Ep. 1 The Secret One

Please go to www.bornasecret.com  for more information about the podcast ways to contribute. 
Your support and contributions enable us to continue our mission to raise awareness for The Safe Haven Law and inspire compassion among all sides of a search journey.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I was born in 1973. I was born about 5 30 in the morning from the hospital records and police records. It said that a girl, 14 years old, came in with her supposed parents into the hospital at 5 o'clock in the morning. And I was born at 5.30. And then they didn't see any complications at that time. And that same evening around 7 o'clock. And they took number one and they left the hospital without killing anymore. The police they started doing the search. They did a sketch of her and what they thought she would look like from what the nurses and doctors could remember of her. That went on for a couple weeks, and then there was just nothing ever came of it, and they just kind of all just kind of swept under the rug at that time.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

A foundling podcast. You might be wondering what a family is. A foundling 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 of how they coped with life as a family and their pursuit to find out why their life started the way it did.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

I think I was legally adopted when I was around I think it was around five or six years old. Like I said, it was from the same family that I went home with from the hospital. So it they were a foster care and they just because of health problems that I was born with, the state social services thought that it would be very difficult for me to ever be adopted out with because of the possible future medical bills that I was going to accrue. And so they the foster parents that I had social services and wherever they got together with them and they decided that they would let me stay with them and adopt me, they would try to help out with all the medical care up until I was 18. I remember, let's say, growing up I always knew and my my adoptive parents, they kept like a um a photograph album of all the articles that were in the paper, everything that they, you know, from the social services, all that th all that stuff was in a in a photograph album. And I remember being small that I would go through and read these things, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years old, and I would read these things and I would look at it, it's like it was hard to a degree for me to associate myself with this baby that was in the hospital and associate my mom with this girl 14 years old that you know for whatever reason had left me there. Um so it was kind of a a ghost or an enigma to me for so many years. But when it really, really struck me, and because I didn't really kind of care to a degree, not as much as I would later, but whenever I turned 14, it hit me like a hammer. So I remember when I turned 14, I said, this is how old my mom was when she had me. And at that point, it was like I had a sympathy and an empathy for my birth mom that I'd never had before. I'm like, how in the world did she do this? I said, I I mean, I felt my heart broke for her. And it had ever since then. The first time I looked for my birth mom was probably in my early twenties. I had went to the hospital, this would have been in the uh early 90s. And I had went to the hospital and tried to uh pull my birth records, if there's anything in there that was not in the newspaper articles, to see if there's anything that I could find, something that had a little hidden nugget. And what was uh of course at that time there was no internet like we have today. And I went to the back to the uh to the newspaper that run the article in 73 and 74, and I was like, you know, I want to do a follow-up with this. If anybody is willing to do it, I'm looking for my birth bomb. And they actually did another article, you know, hoping that someone would turn up, you know, 20 years later that would be willing to say, yes, we know who this person is, or have some kind of something out there, but you know, that came and went, nothing ever happened from it. The next moss don't, you know, I just kinda put it away and you know, it never left me, but I just kind of like I let it go at that time. And when I turned forty, that's what it hit me for the last time. I was like, this is gonna be it. I said I'm gonna try one last time. I prayed about it. I'll tell you this that God has been with me through all of these things. And I prayed about it. I was like, God, if it's if this is something that you will allow me to do, then I just pray that everything will happen in the way that you would have it to happen. And if I'm not meant to find her, then I'll accept that and go on. And so in 2014, I was one of those that everybody has seen now that goes on Facebook and they gets a big old poster board saying, I'm such and such, and I'm looking for my birth mom. I did that. And I had so many people reach out to me saying they were thinking of me, they were praying for me, they would share my my search page. I don't know how many thousands and thousands of people that I had this go all across the United States, uh, into Australia, with I mean, it went everywhere. And it's like it snowballed for about probably around three or four months, and I was hoping that somewhere along the way that my birth mom would see this and that she would know that I was looking for her. That's what I had hoped, and that she would reach out to me because I didn't have any way to reach out to her. But, you know, the summer of 14 came and went and it got into the fall, and I said, Well, I said I'll just try doing ancestry and see what happens with that. And so I took my PNA test, uh, sent it off, and I was like, got the results back, and I'm like, what in the world am I even looking at? I have no clue. And so me and my wife would look at it, we see all these people that I knew that were my family, they were my blood relatives, and it was just it was odd to be able to see somebody that I know that that person is related to me somewhere or somehow. But I I had no clue how to interpret the information that I got from there. And so I had a friend of mine that was causing my search. She told me, Have