But because of my legal status and my desire to give my daughter a completely clean, unburdened start, I had to make the agonizing decision to choose a closed adoption. And that is when the lightning bolt hit me.
As my pen hovered over the final paperwork, answering deep background questions for an agency caseworker, the ghost of my childhood vanished. All the unanswered questions I had carried for decades, all the resentment, all the heavy feelings of being “unwanted” suddenly found their place.
I looked at the paperwork, and I finally saw my birth mother.
I understood, for the very first time, the unimaginable shattering of a mother’s heart when she realizes she cannot give her baby the life they deserve. I understood that choosing a closed adoption wasn’t an act of abandonment; it was the ultimate, most agonizing act of selfless love.
She didn’t give me away because she didn’t want me. She gave me away because she loved me enough to endure a lifetime of wondering, just so I could have a chance.
When I finally finished my sentence and came home, finding my biological mother wasn’t a priority. Navigating my own grief and processing the adoption had taken everything out of me, though I carried a profound new perspective on the heavy choices mothers have to make. I thought I had found my closure.
Then, a couple of Christmases later, my parents gave me an unexpected gift: an Ancestry.com DNA kit.
I spit into the tube, expecting nothing more than a pie chart showing my percentage of German or English heritage. But late one night, I logged into my account and found a message from a woman who identified herself as an “adoptee angel” ― someone who volunteers to reconnect biological families.
She asked if I was born in Greenville in 1989. Within an hour, I was on the phone with my biological half-sister.
We exchanged pictures and stories, filling in the blanks of a lifetime apart. Through her, I learned about our mother. Tragically, she had passed away in 2017, while I was still serving my prison sentence, and my half-brother had passed away in a motorcycle accident two years later.
It was an overwhelming wave of information, but it brought a peace I didn’t know I was still missing. My sister told me that our mother used to say she “saw me everywhere, all the time,” constantly looking for my face in crowds. It broke my heart, but it also made me smile. As a little girl, I had done the exact same thing, looking at women with similar features and wondering, “Is that her?” Now, I finally had my answer.
Today, I am completely drug-free, all of my legal affairs are fully resolved, and I actively maintain my mental health.
Prison was supposed to be my punishment, but in a strange way, it became the place where I was finally set free from a lifetime of emotional confinement. I lost my daughter to the same agency that found me, but in that devastating loss, I found total forgiveness for the woman who gave me life. And ultimately, for myself.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost in June 2026.