My Other Mother

This is the first part in a series about my birth family, my origin story, and my searching for and finding a big part of my identity. There’s some speculation in here, but I hope I do the story justice. My immediate birth family is gone now. I have some cousins here and in Ireland that I’ve connected with, and I’m touch a bit with my Aunt Helen on the west coast.

The story unfolding here is a big part of the title of this blog “Belonging” and may be the title of my book some day. It’s a story of lost and found, of sadness and joy, and of coming to terms with the fact that families are complicated and mothering is hard and making decisions that are best for everyone aren’t always best for everyone. Yet here we are, in the end, doing our best.

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At a the reasonable hour of 6:23 a.m., on the morning of June 16, 1967, in a Lutheran hospital in Minneapolis, a baby girl was born. This was her mother’s third birth, and I hope it was easy and otherwise unremarkable.

They told Ila Bair Solberg “it’s a girl” and then took the baby away. Ila never looked at that baby girl, never held her or examined her tiny fingers and toes. She never breastfed or cuddled or cooed in any sort of way. I picture her squeezing her eyes tightly closed, while she resigned herself to the aftermath of birth and recovery, and thought about her other two children – a boy, 4, and a girl, 3.

Later that day, Ilsa Bair Solberg signed her divorce papers and the baby’s birth certificate, and never looked back. So much so, that 34 years later when the baby girl came calling, the memory of the birth was logged into June 12 of Ila’s mental calendar. The 34-year-old baby girl was offended that this woman who had carried her and decided to give her life, and even give her up to a better life, wouldn’t or couldn’t even remember the date she was born.

Of course, I am that baby girl. Adopted by two wonderful parents who loved me and gave me everything. I had a magical childhood of privilege and access, friends, skinned knees, a perfect older brother who was also adopted, swimming in every pool, lake, and ocean offered, while many lessons and clubs and teams were laid at my feet to become the very best version of the baby girl that was WANTED by someone.

Over my 57-almost-58-year journey of life, that birth mother and the unknowns of her story have woven in and out of my mind, solidifying greatly more than 20 years ago when we finally made contact. I conjured up so many versions of her over the years. When I was little, I sometimes got scared she might be a mean witch that would come and steal me away if I was naughty. As I got older and it became very apparent that I was nothing like my adopted family in looks, personality, interests, passions, and spirit, I imagined my birth mother to be maybe a beautiful queen or regal figure and I was quite possibly a princess of some sort. Deposed, of course, but still Very Important. And as the teen angst set in, I lashed out at my adopted mother verbally, and internally I just knew that my birth mother would have understood me better and been less critical and overprotective.

Nothing could have been further than the truth.

Ila divorced my birth father after 2 (ok, 3) kids and a lousy marriage. I was conceived during a brief reconciliation period, which only confirmed to my mother that she did NOT want to stay married, and she definitely didn’t want to have three kids. She scheduled her abortion, that late fall of 1966, and woke up the day before the procedure astounded that she felt compelled to cancel it. “I am a staunch supporter of a woman’s right to choose,” she told me in an email. “I still don’t know why I changed my mind.” Me either, lady, but I’m really glad you did.

Ila fearlessly went on her way as a single mom of two little kids. The life she chose got very hard before it got better. I think she always, firmly, and unquestionably knew who she was, and wasn’t afraid to keep going.

Identity, and belonging, are ideas that haunt me and also give me endless energy. I like being.  I like being me, and I think I’m pretty great most of the time. When I don’t, it gets dark and cloudy and I wonder why I feel like I’ve missed out on so much in developing myself and who I am.

This is Ila’s story and it’s Jill’s story. It’s also the story of Hank and Dolores, my adopted parents. It belongs to my birth father, John Solberg, and my birth siblings, John Solberg and Susan Solberg.

I have a lot to go on, but there are deep gulfs of missing information and gaps of many years of silence.

I’ll do my best to share our story, because I’m the only one left to tell it.

Ila Bair was raised by an unhappy mother who gave up precious little emotional connection, and a quiet father who loved books and gardening. Her relationship with her mother was difficult, as these things often are. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s, girls and young women were training for marriage and motherhood. Ila had a brilliant mind for math and a curiosity of the world around her and the people in it.

She met John Solberg when they worked bagging groceries at a supermarket in St. Paul. He was good looking, so much fun, a big flirt, and never really worried about the future. He excelled at sports, playing a turn in minor league baseball, and becoming a golf pro at a country club. They married at 19 and had their first baby five years later, and second baby only 13 months after that.

The marriage was bad. I’ve been told there may have been a wandering eye and maybe a little too much drinking. One thing was sure, and that was my birth father John was a big kid who never really grew up, and Ila was restless and worried, wondering how it would all shake out with two young kids and no real solid or serious vision of the future of their family.

At some point they separated. And then as moths to flame, they tried a reconciliation “for the sake of the kids” which apparently included sharing a bed again, because in the fall of 1966, that third pregnancy (me) was a huge surprise.

I don’t know how long after that positive pregnancy test, but Ila said hell no do I want another baby or stay married to this man. In 1966, abortion was illegal, but could be had with the right connections and some cash. Ila scheduled her appointment and focused on what was to come after that. As previously mentioned, the morning before the scheduled appointment, she woke up and was absolutely certain she should not have an abortion, but she should carry and birth this baby and give it up for adoption. Being pro choice didn’t stop her from this decision, even though it confused and rattled her.

It’s been told to me that she carried out her pregnancy in a very matter of fact manner. Little John and Susan were too young to even know mom was pregnant, so that part was easy. In so many cases and places during those years, young women would be squirreled away at a sympathetic aunt’s house in the country, or sent to live with a friend or other relative where no one knew her. She’d hide away, grow a baby, give birth, hand over the baby to a social worker, and go back home. Shame and guilt weighed heavily, because most people knew and whispered and snickered about young Lisa getting “in trouble” and having to “go away for a few months.” Thousands of those Lisas came home with a slightly different shape and a sadness in their eyes. Let’s just not talk about it, ok?

That wasn’t Ila’s experience. As I said, she went about her business. Worked, raised her kids, went to family gatherings, socialized, paid her bills and taxes, and bought groceries. Her attitude about everything was to not really care what people thought about her, and she never owed anyone an explanation. I like to picture her with an enormous belly and telling people with breezy confidence, “I’m giving this baby up for adoption. Let’s talk about something else.”

What drove me to find my birth family two decades ago was the unanswered question of “how could a mother give up a baby?” At that time, I had three little boys of my own, and during each birth as I felt their tiny bodies slip from mine and then held their warm, fresh selves, I silently wondered what it was like for my other mom.

The need to know became my obsession, and I started down the path of searching for my birth mother and my origin story.

The searching and finding is its own story.