Reunion gives birth mothers a 'second chance'

Jane

Denise Roessle is euphoric when she learns that her son, whom she had lost to adoption twenty-six years earlier, has been matched to her through the International Soundex Reunion Registry. As the adult man replaces the fantasy child, though, anxiety replaces euphoria.

Denise was nineteen and living in Hawaii in 1969 when she became pregnant by a handsome Marine. After he reneged on his promise to marry her, her parents sent to a home in Los Angeles and arranged with a lawyer who specialized in placing children with Jewish families in New York to handle the adoption of Denise’s son. Erick Alan Janson became Joshua Goldberg, the son of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.

Some happy endings have a twist mothers don't expect

Jane

“YOUR SON IS A CRACK ADDICT AND A SCHIZOPHRENIC” was the first thing Patti Hawn heard about the son she had not seen in 40 years.

Other than this bone-chilling revelation, Hawn’s memoir, Good Girls Don’t, is the oft told and sad tale of a Girl Who Went Away. It’s a story, both simple and profound, which needs to be told again and again, both as catharsis for thousands of first mothers and as a reality check for those who, like NPR weekend host Scott Simon, write in Praise of Adoption.