The reunion only God could arrange

An adoption reunion story

I was nineteen and too immature to deal with getting pregnant outside of marriage.

What a strange word — wedlock. When is it used except when a girl is in trouble? We say people are married, not that they are in wedlock or locked by marriage. Yet the dictionary defines it simply as “the state of being married.”

The year was 1967, and I was sneaking around to see a guy my older brother had forbidden me to date. They were friends, and my brother knew him well — well enough, I suppose, to know how he might handle the situation I now found myself in. It was hard to tell my boyfriend I was pregnant, and when I did, he offered to arrange an illegal abortion. I thought I was in love with him. I had carried a crush on him since the eighth grade.

But I have learned a few things since I was that nineteen-year-old girl, and one of them is this: being a victim of abuse damages your decision-making. I had no love at home. There were no lessons about the birds and the bees, no talk about what happens when you have your period or why. My sex education came from my cousin and the rumors I heard at school — neither of which gave me enough to understand why God gave women a hymen. I had been sexually abused, but that is not education.

But you could say I was looking for love in all the wrong places

Then I had to tell my abusive mother — because I did not want an abortion. Mother, of course, took charge. She would take me to my brother’s home in another state, where I would have the baby and put him up for adoption.

Before I became pregnant, I had been sick and hospitalized for nearly a week, with three doctors telling me to quit my job. So there I was — pregnant, with no support. I tried to take good care of myself and the baby. I knew enough to pray that he would go to a stable home, filled with love and all the things I knew I could not provide.

I did not know much about being a Christian. I had accepted Christ at thirteen, but Sunday school lessons and the Southern Baptist preacher did not instill good behavior, nor did they teach me how to have a real relationship with God. I went forward at thirteen because the hellfire-and-brimstone sermons — delivered by a red-faced preacher wiping sweat from his brow — frightened me, and I wanted my spot in heaven secured.

In 1967–1968, girls rarely stayed home to have babies outside of marriage. There were homes for girls like me. At the last minute, Mama changed her mind. I would stay home. She called a lawyer and arranged a private adoption.

The baby was due in June, and I would deliver at the local hospital. In those days, general anesthesia was standard for delivery. My doctor made sure I received it early. I came to briefly when my water broke, and they put me back under. After the birth, they moved me to a regular room where I would spend several days. The baby went to his new home shortly after delivery.

I had already signed papers stating my intention to give the baby up for adoption. But in the hospital, I was handed additional legal documents to sign. A nurse stood outside my room with a syringe filled with a sedative — my doctor knew how devastated I was going to be.

Those were some of the darkest days of my life

I was grieving for a baby I had never held. It is an emotional and physical pain that cannot be explained to anyone who has not been there.

One day, my sister-in-law asked me to run an errand with her. While out, I saw my old boyfriend step out of a work van and walk into a dry cleaner’s — and I became physically ill on the spot. My sister-in-law took me straight to my doctor. She went in and told him how upset I had become. He sent her back out with something to calm me down. It had been only a couple of weeks since the baby’s birth.

I prayed a great deal, cried often, healed physically, and eventually found another job. A rumor circulated that the baby had been a girl. I kept praying and kept working. I kept my head down.

Then one day, a letter arrived from the state. It confirmed the baby was a boy and stated that I had the right to claim him. The letter also confirmed that only my medical bills had been covered — I had not profited from the adoption. I would not have put it past my mother to have accepted something, but if she had, I never knew. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to go to the courthouse on the date of the final adoption and bring him home.

I eventually met a man at work, and we married. I had two more sons. As those boys grew and became involved in scouts and sports, I always scanned the crowd for a little boy with his father’s features. I never spotted him.

Then, when my oldest son would have been about ten, the boys and I were at the mall. I was scanning the crowd again — I had pictured his face a million times — when I heard God say quietly, “Why do you think he can’t look like you?”

I started to cry, but I didn’t want the boys to see me. I prayed, God, no — I am ugly; my mother has told me so my whole life. Please don’t let him look like me.

After that, I still scanned the crowds, but I no longer knew what to expect. I had prayed that at sixteen my son would find me. Then I thought, surely by eighteen. Then perhaps his adoptive parents hadn’t told him he was adopted. I kept praying for him — that he would be loved, treated well, and come to know Christ.

I was a bitter person with a hot temper. I did my best to raise my two sons to be good, godly men. My husband, meanwhile, decided there were other places and other women who deserved his time. He had also forbidden me from telling our sons about their older brother. That kind of marriage did nothing for my confidence, and after nearly fifteen years, we divorced.

Then, scanning turned to 39 years of searching

I had been searching adoption registries, newspaper notices, and anything else I could find that might help me locate my son. When home computers became common, I got one — and my search moved online. I registered everywhere I could find, leaving the same message in every place:

Here I am. If you want a relationship, I am here. I am your mother.

Still, God was working on my healing — slowly, deliberately, going deep into wounds that could not be seen. It took quite a few years to reach the deepest ones.

I took a couple of Bible studies at church where I encountered truths I had never heard before and began — truly began — to release my anger and bitterness.

The prayer that changed everything

One Monday night, driving home after a study, I was praying. Then I felt led to pray this:

“Father God, it has been thirty-nine years since I gave my son up. I suppose it is not Your will for me to see him in this lifetime. If that is Your will, so be it. I will see him in heaven. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

I immediately felt lighter.

The Phone Call

On Tuesday, I came home from work and checked my phone messages. One said, “This is a confidential call and not a sales call. Please call back at this number.” It was around 7:30 p.m., but I called and left a message saying I was off work the next day and would be home most of the morning.

The next morning, while making the bed, the phone rang.

“Is this Glenda? Was your maiden name Mays?”

Yes.

“Are you alone?”

Yes.

“Are you sitting down?”

I am now — I pulled back the covers and climbed into bed.

“Did you give up a child for adoption in 1968?”

Yes.

“Can you confirm the date?”

June 8, 1968.

Then she said it: “Your son is trying to locate you.”

That poor woman received the full force of my tears of joy. She wanted to hear my story, and in an instant, I was nineteen again — not a young woman, because I was not one. I was a girl.

I went through a roller coaster of emotions in the days that followed. One moment, I was reliving the anguish of giving my son up. Next, I was overwhelmed with joy at the thought that he wanted to find me. The high and low emotions lasted for weeks.

But before my son could contact me, I had to complete a form — print it, have it notarized, and fax it back to the woman. I had to get out of bed. There were things to do. I still didn’t have a name or any idea where my son lived.

But I was over the moon.

I waited, and nothing happened that afternoon. The woman called back to say my son was out of town on business and would be home the next day.

On Thursday, his wife called. His meeting had run over. He would be home on Friday and would call around 9 p.m.

But she gave me his name

I told everyone. Strangers. The teller at the bank. It was even more miraculous to me than surviving kidney surgery — and that says a great deal. I should have taken a leave of absence from work; my mind was certainly not there. But I made no significant errors. God was watching over me.

It was the week before Thanksgiving. He and his family were packing to travel to his wife’s sister’s home out of state for the holiday. I learned I had three new grandsons. They lived about half an hour away. We arranged to meet the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

I could not absorb half of our conversation because my mind kept repeating one thing: That is your son’s voice.

The Sunday we were to meet, I tried to sit still in church and listen. My heart was pounding. I don’t have words for what I was feeling — but I believe I was glowing. I must have been glowing.

And I said, Lord, why did You answer this prayer?

One word came back: Faithful.

God is always faithful. He had been waiting thirty-nine years for me to release the stronghold of searching — to place it fully in His hands — so that He could give me back my son.

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