“A few months later, I found out I was pregnant. I was still a kid at 14 and very immature, naïve, and full of denial and unbelief. I can't remember telling anyone, even friends, that I was pregnant. At that time, I was part of a massive choir for healing services, and I prayed for a miracle that this pregnancy would go away. It didn't.

When I was 5 months along, my mother confronted me. I'm sure she had known for awhile. By this time my parents were close to 60 and didn't feel they could raise another child. I knew I could not raise a child on my own without an education, so before my daughter was born, I decided to place her for adoption…”

In early 1969, me and my girlfriend discovered we were pregnant.  She was 17 and going to high school; I was 19 and a high school graduate working as a laborer.  My parents had a meeting with her parents at their home.  Her mother took control as my parents were not in a position to say much.  She decided her daughter would be sent away, have the baby, give it up for adoption, and no one would be any wiser…

My heart is full to overflowing with the love I have for the people in my life that I call my family.

My story starts September 7, 1969.

I was born at Grace Hospital in Calgary, Alberta. When I was seven weeks old, I was adopted. From my earliest memories, I knew that I was deeply loved, cared for and wanted by my new family...

In 1999, my Dad Levi passed away from cancer, and in 2002 we lost my wonderful husband Pedro to cancer. As I grieved the loss of these wonderful men in my life, I also realized that each year that passed by, there was the possibility that one of my birth grandparents or one of my birth parents might pass away, forever closing the possibility of ever meeting...

I had tears in my eyes the first time my Mom got to meet my Dad, Bill. She hugged him and said, “thank you for my daughter,” and my Dad said, “thank you for raising my daughter”.