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“Going through foster care & the DCFS program, I really didn’t understand anything that was going on to me and around me, I was 4 years old. So I went along through life, stumbling & made a couple of bad decisions for 25 years. I held inside unanswered questions, depression, uncertainty & debilitating emotions, all from not understanding (the why) in my life. In 2019 while incarcerated, I decided to open up & to express the things I was feeling resulting from my past. Finally after meeting & talking to someone that had the exact same expressions as me, he advised me to reach out to DCFS. I did so & they referred me to [Midwest Adoption Center]. I got in contact with them through correspondence, went through the steps of registering, all the while feeling that I wouldn’t get any results. After finishing the registry process I was given a caseworker Ms. Emily AA. When I started corresponding with her, she was attentive to the fact that I was doing something new & would probably not understand certain things. She was excellent & very helpful along the way. Every step of the way she broke it down to me. I wish I could give her a better rate other than excellent on the questionnaire. When I received my case file in the mail, I was overjoyed. Even though some things I couldn’t read & it was very little information, I still was satisfied. The feeling of having a physical copy of something pertaining to my past was incredible because all of my years, I felt that there was nothing that existed. When I started the search process for my birth mother, deep down inside I felt that maybe she was deceased & or maybe she didn’t want to have nothing to do with me, I was discouraged. But I had the feeling that I had to get it over with, whatever the outcome was.

My caseworker updated me every 2 months. Each letter I received I was filled with anxiety, racing thoughts & discouraging questions raging around in my head. But still I opened it, reading its contents. I did that 3 times until June of 2020, when I opened the letter & read that 1 my birth mother was/is actually alive & 2 that she actually does want to correspond with me. The feeling of knowing those 2 things settled me, I was almost numb but not in a bad way. I was calm, I felt light & alleviated from 25 years mind boggling questions.

With help from Midwest Adoption Center I feel that you have help me obtain the lost pages of my past.

Thank you”