The Journey Begins: I Am Born

On a college campus, in Western Pennsylvania, I was conceived.

A 19 year old Catholic girl, from a large family is away from home for the first time, and falls head over heels for a slightly older guy on campus that tells her what she wants to hear.  They spend a snowy winter weekend together in his apartment, which results in me.

Months later, surprised to learn of my existence, she finds that he has been drafted and she is left to face her pregnancy alone. She doesn't tell her family until the month prior to my birth. She intends to become a teacher, and her potential career will end before it begins if she becomes a single mother. She opts for adoption, with the condition that I am adopted by a Catholic family.

I am born in Grove City, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 1966, and my birth mother chooses not to see me. My maternal grandparents are there and support my mother. They had offered to take me and raise me as their own child, but my mother refuses the offer. I am left in the hands of The Children's Aid Society in Mercer County.