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We often hear about mothers and their relinquished children reuniting. If the biological father is involved in the reunion, he is often brought into the picture once the first mother has located the child. In a heartwarming story featured in the Des Moines Register, a biological father went out of his way to find his daughter; a daughter he didn’t know existed for quite some time.
Birth fathers get a bad reputation. It’s always assumed that they “up and ran” when they heard about the pregnancy. Just another stereotype that follows birth parents around, most people often accept it without question. However, this story doesn’t even remotely follow that flawed line of thinking. In fact, if anything happened, the biological mother “up and ran.” That’s right. This man never even knew his high school love was pregnant. One summer she simply disappeared. We find out in the article that she wasn’t exactly a girl who was “sent” away, like many others from the closed adoption era, but more a girl who chose to go away.
Byrdene told him everything. Pregnant at age 19, she was sure the baby would stop Richard from enrolling at Iowa State University that fall.
So rather than tell him, she moved to Des Moines and had the baby alone. The adoption was finalized within five days of the birth.
He didn’t tell his wife. He didn’t tell anyone, actually, until he remarried. Upon marrying his second wife, he did inform her that he might “have a daughter out there somewhere.” However, he still didn’t start the search at that time.
It took the death of his true love, his daughter’s birth mother, and the discovering of baby clothes for the realization that a baby did exist to throw him into action. Iowa has some pretty unfriendly adoption laws and he found himself facing closed door after closed door. Finally, he contacted Tom Vilsack, the Iowa governor who has openly talked about his adoption issues, for help. He was given the name of a private investigator.
Two years after the search initiated, his daughter was found. The first phone call went well. And so did the following phone calls. And then their first face to face, caught on camera and visible at the article, seems to have gone well, too. It’s the stuff that sappy movies are made of and, quite frankly, I think we all need to see that sometimes happy endings can happen. (Though, anyone who knows anything about reunion knows that the first face-to-face is not an ending but merely a beginning.)
Some interesting facts are included on a side bar of the article, including one stating that only five percent of adoption searches are initiated by birth fathers (at least at this searcher’s office). I think it’s fascinating and interesting that this particular story was told considering how many stereotypes it breaks to pieces. It is my hope to see more stories featuring amazing biological fathers presented by main stream media outlets! Shocking and pleasing indeed!
Our best wishes go out to this family as they continue to make their way down the path of reunion!
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For more, read:
2. Reunion Doubts.
What a really wonderful article!
I agree it is good news to see birthfathers profiled in a positive way.
I think birthfathers are often forgotten in the adoption process, sadly they are often not even informed about it, which is highly unfair and unethical.
It was indeed to see a positive story about birth fathers. I was reunited with my birth father in 1992 when I was 28 years old. He had been at the hospital when I was born, he met with the social workers, he signed all the papers. He wondered for 28 years if I was alive or dead. Our reunion was great and I became closer to him than to my birth mother.
Deb; The article just pleased me so much. It’s rare that I smile while reading a mainstream article about adoption!
mcmom1; Thank you so much for sharing that in a comment! It’s refreshing to hear stories of reunions with biological fathers that a) go well and b) are cherished by their children. I know they exist and I want to hear more about them!!