Mothers Story Project: A Mothers Story

I found out I was pregnant during the final days of my sophomore year in high school. When I told my parents, they pulled me out of school on Thurs, took away my phone privileges, wouldn't let me out of the house and by Mon morning I was off to a maternity home several hours away. I saw my parents once during the next 6 months, and only a handful of phone calls.

My daughter was born 12/22/1979. I left the hospital Christmas Day, handing my daughter to the SW in the hallway. It was the only time I was permitted to hold her. 

I, like many others, was told to ‘forget, and move on with your life’, ‘I had no rights as a minor’, and ‘I wasn’t going to ‘ruin the family name’ You never forget. Every Christmas brought with it the pain of not knowing, is she happy? is she healthy? does she look like me? is she alive or dead? 

I did eventually have 2 more daughters, but there was always that missing piece of my heart. Around the time she turned 18, I started to register everywhere I could, hoping that one day she would look for me. After she turned 18 it got harder to face the holidays. It would start as soon as the stores started putting up their Christmas decorations, I would start crying at the sound of Christmas carols. This past year my husband offered to hire a PI. He knew of my daughter but I still could not bring myself to talk about her. I read everything I could on searches. I stumbled across adoptiondatabase.org through a MSN article. They have a registry, but also a search and support forum board. For the first time I found other people like me, looking for their missing families. I told my whole story for the first time. Within a week, I got a phone call at work from the board owner. She had found my daughter! I couldn’t believe it! It took me an hour to stop crying enough to call my husband. 

I let my daughter set the pace of our reunion. We started with emails. It was 2 months before she called. After 7 months, we met in person and by then we felt like old friends from all our emails and phone calls. Her A-mother sent boxes of pictures.  I cried as I saw her growing up, going to her prom, getting married and the birth of my grandsons. 

As much as her A-mother would have loved to help her find me, she couldn’t. My mother had a privacy document drawn up before they would even talk to them about adoption stating that they would never attempt or encourage a search for me. It had been signed by everyone involved. 

Having found my daughter, it has opened floodgates of questions, feelings, thoughts, what ifs etc. It may have turned out to be the best for her, but what about me?