A Confidential Intermediary?

As some legislators in IL uphold the Confidential Intermediary (CI) program I often mutter to myself as to how much help they would have been to me. A kind sympathetic judge opened my court file to me during the early years of my search because my M.D. felt it might help to learn my origins. There was no more information in it than what was on my adoption decree. So I know for a fact that my court records would not have led a CI to my birth mother. My birth mother's given name and surname is so common and her middle initial was not on the adoption decree. Maybe Catholic Charities would have given a CI my birth mother's birthdate but I suspect they would not have. I can't imagine Catholic Charities' social workers being too cooperative about providing identifying information to a CI. I suspect a CI would have taken money from me and then said, "sorry, your birth mother's name is just so common that it is impossible to complete your search". I recall too well how a professional searcher who I consulted finding it hilarious that I would pursue a search for a woman with such a common name and not even knowing her middle initial. A CI might not have laughed but completing my search, I highly doubt it. It was a search that required alot of digging, grasping, and going with my gut feeling. A CI would not have done that.

I feel blessed that I never went through the IL CI program. The stories that I've heard about them are not good. They seem to have no regard for the feelings of the adoptee. They don't represent the adoptee in a capable manner.

One has to wonder too how many birth mothers who refused contact might not have if it had been their son or daughter contacting them instead of a cold CI. Some birth mothers need some time to adjust to the shock of being found and some need time to think about how they will tell family members about their long kept secret. For an adoptee to contact their birth mother an agreement can be reached that the birth mother will return their call at a later time but the door is not shut forever like it can be with a CI calling the birth mother. But I have found that the majority of birth mothers do want to be found. They want records opened so their offspring can find them. Some have been looking to no avail but then an adoptee's entire name is often changed by the adoptive parents.

So let's do away with the IL CI program - it is past time for records to be opened in IL.