Five years ago tonight, I received the most life-altering phone call of my lifetime. That call was from a stranger named Sara. Just as I walked in the back door after work, my husband shoved the phone in my hand and said, "It's for you." I can't tell you why, but, there was an immediate sense of foreboding as I took the phone. From the moment he handed me the phone, I felt an uneasy sense of something out of the ordinary.

The phone call was from a social worker at the agency that handled my son's adoption - nearly 32 years earlier. Sara was a soft-spoken woman with a gentle reassuring voice. After she confirmed my maiden name with me, she told me why she was calling. I was stunned and unable to speak for awhile.

Birth mothers from my era handled the loss of their children in a variety of different ways. Many of us were told to forget and go on with our lives as if nothing had happened. Being pregnant for nine months, giving birth and then signing papers that basically said someone else would raise your children were all significant events impossible to "forget". How could anyone ever believe that those events were forgettable?

I had not forgotten certainly, and when I got the call from Sara, all the memories of my son came flooding back. First, I recalled how I felt before he was born, and how excited and eager I was for his birth, at least until the adoption arrangements were made. I had planned to raise my son, only weeks before he was born, was I persuaded otherwise.

Next,I remembered how I felt leaving the hospital - without my son. Dark nights and days after I arrived home threatened to destroy me. Anti-depressants finally numbed the pain and allowed me to survive. And now, nearly 32 years later - the phone rang.

"Your son is searching for you," Sara began.

To Be Continued......................................