Daughter Meets Biological Family

“Cindy Chester’s life changed with the arrival of a single document.

The Carbondale resident, who was adopted a few days after she was born, received in the mail June 2012, a nondescript envelope marked “vital statistics.”

She didn’t think much about it and casually opened it, not realizing it contained information that would set in motion a process that would introduce her to a family she had always been a member of but had never known.

Change in the law

Thanks to the Illinois Birth Certificate Access Law, signed by former Gov. Pat Quinn in 2010, Cindy was able to send $15 in December 2011 for a copy of her original birth certificate.

Seven months later, Cindy had forgotten about it, thinking it must have been a scam and assuming her questions about her biological parents would remain unanswered.

She walked back to her house from the mailbox and opened the unassuming envelope to find her original birth certificate, which contained the name of her birth mother, Ann Marie Wright from Philadelphia.

The information matched what her parents had always said about her biological mother being from “out east” and named Ann.

“When I opened it up, I screamed,” Cindy said, choking back tears. “I think if the information on it hadn’t been exactly what my parents had always told me, it wouldn’t have affected me.”

But her mother’s name was just one piece of the puzzle that would reveal the picture of her biological family that had remained veiled for 39 years.

A quick Facebook search turned up the name “Ann Marie Wright Hoffman” from Philadelphia. Cindy looked on the woman’s page and saw pictures that bore some resemblances, but she wasn’t sure.

“I kept it all in,” Cindy said. “I just felt it was too easy. I really did. I said this can’t be her this easy.”

But she kept looking and after searching addresses, she found Ann Marie Wright Hoffman was Facebook friends with the same people who had at one time lived at her listed address, leading Cindy to wonder if she might find more than just her birth mother.

Happy childhood

Even though Cindy had been searching off and on for more than a decade for her biological family and was excited about the prospects of finding them, Cindy never resented being adopted.

She felt loved by her parents who raised her in rural Carbondale.

“I would not say I was spoiled, but I had a good childhood,” she said. “I didn’t have any wants. I was happy. I had animals. I had places to play. I had nice things.”

Being adopted sometimes even made her feel “special.”

“I felt luckier than some people who grew up with their biological parents,” Cindy said. “I felt like I was chosen.”

But the one thing missing from her life was brothers and sisters.

“I always thought if I had a brother or sister, either to play with or fight with, it would have been nice, somebody to have that closeness with that I know other people had,” Cindy said.

So, when she saw on Facebook, people that were either living or had lived at the address of the woman she thought could be her mother, she couldn’t keep from hoping they could be siblings, half siblings, or step siblings.

“Those questions started, but I wasn’t ready to make any contact yet,” Cindy said. “I just didn’t know what to do.”

Finding her family

She decided to celebrate her 39th birthday, Aug. 8, by writing Ann Marie Wright Hoffman a Facebook message.

Setting the date was one thing. Knowing what to say proved to be a lot more difficult.

“I had concerns how nowadays husbands and wives have the same Facebook together or kids have access to their parents’ Facebooks, and if nobody knew about me, I didn’t want to tear a family apart. That was the important thing to me,” Cindy said.

She spent most of the evening of her birthday composing the letter, but “it took almost as long to hit ‘send’ as it took to type it,” Cindy said.

Then came the even harder part — waiting.

She consulted with a De Soto woman who made contact with her biological daughter and was told, “Don’t expect anything for a while. The person’s going to have to process.”

Eight very long days later, while Cindy was working, she received a friend request from Nichole Hoffman and once again screamed — this time in an empty library.

After running to her friend for advice, she received another friend request from Christina Hoffman.

“I had seen pictures of these people,” Cindy said of Nichole and Christina.

She sent messages to them, saying only, “Hi.” After they responded with the same one-word message, she found a message Christina had sent earlier that told her what she had been hoping to hear and so much more.

In the letter, Cindy learned her then 15-year-old parents, Ann and Earl, secretly stayed together against the wishes of their parents after giving Cindy up for adoption and eventually married.

But the letter also told Cindy her seemingly impossible dream of having brothers and sisters had come true. Not only did she have two biological parents, but with one click of the mouse she learned she also had two sisters, Christina and Nichole, and a brother, Earl Jr.

The news was a lot to digest for a 39-year-old who had lived all her life as an only child.

“I didn’t know what to think,” Cindy said. “I was so happy. I was ecstatic because I had full siblings. I never dreamed I had full siblings. I always figured I had half, at least half, because my biological mom was young when she had me.”

Making contact

Less than an hour later, she was talking on the phone with her sister Nichole, then 34, like they had known each other all their lives and messaging her sister Christina, then 29.

It would be a few days before her biological mother, Ann Hoffman, could stop sobbing and crying tears of joy long enough to talk with her.

Since they weren’t Facebook friends, Ann almost didn’t read Cindy’s message. It had gone into her “other file” and she hadn’t seen it for eight days.

“It was by accident that she found mine,” Cindy said. “She was writing a message to somebody else, and she hit a back button or something wrong and the ‘other’ messages came up.”

