Susan had always wanted to be a writer. After a years-long search for her birth family, she had a story to tell.
Susan Guillotte was adopted from The Cradle in 1953. At that time, closed adoptions, where neither the birth parents nor the adoptive parents have any identifying information about the other, were common practice. Susan did not have any information about her birth family, but that did not stop her from wondering.
When adoption practices regarding openness began to change in the eighties, The Cradle launched a post-adoption services department and instituted its own Mutual Consent Registry so that Cradle clients could be reunited through The Cradle. Susan reached out to The Cradle and began a long, sometimes frustrating process of trying to find information about her birth family. She remembers that the Cradle employee she worked with, Maureen, said it was one of the most difficult search processes she had ever done.
After years of navigating dead ends, Susan began unraveling a mystery and uncovered the truth about her birth family. The details of her journey are best discovered in her book, “Bunny: Based on a True Story.”
Susan always wanted to be a writer. In her sixties, she set out to make that dream a reality. One week into her retirement, when she had planned to write, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was determined not to let this stop her. She worked her treatment schedule around being able to write her story. In April of 2024, she self-published her book.
Susan’s book touches on difficult topics and a hard journey, but she is grateful for The Cradle for allowing her to tell this story honestly. She does not shy away from discussing the roadblocks she faced while trying to find answers, or the support she received from The Cradle and others when she felt like the whole world was against her.
When Susan’s husband of 47 years read the finished book, though he had lived through most of the events, he said he never knew all the emotions she was experiencing throughout her journey. Susan knew she had accomplished what she set out to do — use her story to give voice to feelings shared by so many touched by adoption.
