Ep. 3 Elizabeth Ann Doe

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

A boy was walking to the pool and he heard a baby crying in a distance. He had followed those cries and found me all bundled up and a blanket in a box with a note that said, My name is the Lord Japan. Please take good care of me. He ran up the street to the sheriff's office. Trying to find any kind of record for the children, like birth of the first hospital. There was no documentation. My abandonment had a hyperpleokable newsletter. From her saying, I'm the mother, I'm 15 years old. I cannot take care of her. I'm leaving town. Handwriting was very different from the note that was letters. After research, they have found nothing. So they ended up completing me in foster care. And I was in foster care for five months before I was the doctor.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

You're listening to Born a Secret, Abandon at Birth. A Foundlink podcast. You might be wondering what a family is. A family is an infant that was abandoned, found, and raised by someone else other than their mother or father. Each episode will cover a family's unique story. How they coped with life as a family and their pursuit to find out why their life started the way it did.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

My parents had adopted two boys and then myself. They did a great job by being so open with all of us about our stories, our individual stories of how we all became a family. I grew up always knowing about it. I loved hearing my story. I asked about my story all the time. It actually made me feel special because nobody else shared that same beginning with me. I was the only foundling in the family. I was a little envious that my brothers did have the option of finding their biological mothers in father because they went through an adoption process. I didn't have that opportunity. I didn't have the ability to just go through the paperwork and go through the steps on finding biological family. Mine was an unknown. So that's where the DNA tests came. I knew that there were pests that you could find your ethnicity, that I didn't know that it stretched out so far that you could find people that were blood related to you. So it took 33 years of my life before I knew or realized that there was actually a chance that I could begin a search. I had hesitated and I was nervous and didn't have a lot of money to buy the kit and go through the process. But there was one day my boss had put an article on my desk uh the Burger King baby that reunited with her birth mom after 27 years. I read the article and it just kind of revamped my hope and my excitement of moving forward. I kind of copycatted her approach. A few weeks after that, I had created a poster where the poster had said, looking for my birth mother. He abandoned me again on January 27th, 1981. A friend had taken my picture and I posted on Facebook and asked people to share it, and it just circled around the world. And from there, of course, that's when reporters and news stations were contacting me asking to do stories and taking me back to the site of where the Catholic Church used to be. It was amazing how huge it blew up. And the the reports and the news clips went national. It was very exciting. With that, I had people that had contacted me. There were three very special people. Two of them were search angels, with one of them being a DNA specialist, and the other was a private investigator. All three of them had donated their time to me. And one of them had donated two kids, one through 23andMe, and another one through Ancestry DNA. My prayers had been answered. I didn't have the money to do it myself. And here are these actual angels that came to me through my story and donated the kids to me so I could actually proceed and do what I really wanted to do and submit my DNA and start with a good process. I had two second cousins that were the closest match. And with second cousins, you wouldn't believe how quickly you can build a family tree with just those matches. So there were two family trees, of course, maternal and paternal. And of course, it's very, very hard to tell where your biological mother-father lies on which family tree. There was one family tree that was very solid, very clear. I think there were six siblings in total. I had sent each one of them a message. It was a very bold message and it was straightforward. It explained my abandonment, but it was not written in harsh words. It was very light, it was very appropriate and very easygoing and curious. I explained that I wasn't intruding on anyone's life. I didn't want to upset anyone. All I wanted to know was just where I came from. And a couple of days had passed after I sent the message to the two men and the two women. And a response from one of them came through. And the response said, You have beautiful eyes. May I talk to you privately? Of course, I said yes. I was like, Oh my gosh, one of them responded, This is so amazing. This could be an aunt. Uh, it could be my mother. We really thought one of the men was my father. So I was really thinking this could have been an aunt. So I gave her my phone number. She called and I answered with a happy, excited, Hi, how are you? Super excited to talk to you and ask you a question. And there was a pause on her side. And after the pause, she said, I am your mother. We both just started crying over the phone. I couldn't believe I heard those words. It was amazing to hear those words. The conversation was really smooth. I wasn't nervous. I felt very calm. I felt at peace. Her and I just talked and we worked through our tears. And for her, I know for a fact that her tears were guilt and sorrow. And my tears were excitement and happiness. So we were on two completely different levels at that point. But once we started