Adoptee Meets Birthmother After 43 Years

“Jill Rayner was one of the “stolen generation” of adopted children from the 1950s to 1970s — when teenage mothers were a social taboo and centres existed to re-home their babies, often by force.

Candace had move to Australia from California with her family when she fell pregnant at just 14.

She was never allowed to see her daughter.

“They wouldn’t let me hold her, they wouldn’t let me do anything,” Candace said.

“I try not to think of the cruelty because then I just feel more hurt.”

Three months later, Candace’s mother and father took her and her brothers back to California.

She never returned to Australia.

Jill was adopted by a loving family along with another girl, Lyn, and it wasn’t until their parents had died that Jill decided to track down her birth mother.

With the help of her adoptive sister, they sought out Jill’s mother’s details on Ancestry.com.

After discovering her married name, Candace Nolan, they searcherd for her on Facebook and Lyn sent the woman they believed to be Jill’s mother a message.

It was months before they got a response, but finally Candace replied:

“Hi, Lyn. This is Candace. Please tell your friend that if it is someone born on February 22, 1971 at 8.01pm in Sydney, she has been in my mind and heart every day for the last 42 years and [I await] contact ASAP.”

“I read the message to Jill. And Jill immediately rang her and the rest was history, isn’t it, really,” Lyn toldSunday Night.

Less than three weeks later, 43-year-old Jill flew to Sulphur Springs, Texas, to meet her birth mother for the first time.

I just wanted to run right into her arms and just hang on for dear life, afraid that I might never get the chance again,” Candace said.

“I can’t help but cry. I don’t want anybody to ever take her out of my life again. Not again. Not again. It was so right after 43 years of waiting, which I thought would never come.”

There were over 150,000 children Like Jill who were taken from their unmarried mothers during that period, often without family consent, and only some of them have had the power to track down their birth parents.

Affected women campaigned for over a decade to have information released and the practice acknowledged before Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard offered a national apology in 2013.”

Meeting her child after 43 years[Yahoo News 7/3/14 by RAHNI SADLER, PRODUCERS: RICHARD ANDREWS, NAOMI SHIVARAMAN]

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