Even after getting the message, she could only read its two-sentence introduction because the actual letter was attached as a file she didn’t know how to open.

“It makes me cry right now thinking of it,” said Ann. “I read the very first line, and I knew who it was right away.”

Meeting her biological parents

When Cindy talked to her parents about finding her biological family, they were both supportive and her mom said, “I want to go with you. We’re going to go to Philly. We’ll go meet them.”

So 21 days after making contact, Cindy and her mother were on a plane flying to Philadelphia International Airport to meet Cindy’s biological parents who had the meeting all planned out — Ann would hug Cindy while Earl hugged Cindy’s mom and then they would switch.

“She said, ‘I gave birth to her, I get to hug her first. I get to touch her,'” Cindy said.

When her biological daughter walked through the airport doors, Ann was overcome with emotion.

“I hugged her and she’s just crying so hard and I was like, ‘It’s OK,'” Cindy said.

‘Three amigos’

The next day, Cindy finally met the sisters and brother she had always hoped for, but never imagined she would see.

Nichole said Cindy squeezed her “like a lost teddy bear” when they met, convincing her that she would fit right in with their “affectionate family.”

“The three of us (sisters) were like three amigos, just going on and on,” Cindy said. “Within an hour, we’re doing pictures, pulling each other’s hair and wrestling, making up for the years that we missed doing that kind of stuff, just being silly. It was the easiest transition I’ve ever had of anything in my life.”

Cindy’s 28-year-old brother, Earl Jr., was happy Cindy found the family, but after growing up with two sisters, he admitted he would have liked to have had a brother.

But the brother and sister have shared some special moments, including an ugly sweater Christmas party he invited Cindy to attend.

“They were all his 20-something friends, and he brought his 40-year-old sister,” Cindy said. “It did mean a lot to me.”

Cindy’s mom prepared a flash drive with pictures of her daughter from just a few days after she was born to the present day, including weddings, graduations and vacations.

“They seemed to want to almost hug the computer,” Cindy said of Ann and Earl looking at decades of pictures. “Mom sat back and just let them have the moment. She was just wonderful, absolutely wonderful, through all of this.”

‘It all makes sense’

More than mere physical resemblances, the sisters share similar personality traits and even some life events, even though they’ve lived more than 900 miles apart.

When Christina shared stories about her past, Cindy told her she could tell the same stories.

“It’s crazy. It’s like she just fit right in. She’s loud and abrasive just like us,” Christina said.

Meeting Cindy’s biological parents was an eye-opening experience for her mom, who always noted how Cindy’s exuberant and boisterous personality contrasted with their calm demeanor.

Cindy’s mom told Christina, “Oh my goodness, it all makes sense. We’re such quiet people. I never understood how Cindy was so loud and so different than we are, but she’s just like you.”

Filling a void

The family searched for Cindy for a while, but finally left it up to Cindy to find them.

Nichole told her father, “You gave up your rights. It’s her choice if she wants to come find you. It’s not your choice to go looking for her. You did what was best.”

But even as a sister, it wasn’t easy to just wait for her to show up.

“It’s hard because as a sibling I thought about it, but that’s not my place,” Nichole said. “I wasn’t here when she was born. We didn’t know if she knew, so we didn’t want to upend somebody else’s life.”

But Earl never lost faith Cindy would find them, believing one day she would knock on their door.

“I was told it was a closed adoption — that we would never be able to open it up and find Cindy, but as the years went on with the new technology and laws, I had hope that the day would come soon,” Earl said.

Cindy’s arrival filled a 39-year void in Earl’s life.

“I don’t think he (Earl) ever felt whole without having Cindy in his life,” Christina said. “I think for a lot of years there was always something that weighed on him and having her in his life and finding her, it just fixed a part of him that I think was always broken.”

‘One in a million story’

Cindy’s biological family traveled to Southern Illinois for the first time in July, but they got more than they bargained for when Cindy and her boyfriend Dan held a surprise wedding on the Fourth of July at Giant City Lodge.

Cindy plans to return the favor by attending Christina’s wedding in September. Engaged four times before, Christina said she never went through with it because “I was waiting for Cindy. I just didn’t know it.”

Cindy calls hers a “one in a million” story and cautions others not to expect their search to turn out as storybook as hers did.

“There are stories where yes, they’re glad that they found them. There are stories that are no, they’re not glad they found them,” Cindy said.

“I don’t want anybody to think that my story is going to be how theirs will be. Just know it may not be, but be prepared for it before you do it. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.”

Cindy said going from an only child to a the oldest of four children in one message has not been without a little stress. But she said having two full families that she loves and that love her is a wonderful thing.

“It’s brought me more joy than I can explain,” Cindy said. “I wouldn’t change anything. It’s how things were supposed to happen, and I firmly believe that. It was the right time.””
Carbondale resident meets biological family 39 years after adoption[The Southern 5/3/15 by Chris Hottensen]

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