you tried a search squad? And I was like, No, I don't know anything about search squad. So I went on there, put my information in, told what was that happening. And it just went crazy. I had so many people was like, Have you talked to Cece Moore? Do you know about CeCe? I'm like, I don't even know who you're talking about. She ended up contacting me. She's like, I'd really like to look at your case if I can. I was like, Well sure, that's fine. Her and another search angel, Andrea, they work together and it's probably maybe two weeks and it's like we think we've got it narrowed down. I remember coming home it was a uh Saturday night and Cecia calls me. She calls me on the phone and uh she said, I've got something I need to talk to you about. I said, Okay. She said, I was looking through your ancestry and the transfers, the Jedi match and all that, and I've got something I want to tell you. I said, Okay. She said, It looks like uh your mom and your father were related. And I just didn't say anything. He said, Do you understand what I'm talking about? And I said, Yeah, I think so. This looks like it's either her, your mom's father, or your mom's brother is who your father is. I said, Okay. And by that time we knew who she was and I could see pictures of her. I see my mom's face and I was just so crushed. I could not begin to tell you all the emotions that were going through me at that time. I mean it was I was hurt, I was angry, I had a feeling of worthlessness. I felt like trash, honestly. I felt like something that somebody had just thrown away. I don't remember thinking like, God, you said you helped me through all these things. You helped me find my mom. Say, why? Why in the world and have you brought me this far to give me this kind of news? I didn't understand. And that was in uh the first of December. And uh probably had the hardest six months of my life from that to June, July of the next year. Knowing these things, you can imagine uh the scenarios that run through your mind. I could not escape my thoughts as far as thinking about what had happened to my mom. What had happened to this 14-year-old girl. I remember thinking, you know what, if I could go back and have these things not happen to my mom, I would give my life for that. I wish I had not been born if I could go back and her be saved from all the things that could have happened to her. I thought that for so long. And so that was in December. And of course I still I mean I had this overwhelming love for my mom. I had so many people say she's not gonna want to have anything to do with you because of this. She's not gonna answer your letter, your phone call, she's not gonna reach out, she's not gonna do anything. I'm like I said that may be true, but I said I'm not gonna give up. And so of course I wrote my letter and I had it certified and I think it was between Christmas and New Year's. I remember getting that little green certified card back in the mail that had my mom's signature on it. And I was holding that little piece of paper. I think it never my mom, my real live birth mom was holding this little piece of paper, and she's put her name on it. And that is probably one of the dearest treasures I have to this day. But of course, there was no return message, there was no phone call, there was not anything. I found her on Facebook and I sent a friend's request, which she never accepted. I would send her messages through Messenger and no replies. In February, this is just two months later, February of 2015, I had saw my wife had found that my uncle, possible father, was going to be at a pudding venue. He was an author, and this was not very far from where I lived, and not very far from where I found that my mom grew up, and I was like, I want to go see him. So we go to the motel where they're having this put venue, and there were several authors there, and of course he was one of them. And my wife went up to him and bought his book, and she said, Would you sign this to my husband? And so he did, not knowing who I was. I had also hoped that his mom, my grandmother, would be there as well. I had already pre-written her a letter that's like, if she's there, I want to give this to her. And sure enough, she was there too, and when she got ready to leave, my wife walked up to her and just kind of, you know, gently tapped her on the shoulder and was like, you know, I would like to give you something here. Would you read it later? And she said yes, and she put it in her pocket, and she left. At that time, I still did not know if this man was my birth father or my uncle. I did find out in in December that my grandfather had passed away in 2012, I believe. I would go to his grave whenever I first found it. First time I went to go see it, I remember standing there thinking, you know what? If you're my father, said, I've got you now, old man. I remember thinking this. Did you thought you would hide me forever? And nobody would ever find out, but I'm here. And I did. But I still didn't have any firm concrete evidence which one of these two men was my father. I remember having so much hatred towards both of them. And I was like, I had thought that if my grandfather was alive, I would love to have confronted him face to face just to see what his response would have been. And so that was in February that I saw my uncle. In March, I decided my grandmother hadn't written me back, she's not called, she's not done anything. I'm gonna go to my grandmother's house. My grandmother lives in the same house that my mom was raised and where she was born. It's almost like going home to a place you've never been before. I remember going, we went down there, my wife and I, we drove up, and I was like, and I prayed the whole time. It's like, you know, if this is meant to be, then it'll happen to where I'm able to speak to her. Because if she c if she saw me coming, if she was inside, she may not even go to the door. Like, whatever happens, happens. So I go there, pull up in the driveway, and I go to the back door and I knock on the door, and I hear a lady out in the potter shed out back, and she hollers and I'll be right there. And so my grandmother came out from back there, and we met there in the yard. I'd ask her, I said, My wife gave you a letter a month ago. Did you read it? She said, Yes. I said, I just want to come by and tell you that I'm your grandson