Jennifer. Usually people tell me their parents were of a certain childbearing age at the time of their adoption. I asked Jennifer if she knew why her parents adopted her when they were older.

Jennifer (04:05):

I think there was some ambivalence about it on my, from my dad. I think that he, that was not what you did. I know, I remember there was a story told to me that my dad said, well, first of all, my mother could not conceive. So that was always a point of contention because she wanted a baby. She wanted to have children. And um, her friends were having babies. And, and so this was a big deal to her. And I think that she wanted to adopt sooner, but my dad was kinda like, nah, you know, black folks don't do that. You know, like I remember a story being told to me that, that he said, you know, well, so and so down South, you know, a cousin of some relative had a baby that they really can't take care of. Why don't we just take care of that baby? And my mother was not for that because she felt that that cousin or that family member may come back in the picture and want their baby. And so she didn't feel comfortable. So I guess time was going by and you know, between her and my dad, they were just trying to figure that out. And I don't know, I guess maybe he just gave in, I don't know, but I think that that's why it was so much later. I think it was talked about much, you know, when they were younger,

Damon (05:32):

Jennifer was the only child in her family and her parents drove her to be a strong woman. Her father was a janitor in the public school system, but he was a people person, a traveler, and always read the newspaper to stay in touch with the world around him. Her mother was a librarian whose love for books, drove Jennifer's strength in reading. She says in her teen years looking like the others in her family, wasn't really an issue for her. Her mother was dark complected and her father was light and skin color. And Jennifer's skin tone was in between the two of them, but her teen years and the increased emotional awareness kids get around that time exacerbated Jennifer's curiosity about the differences she had noticed between herself and her family.

Jennifer (06:16):

I do remember, um, preadolescence adolescence, really kind of that rebellious, uh, age where I started to think, you know, I am different from, from my family, you know, there's some stuff going on where I'm different and I'd like to know why, you know what I remember feeling like that kind of like an edginess, you know,

Damon (06:41):

was it like starting to see differences in how you think about the world and may think about the world and approaches to sort of life issues? Or was it other stuff?

Jennifer (06:52):

I think it was, I remember I was a tomboy and I remember just thinking, you know, I'm not identifying with the things my mother likes, you know, like I'm that I feel like, like there's a lot, that's different about her, but at the same time I was thinking, well, I'm just my own person. And I kinda just, yeah. Rationalize that I am a teenager, you know, I don't really think like their parents and I kinda put it away like that, but as I got older and I like now, when I think back what I was really feeling was, yeah, I'm different. There's something about my nature. That's different.

Damon (07:30):

[inaudible] what did you do with those feelings about starting to really recognize, Hey, this is more than just me being a teenager. This is fundamental differences in me and the people around me

Jennifer (07:40):

tucked it away. Just really put it, put it in the back. Yeah. Background. I think, you know, my life has been pretty full meaning, you know, from high school to college to, you know, work in, you know, my career and then a family. And, and it just feels like it's just been nonstop in so many ways. And so maybe when the thought would pop up, I would just kinda put it down. And I will say a lot of it has to do with the fact that I knew my birth. I mean, my adopted mom didn't want me to search.

Damon (08:15):

Oh, is that right?

Jennifer (08:16):

I knew. Yeah. Yeah. Like she didn't want to talk, want me to talk about it? So it was never really talked about, um,

Damon (08:25):

the search.

Jennifer (08:28):

Yeah. The wool ball, I guess. I mean, I remember asking her, you know, what does she think about? I might have been a teenager. I still was. She think about me searching. And she said, why would you want to do that? You know, you have your family. And so it was just really taboo. The whole topic was taboo. And so I never wanted her to feel like I was unappreciative, you know, or, you know, didn't was unhappy know, like that's what it seemed like. It meant to her that I must be unhappy or I must not feel good about this family. None of that.

Damon (09:06):

So Jennifer buried her feelings for a long time. It wasn't until many years after her mother passed away in 2002 that the feelings came back, her natural and career trained curiosity for asking probing questions kicked in as well as her desire to fill out her son's family tree from her side of the family

Jennifer (09:26):

years after she passed that it just, it hit me like, what are you waiting for? You know, because I am a naturally curious person, you know, I was a detective my last 16 years, um, with the police department and I, that was what I did, you know, ask questions, you know, dig and dig and investigate, you know? So here I am putting this off after all the time.

Damon (09:53):

Yeah. You did it as a career for everyone, but yourself.

Jennifer (09:58):

Yeah, exactly. But when the time came, it was odd. It was like just really something. When I finally said let's do this. And I think my son, cause he was around 20 at the time, it really started to hit me that his tree was really not balanced. His family tree. You know, he had his dad's whole biological piece, but he didn't have mine. And somehow that just didn't feel right.

Damon (10:24):

So Jennifer contacted an Illinois agency that provides adoptees guidance on how to do a search. They recommended she obtained a copy of her adoption decree and recommended. She wait a little while because the adoption records laws in the state were about to change in her favor still. She knew she could be accumulating information about herself prior to Illinois adoption records being opened. She found out what hospital she was born in, what agency assisted with her adoption and other information. The adoption decree had her birth name redacted, but the Chicago childcare society was listed as the assisting agency and is still open today. They prepared a non-identifying report for her for $100. The information in the report was invaluable to Jennifer because it allowed her to connect with parts of her past.

Jennifer (11:12):

So all of this is going on prior to the lot changing where I can request my original birth certificate and all of this information is actually very valuable. I mean, it's like more than an OBC can give you, you know, so yeah, none of that was in vain, you know, as I waited for the law to change.

Damon (11:33):

Yeah. What kinds of, what, what kinds of stuff did you learn in that document?

Jennifer (11:37):

Well, the agency, the hospital I learned, um, the salvation army hospital is where I was delivered, which was actually a home for unwed or pregnant mothers. And so I learned that my birth mother had gone there to stay, you know, and give birth. I learned, um, and that's what, that was a hospital on the North side of Chicago. And so my birth mom was living far South. So this was a great big distance, so to speak from home so that nobody would know what was like, where she was or what was going on. Yeah. And I learned, um, what that facility was all about, you know, um, I took a visit to the salvation army building and actually the building is so much like it was back in the sixties, you know, like walking through Santa cafeterias and the chapel, like all that was set up like that years ago. So that was really interesting. You had to see that to see the rooms that the girls stayed in, you know, while they were pregnant.

Damon (12:42):

You, you took a walk through history and you, you as an infant had passed through those hallways.

Jennifer (12:48):

Absolutely. It's funny you say that. Cause that's exactly what it was, was like I had been there before, so I was really just revisiting it cause I had been there before.

Damon (13:00):

That's amazing what an experience Jennifer was still waiting to get some identifying information. The Chicago childcare society was very clear. They could only give Jennifer limited info.

Jennifer (13:12):

Yeah. I hadn't gotten any identifying information. And the Chicago childcare society, you know, was quite clear that legally they could only give me bits and pieces. I mean, when they were looking at a file, my file and in that file is my original birth certificate is, you know, my originally I was just information about my birth family. They couldn't give that to me, you know, according to the law. So I remember being very frustrated about that. You know, that they're looking at documents that would never be as important to them as, as they are to me and yet having