Grab your tissues, this letter from Baby Boy #3331 to his birth mother may bring on the tears. Some reunion stories appeal more to birth parents, however, this story has aspects that I believe will touch adoptive parents as well. There are several extremely touching and heartbreaking parts to this story. For starters, the original adoption agreement states that if the adopting wish decide that they do not want "to make this child legally our own, baby boy #3331 may be returned." That chills me, and if I had not seen a similar line on another adoption agreement, I would be stunned. Babies can be kept for awhile on a trial basis? What a concept to wrap your brain around!

Next, there is mention of the adoption record being sealed for 99 years after the adoption. That fact is also a difficult fact to comprehend. Why was that ever necessary? I know all the theories behind the secrecy - the shame of unwed mothers, etc., and yet, was the secrecy ever necessary between a mother and her child? Besides, with all the discussions about secrecy, most of us know that even in closed adoptions, adoptive parents often have at least some of the birth mother's information.

These lines in particular written by the son to his birth mother move me to tears, because I know the answer to the questions pondered by this woman's son.

Did anyone explain to you what we would, and would never, know about each other? Did anyone talk with you about the possibility that someday you might wonder about me, or that I might wonder about you?

Unless his birth mother Rosalie was a rare exception, she was probably told very little about what to expect. She certainly was unlikely to have been told her son might someday have an interest in knowing about her. That fact just was not one often mentioned to young mothers who relinquished. The clear impression was that they were expendable, and their children would not need to know them.