and you're my grandma. And she just hung her head. She said, I know. And we talked for a few minutes. And I asked her, I said, did my mom, did she ever tell you that I had written a letter to her? And she said, no, she never told me that. We talked for a few more minutes and I gave her one of my only baby pictures. I only had two, and I give her one of them. I said, I wanted you to have this. And I said, I want you to know that I love me. And I said, uh, before I leave, I said, can I get a hug from you? She said, Yes. I left that day and she has not talked to me since. I've written her letters and sent her Mother's Day cards, and she won't respond or anything. Which I'm okay with that. I mean I and I do understand. I still don't know what all went on back during that time. So that was in March of 2015. So we keep researching my mom and I was wanted to see her and come to find out that she was going to be in a location for a certain event. I was like, I want to go. I want to see I want to see if I can go find my mom and see her. We ended up calling and trying to get motels to this area, and it was already hooked up. We could not even get close. Maybe it's not meant to be for us to do this. My in-law said, if you want to go, I said, we'll take the RB and we'll go and take you there. Like, are you sure about that? And I was like, yeah, we'll go. I said, okay. So we had went to this venue and my wife and I were there all day long. And there were thousands and thousands of people there. I'm like, there's no way to find this needle in the stack. So we had looked, we had split up, and she went one way and I went another. And yeah, we would send pictures back and forth between, you think this is her, you think this is her? I'm like, No, I don't think that's her. I'm not sure. And so it was getting on to be five o'clock, and the events were over for the day. People were already leaving. I'm thinking, what a waste of time. This is being I know where I think I was going to find her and all these people who just stand there kind of dumbfounded while I sitting there. Do you want to leave? Do you want to stay? What do you want to do? And I said, No. I said, I'm not leaving. I said, I'll be the last person here if that's what it takes. So we were walking hand in hand together, and just to my left was a man and woman walked in front of me, probably maybe 10, 15 feet in front of me. And I knew that that was my model. My knees literally buckled. If my wife had been holding me up that day, I'd have fell on the ground. We just balled to her and two gentlemen, and they went to their vehicle and we kind of lounged around like we were just part of the scene and taking pictures and trying not to look too obvious with what we were doing. We was in for about maybe maybe ten minutes or so, and and they drove away. That made it all worthwhile. And there, my mom, she wasn't this figment of my imagination, she wasn't just a ghost of my memory anymore, she was a real life person. And I got to see her that day. So she left and we left that day, and I was on Cloud. This was a three-day event that she was at. It's just like, well, I can't wait to hear her tomorrow to see if I can find her again. So the next day we get together and we go to another area that we think that she must would be at, and this was like at 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning, and we were at this one little area all by ourselves, and who was to come up but my mom right beside us. She got her little dog out and took him for a walk in front of us, and then my wife asked me, Are you gonna give her the letter or do you want me to do it? I had to sit there and think about it. And I was like, No, no, this is not the right time or place because she's just here for work. I wouldn't want to disrupt what she's doing, and I don't know what it would do to her if I were to confront her here in this place. So we watched her for a few more minutes and then she got in her little golf cart and drove off again. And at that point, I told her, I said, okay, I'm I'm done. I said, I'm ready to go back home. She's like, You sure? Is it ready to come back tomorrow too? If you want to stay here today, I said, Nah, I said, I've done what I wanted to. I said, I'm happy now. She said, Okay, so we went back to my in-laws RV and told them, you know, we can leave whenever y'all want to, we can stay, and you know, we picked up our stuff and we came back to North Carolina. A few weeks later, I sent my mom another letter. I had put in the letter the tickets for that event that we had to buy. I had given her my receipt for the ticket, and I told her that I know that we were there and that I got to see her. I wanted her to know that I wanted to see her that I didn't want to disrupt her life and that I'd always be here if at least she'd ever want to talk to me. So at that point, that was in April and May of 2015, and still to this day I've not had any kind of response. I would send her birthday cards every now and then. I still send her Facebook messages on Messenger every few months. She's not blocking me for whatever reason. I try and hold good thoughts out about that. I send her, you know, happy birthday and Merry Christmas and wherever we're at in our life. And like I said, up to this point, she's still not blocking me from receiving any messages or anything. So I kinda hold that. in my heart a little bit. So after that, I feel very, very angry. Probably even more so towards whoever it is that my opera's father is. And God started started to deal with me. It's like you cannot hold this kind of anger towards somebody. You're gonna have to get it resolved. You're gonna have to work with it, you're gonna find somehow and some way to forgive. And I rest with that so long how in the world can I forgive the unforgivable? He doesn't deserve to be forgiven. That's what was in my head for so many months. He just kept dealing with me, dealing with me about that issue and I'm like, yeah I finally got tired of fighting. I was like, you know what, if you want to forgive you to help me I said I'll pray for him but I don't know what else to do. Slowly but surely that anger slowly melted away and that gets me up until the year 2016. I still was unsure who my birth father was in June I got a new ancestry match the ancestry match with my birth father. It was not my grandfather