Staring at a faded photo of a day-old baby boy, Dana Ribar Caylor sometimes finds herself wondering what he's doing and what he's like. Caylor, a Gary native, was 14 when she gave birth to the nearly 10-pound baby. She never got to hold him as he was quickly whisked away and later she was told he was adopted by a couple who were unable to have children.
Armed with only his birthdate — Sept. 30, 1976 — Caylor, 53, has tried to search for him through Facebook and the Internet.
"It can be so discouraging," she said, wiping away tears. "It's more important now more than ever to find my son because (In the past 7 years) I've had a heart attack. I have high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes. All of these things a kid needs to know.
"I would give my right arm to meet my son. I don't care if he wants a relationship. I want to know that he was raised with love."
Phyllis Lloyd, 70, knows that she's luckier than many adoptees.
The Hobart resident was adopted through Gary Superior Court and her parents gave her the original adoption papers. It listed the name of her birth mother and she petitioned the court for any records having to do with her adoption.
But when Lloyd has tried to get a copy of her original birth certificate, she encounters a rather dumbfounding obstacle.
"I've been told by a lady in the health department that my father's name is listed on the original birth certificate," Lloyd said. "But I have to prove both birth parents are deceased, but since my mother refused to name birth father, I don't have his name. It's a Catch-22 and they won't release it because I can't prove he's deceased."
A new bill under consideration by the Indiana House hopefully will help open up more information for Lloyd and Caylor and thousands of others.
Senate Bill 91 was approved 43-5 in the Indiana Senate on Jan. 21. The measure puts all adoptees on equal footing. Currently, adults adopted after Dec. 31, 1993, can only access their birth records as long as their biological mother didn't sign a non-release form.
"For literally the entire adoptee population, we're just longing for information," said Pam Kroskie, founder of Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records, or HEAR. "But we stress that it's not about reunion, but about medical information and other reasons."
Paying for what is already yours
Kroskie said just gaining access to an adoptee's original birth certificate can be pricey.
"It's not always effective, and you have to find a person to do for you — a confidential intermediary," Kroskie said. "It costs in upwards of $700. It's a really costly process to pay for information that's already yours."
Lloyd uncovered the story of why she was adopted when she petitioned Gary Superior Court for her adoption records.
"It includes interviews with the social worker, my adoptive parents and my mother," Lloyd said. "Though she doesn't name my father, she mentions that they met at the air base near Champaign, Ill."
In the court transcript, Lloyd's birth mother mentions falling in love with a man stationed at the base, but he left her when she told him that she was pregnant. She later discovered that he was married at the time. Lloyd's mother was an Illinois native, but during the pregnancy, she moved in with her sister in Hammond, where Lloyd was born.
Lloyd's birth mother married three years after her birth. Her birth mother died in 1989, but through searches on genealogy websites, she has connected with one of her three living half sisters.
"(My biological mother) never told the girls anything about me," Lloyd said. "The one sister who I have been emailing back and forth with went to one of my birth mother's living sisters and asked her if it was true. She said it was a true story."
Lloyd said she and her half-sister were both longtime teachers, and based on some photos of her mother, she believes that she resembles her father more than her mother. Lloyd, who has three children and seven grandchildren, said her family has been excited about the past she has uncovered.
"My own kids have been really interested in it, especially my son," Lloyd said. "He's having me ask questions that he wants to know about. We have mentioned that if things work out right that we might meet my half-sister in person soon."
Kroskie is an adoptee herself, and she became an advocate for opening up records while helping other adoptees. Petitioning the court for adoption records was one of the rare avenues for adoptees, but the process was pretty drawn out.
"When I got my paper from (the adoption agency), there was a paragraph that said 'this information would be kept secret until which time I needed it'," Kroskie said.
Making contact with biological parents
The bill also replaces the non-release forms with contract preference forms that give birth parents more options that just allowing or denying access to records. Kroskie said options include "Yes, We want a reunion," "We might need a confidential intermediary," or "No."
Access to the records wouldn't begin until July 1, 2018. If a birth mom doesn't want to be contacted, she would have to fill out the contract preference form with the Indiana State Department of Health.
Some legislators have expressed concern that perhaps biological mothers don't want to be contracted, but Kroskie said many of them have been very supportive of the bill.
"I've had great support from adoptive parents and birth moms," Kroskie said. "I've haven't gotten one negative letter."
Caylor, who lives in Hobart and works at Bright Spot Restaurant, is very supportive of the bill and hopes that more can be done in the future to assist birth moms in their searches as well.
"I didn't want to give my baby away, but I had to," Caylor said. "I would really love them to do something for us. It's just not fair."
Caylor said her ability to search for her son was limited by cost.
"I talked to lawyers and the money is insane," Caylor said. "We're talking $5-6-7,000 just to hire someone, or to hire a private investigator — give us $1,500 dollars down. And this was 20 years ago."
Kroskie said several states keep statistics and less than 1 percent of birth mothers don't want any contact.
"They would have to file something with the State Department of Health, and they can change their minds," she said.
Caylor now has a daughter, but she's never forgotten the son she gave up and finds herself searching for him in a crowd at times.
"It used to drive my husband nuts because I would be staring at younger men, wondering if one of them might be him," Caylor said. "I would be looking for someone with small ears just based on the photo."
Kroskie said it's important to realize that the bill only applies to adult adoptees.
"A friend of mine said, 'The only people who don't have access to their original identity are those in the witness protection -- and he was sure his adopted children hadn't done anything wrong," Kroskie said. "I can't stress this enough. We are adopted adults and not children — none of us are infants."