Adopted woman spent 30 years believing she was given up by her parents — until a message confirmed her gut feeling
Most adopted children have the lingering desire to be reunited with their biological parents, at least to get closure on their life story. Even though decades pass, the question about their origin and birth is one that they strive to get answers for. A woman named Kaitlin Saar also wanted answers to this question, CBS News reported. The woman was told that she was adopted at a young age because her birth mom was poor and wanted a better life for her. However, she wasn’t too convinced and decided to dig out the truth herself. After 41 years, she finally learned what happened and was able to get the most soothing closure.
"The story that my parents were told was that she was poor, she was young and she wanted me to have a better life, so she agreed to give me up for adoption," Saar recalled. Something didn’t seem satisfying about this reason and so she set out to get an explanation for herself. But there was nothing much she could do. With no other information, it was a long shot before she got any leads on her biological parents. Finally, after a long wait, the woman received a Facebook message from an unknown person. It was the message she never knew she’d been waiting for.
"It said, 'I'm writing to you because this is an attempt to contact you and your biological mother,' basically to get us together," Saar explained. She contacted Tyler Graf, who works with a nonprofit, Connecting Roots. The organization has been reuniting adoptees with her biological families. When she connected with him, she realized a disturbing truth. At the time when she was put up for adoption, Chilean babies were illegally adopted under Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. "All of our paperwork said that we were given away willfully because of economic hard times, and so a lot of us never even looked for our families," Graf explained.
Maria Gonzalez Seguel, the woman who gave birth to her when she was 16, had spent over three decades trying to find her beloved daughter. Seguel hadn’t stopped her search. Through her human rights attorney, she obtained Saar’s hidden birth certificate and was able to get more information on her daughter, ABC 7 revealed. Finally, she set out to look for her on social media, and with the help of the organization, they learned each other’s identities. "Lots of beautiful things, happy feelings, a lot of excitement and also sadness," Gonzalez Seguel remarked. They were more determined than ever to confirm what they already hoped for in their hearts.
After getting DNA and other tests, it was verified that Saar was Seguel’s biological child. After connecting, the duo was finally able to reunite in person. Saar took her back to her home, where she was able to meet her adoptive mom and her own children. Finally stepping into her life, Seguel was able to become a mother and grandmother all at once and it was the most reassuring feeling. “We just started talking over the summer and here she is staying with me in my house. It's just a dream," Saar said. "Touching her, even smelling her, it was just so surreal," she added.