it was my uncle so at that point all that anger started building back up again. God had to deal with me on that one too. It's like you know what when you thought it was your grandfather if you worked up the forgiveness for him so there's no difference. It's still the same kind of forgiveness. I said okay I gotta pray about that one too because it's not easy. I ended up sending my first father a Facebook message and the messenger through ancestry. I told him I knew who he was I'd already had a good idea that he was my bro father. I had reminded him of the time that we saw him at the book venue. I said I still have the book that you signed over for me that my wife bought from you. I said I have it I said uh I know you don't want to have anything to do with me you have two sons that are my half brothers I said um I won't do anything to contact him at this time I don't want to upset anybody and he's not logged back into Ancestry ever since the first time that he did and saw that I was his son by match that was in 2016 I have met one of his sons twice he is a musician and we have gone to two of his shows that he's been playing at I never told him who I was I've got pictures of me and him standing together I'm thinking this is my brother and he don't even know who I am that's where I left it at that I've not talked to him or tried to contact them or letting them know who I am and I've had that a lot of people tell me you know well they're your brothers they have a right to know about you too I understand that the only problem is whenever that cat gets out of the bag there's no putting it back in like I'm a son of your father from some girlfriend that he met somewhere down the road I mean this is big this is whole family changing this kind of information. And so that is where I'm at now today with my birth family. I did find out that as far as we can tell my birth mom she never did marry anyone she's never had any other children so I don't know if I've if I broke the mold on that one or I'm not sure what kind of issues that she has but from what I can find she seems to be a very nice and loving type person. I can't tell that her and her brother have no kind of connection not anything even looking back on the things that I have found out and as bad and horrible as it was and as as bad of a place as it put me I would not trade it for that first moment when I saw my mom that was for every bit of hurt and pain that I went through I wouldn't trade it. You know and I had thought during the first two or three years and I had to like why in the world did God allow me to find her and all this stuff out like what is what is his purpose it was probably a couple of years ago that I was just thinking it's like you know what I said if I did not find my mom I said who would be praying for her right now? Maybe nobody. I pray for my mom every day all the time who is out there on behalf of my mom besides me maybe that's why I found her to show her love when nobody else was going to I love her in spite of her past. As much as I would like to have the secret ended I'm not sure if I want to be the one to do it. As much as I would want my truth to be known and for it to be out I just don't want to hurt somebody to do it. When it all comes down to it in the end I will have held my head higher and I would have done things with honesty and I had others feelings ahead of mine. I want to be that kind of a person. I was thinking about the other day it's like it's been four and a half years like I would not have thought four and a half years ago that I would still be here four and a half years later still I mean I look at my mom's Facebook page all the time. I go to my half brother's page all the time. I still pray for him all the time it's like it has to be from God because I don't have this love just within me of my own. I would have given up on myself a long time ago. I would have been just like you know what throwing my hands up just if they don't want anything to do with me then that's that's their loss. And it's like I've come too far to just let it go. I'm not giving up so that's just for I just trudge on every day I'll tell you how hopeful I am I look all the time for that one little message to come from my mom. I mean like literally I look at my phone I wonder if she sent me something this morning while I was asleep last night. It's still the same today as it was four years ago. I still look for her just the same now as I did four years ago. It's not changed, it's not lit up now if whenever this meeting ever does occur I can hopefully show her how forgiveness works. Just maybe that will be part of the healing process for her. I want people to know who is on the other side of these searches. Who is on the other side of these kit numbers it's a real person. We have real feelings and we have real problems. People like CC and others they help so many people and I just don't forget your compassion for other people. This podcast may help somebody that I don't even know that may be in the same kind of situation that that I'm in or that you've been and it's like maybe this will be something that will bring somebody back from the brink. If there's one thing that's helped me over the past four years is being able to tell my story to others that are struggling and that are hurt and that are angry and all of those emotional things that people go through it's like you know I don't know that I can help you. I can just tell you what has happened to me and what I went through. And sometimes that's all people want to relate to somebody that they're not out there all alone. I know what it means to be angry. I know what it means to feel hurt and you're not alone I know that I've gone through what I've gone through for a reason and maybe that's one reason is out there still and if I can help one person then that's that's worth it all the Born a Secret podcast is on a mission to inspire compassion among all sides of a search journey and to raise awareness for the safe and law please go to bornasecret.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?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

For information about the Safe Haven law and Safe Haven resources please go to www dot national safe haven alliance dot org or call one eight eight eight five one zero two two two nine for twenty four seven confidential support