My name is Judy Coglianese and I was born on March 29, 1942 and identified only as baby girl MacKay. For as long as I can remember I knew I was adopted. I was the second adopted child of Charles M. Hausman and his wife Evelyn. My brother Michael was 18 months old at the time of my adoption. My father was a medical doctor who had volunteered for the Navy during World War II. My mother stayed at home and cared for us. Shortly after my father left for war, my mother learned she was pregnant with my sister Tami. Consequently my father was transferred to California to serve in the Pacific theater.

My memories become clearest upon the return of my father from the war. Ours was a busy household now with 3 children, my parents, and a live-in nanny. My mother’s parents lived in an apartment over the garage and helped out from time to time. In 1950 we moved to a large home in the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago so we could all be under one roof. It is at this time that I began to understand what “adopted” meant and so began a lifetime of questions.

My father was a very affectionate man and on one occasion he told me his version of my adoption from The Cradle. My parents wanted another child, a sibling for my brother, and decided to work with The Cradle. When my father entered The Cradle Nursery I was crying. He reached down and picked me up, I “opened my big brown eyes and stopped crying,” and it was then that he knew I was his daughter. It was very emotional. From that moment on he referred to me as his “brown-eyed Susan.”

Like many children of closed adoptions I had unanswered questions and always wanted to know more. Over the years of my childhood I would often make up stories of who my birthparents were and why they chose The Cradle. It romanticized my adoption experience and provided me with many hours of comfort and conjecture.

Upon graduation from high school, I attended St. Xavier University in Chicago to pursue a career in nursing. My father could not have been happier for me to continue the family tradition in medicine. At the time, I was dating my soon to be husband Emil J. (Bud) Coglianese. We were married in a lovely wedding ceremony six months after my graduation. I was never happier I felt I really now belonged to someone. I became pregnant on our honeymoon in Hawaii and after the birth of our daughter Lisa Marie, I again wondered who my birthparents were. I was so stunned by the intensity of my love for my daughter that I would stare at her for hours on end and began to wonder what challenges my birthmother went through.

Our second daughter, Cheryl Ann, was born in 1967 and again I experienced that same intensity of my connection to her. My concerns now focused on my medical history, for my children’s sake, and I was saddened and frustrated that I had no information about my birthparents. In Illinois birthparents have a right to privacy, which is why I had no medical background. I loved being a mother and knew that I wanted my daughters to FEEL loved.

My father, who I loved so deeply, died in 1970 when I was 27 years old. In 1972 I entered graduate school, again at St. Xavier University, to pursue a master’s degree in mental health nursing so I could continue in my newfound career direction of nursing education. I decided to do my research proposal on the Self Concept of the Adult Adoptee. I was sure one’s concept of self would be distorted if one did not have all the information that is everyone else’s birthright. I began to ask my mother questions for the first time in my life. At first she was a little apprehensive, but she promised to help in any way she could. My mother had a close friend who worked at City Hall in Chicago who was able to access my records and find out my birthmother’s name was Catherine MacKay. So began a new time of searching that would last for the next 25 years!

I had been told my birthmother was a student at Northwestern, and I always believed she was from the Chicago area. I finally found another adoptee who could assist with Illinois searches. He told me my mother was from New York not Chicago, and attempted to put me in touch with someone from New York who might be able to assist. Unfortunately, I did not have enough information to continue.

In 1998, while at a conference in Salt Lake City, I spent two days at the Family History Library. This library provides access to the world's largest collection of genealogical records, including the names of more than two billion deceased people. I searched the 1920 census and although I found many MacKay’s, I couldn’t locate Catherine.

My mother Evelyn died in February of 2001. I had reconciled myself to the fact that I would probably never find my birthmother. I was by then the proud grandmother of our daughter Lisa’s two children, Timmy (1990) and Jessica (1992). Our daughter Cheryl had met the man she loved and hoped would marry. My life was full and I was content.

On June 10, 2002 I received a letter in the mail that would change my life as I knew it. I sat in my kitchen that sunny morning and read a letter from a woman in California who wrote that she believed we were related. Her name was Susan McCrea, she stated that she too had been placed for adoption through The Cradle by her birthmother Jeanne Mackey, and that my birthmother, Jeanne’s sister Agnes Mackey, had also placed a child with The Cradle the same year (1942).

My birthmother and me, September 2002

My first thought was that there was a mix up because I knew my mother’s name was Catherine MacKay. When I finally talked on the phone with Susan, she informed me my mother had used the name MacKay so she could not be traced. Susan told me my mother was in fact alive although not well. Susan told me of Laurel, a half sister 13 months older than me living on the Jersey shore. I was totally overwhelmed with feelings I could not even identify. When I talked to Laurel that night, I began a new life journey.

Laurel too had only recently found out about me, as our mother had never told her that she had placed a child with The Cradle. Laurel stated that our mother was very ill and that she had suffered a stroke which left her unable to speak. Laurel had moved in with our mother to care for her and invited me to their home.

On June 23rd I flew to New Jersey with my daughters Lisa and Cheryl and my granddaughter Jessica. My sister Laurel met us at the airport and it was surreal to say the least. When we arrived at Laurel’s home I was beyond excited, yet scared at the same time.

I was 60 years old and was going to meet my mother! She was lying in a hospital bed next to a balcony that overlooked the ocean she seemed so frail and yet so intense as our eyes met. I took her hand and felt immediately connected perhaps at a cellular, biologic level. We spent several days there and Laurel began telling me about our family history. I felt so at ease and complete. It is difficult to explain what it is like to have the questions of a lifetime finally answered.

Eventually my mother told me who my father was, which may or may not be another search. I felt blessed that through my cousin Susan our family was reunited. On September 16, 2002 I met Susan and her mother, my Aunt Jeanne, as we gathered together to celebrate my mother’s birthday. I visited my mother three more times after that and was with her when she died on August 24, 2003. Laurel and I sat on either side of her bed, holding her hands as she quietly died with the ocean surf the only sound in the room.

Mackey Family Reunion Laurel, Judy, Jeanne, Susan and my birthmother

My daughter Cheryl was married three weeks after my mother passed away and gave birth to her daughter Hana in June of 2004. My family is now enriched with my new relatives who continue to be part of the fabric of my life. My sister Laurel is more than special to me, and we often comment on the amazing fact that we had the same mother!

The journey was long since my mother left her home in New York to bring her yet to be born baby to The Cradle to be adopted. She had done a lot of research to find the right place for the child she carried. She chose The Cradle, as she felt that there I would have the best chance of having a wonderful home and a family who would love me. She did well I do have a wonderful, loving family I never would have had without her loving sacrifice.