talking and easing into conversation, we talked about how I grew up and my search for her and my life. We were already feeling close. It felt like we had never been apart. It felt like she was always there. I don't know how to explain it. It was it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. The pieces of the puzzle kind of came together in different moments and different time frames. But basically, with the full puzzle put together, her story is she had a one-night stand with a very handsome gentleman. And that was it. One night stand. And then all of a sudden, a few months later, she finds out she's pregnant. She hides it from her family house that she did not live at home. But there were a couple times where some brothers or her mother had made a comment about weight gain, and she just kind of left it off, you know. So time came for her to go into labor labor. She actually had me by herself in her own apartment. Strong, brave woman, I can't even believe. She had me by herself in her own apartment. After she recovered a little bit and made sure I was okay, she went to the store and got a couple supplies. She actually kept me for three days before she made the decision to let me go to separate. She wrapped me in a blanket, wrote a note and took me over to the church. And she actually was heading back to her apartment when she realized, no, this is wrong. I want my baby. And by the time she went back for me, I had already been found and taken. So her chance to get me back was totally gone. And that is something that had I'm gonna start crying. But that's something that had been sitting with her for 33 years. She had the insane regret of leaving me and separating both of the letters and the note were from her. When I met her, I asked her who wrote the other note because the handwriting was completely different. And she said she was able to create two different uh forms of handwriting. And she had lied about her age because she was scared. Of course she was scared, but she didn't want to get in trouble. And she tried to find a way to throw them off track. So she said she was 16 years old, but she was actually 19. He kept it hidden from everybody, not one person knew. It was a very, very tight kept secret. The following October, after I was born, she met her now husband. They've been together ever since. She did tell me that she was never very straightforward with him with what happened, but he did know that there was some story of her having a baby, that she he didn't know the details and respected her privacy and respected that she didn't want to talk about it. Afterward they got married and they ended up having their own children. So we do have a half-brother and a half sister that are young, younger than me. It took about say a few weeks before she told her children. Once she told them, of course, she was a nervous wreck. It's not a comfortable thing to talk about. They are such beautiful people. They hugged her and said it's okay, we love you. We can't wait to see her and meet her, talk to her. And she actually flew up to meet me about a month after us reuniting on the phone. So we were able to meet in person. She stayed with me for a few days and she got to meet my mother that raised me in a very awkward, strange situation. But I wanted that to happen. It made me feel good. And so both of them helped me out and helped my feelings that way all of us just being together for a moment. Um, I'd say a few months after that, she opened up to her brothers and sister. And we had a family Thanksgiving. I flew over and met all of them and quickly we became part of the family after it we're like two peas in a pod. The fact that we did not grow up together. I'm saying growing up because she was 19. She was still young. We we weren't together for my whole, you know, 33 years of life. And then when we met, we're so similar. Our the way our boy found, the the way that we talk, uh uh just everything. It's it's very interesting to be so similar to somebody that didn't raise you. DNA speaks very loudly with this relationship. I I don't know what is in this this bloodline, but it's amazing. They are such amazing people, every single one of them. It blows my mind how individually they're all very beautiful people. Finding my birth father is a completely different journey. So I wanted to find him to complete the puzzle that a half sister through ancestry DNA. That sister was adopted, and she was reunited with her birth mother, and her birth mother had told my sister the birth father's name that was very similar to the one that I cracked down. Actually, tried to reach out to my birth father by letters and by trying to contact his wife over Facebook, and it's just not going anywhere, I'm not getting responses. So I know who he is, and I have a picture of him because of Facebook, and I think that's as far as I can go, and I'll respect the fact that he's not responding. The only thing I'd like to add is even if you don't want anything to do with that child be separated with, please, please, please, just give them the respect and the knowledge of the important things that we should know that we deserve to know.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

The Warren a Secret Podcast is on a mission to inspire compassion among all sides of the search journey and to raise awareness for the St. Haven Law. Please go to WarnASecret.com for more information about the podcast and ways to contribute. Please like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. Are you or someone you know pregnant and unsure of what to do now? For information about the Safe Haven Law and Safe Haven resources, please go to www.national safe havenalliance.org. Or call one eight eight eight five one zero two two two two two two two two two two two two two nine for twenty-four-seven confidential support.