Earlier, while relaxing for a few minutes, I was flipping through the new (July 2007) issue of Reader’s Digest when I stumbled upon a neat adoption story.

Laurie Thompson was a sales supervisor in the advertising department of a radio station in Erie, Pennsylvania, when one of her frustrated sales reps, Missi Meeley, dropped by her office one afternoon. The conversation turned friendly and Missi mentioned that she was adopted. Missi had gotten used to people asking questions when she told them she was adopted and wasn’t surprised when Laurie asked if she had searched for her birthparents. Missi replied no and said she just hadn’t gotten around to it. Missi then relayed the little information that she did know including the name of the hospital she was born at, her birth date, that her birthmother had been just sixteen and that her birthfather had been eighteen.

The next day, Laurie, supervised Missi making sales calls and then asked her to join her for lunch. Once at lunch, Missi joked and asked if that was Laurie’s polite way of firing her. Laurie of course said no and then asked if she had information on her birthparents would Missi want to know. After Missi said yes, Laurie blurted out with “I think that your birthparents are me and my husband.”

You see, it turns out, at sixteen on the exact same day of Missi’s birth in the exact same hospital; Laurie gave birth to a baby girl by c-section. Young and financially unprepared to raise a baby, Laurie and her high school sweetheart, Chuck, whom she later married, decided to place the baby for adoption. Through the years, they often wondered of their daughter and how she was.

To be sure they actually were biological mother and daughter, Laurie and Missi ended up going to the county courthouse and filled out the paperwork requesting that the Orphan’s Court staff pull Missi’s file. A week later, it was confirmed, they were indeed mother and daughter.

The story ends with Laurie and Chuck having a barbeque at Missi’s adoptive parent’s house. Missi’s adoptive mother had made Laurie and Chuck an album full of pictures of Missi over the years and welcome them as a part of their extended family. As Missi plans marriage for her own future, her adoptive dad has invited Chuck to escort her down the aisle with him!

It’s definitely not one of your average adoption stories and definitely one worth reading if you happen upon July’s Reader’s Digest.

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Other interesting stories we've blogged about in the Open Adoption Blog:
A Special Birthday Celebration
Two Real Mothers