Adopted Daughter Discovers Birth Mother was Ex-Colleague

[SaintHiρρo]

When Michelle Wetzell worked at a beauty salon, she was envious of the receptionist's two daughters for having such a great, bubbly mum.

Mrs Wetzell, 30, who was adopted when she was four days old, told her colleagues that she had a fantasy about finding her birth mother, sending her a coupon for a free manicure and then meeting her without any awkwardness or rejection.

She could, if she had known, simply walked a few feet to the front counter and given her the coupon herself. For, in an amazing coincidence, her birth mother was the receptionist.

Mrs Wetzell found this out only four months ago after a doctor told her to see if there was a history of heart disease in her family when he discovered she had high cholesterol.

She met her mother, Cathy Henzen, 55, in February and the pair have been getting to know each other before revealing their story to their local paper, the Quad-City Times in Iowa.

Mother and daughter, who worked together in 1996, have now been whisked from their homes in Illinois to New York to start the round of chat shows.

Sitting at Ms Henzen's kitchen table the pair told the newspaper their tale.

"Gosh, Michelle, what if you had come up and we had started talking? We would have known (about our connection), I think," Ms Henzen said.

"Absolutely," Mrs Wetzell said.

Ms Henzen found out she was pregnant in 1975 at a time when she was getting a divorce and already had two young daughters.

She was living in East Moline, Illinois and still sharing an apartment with her husband because they couldn't afford separate homes.

There were lots of arguments and she feared her daughters were being harmed by seeing and listening to the fighting. "I couldn't risk bringing another child into this family," Ms Henzen said.

She decided to place her child for adoption with a non-profit agency and on February 23, 1976, medical staff took the newborn girl away five minutes after she was born.

Michelle Wetzell was adopted by a couple from Prophetstown, and was told that she was adopted even before she understood what it meant.

As Mrs Wetzell entered school, she began to notice all the ways she was different from the rest of her family. She was outgoing, but struggled in school. Her two siblings were top students, but were reserved.

Like many adopted children, she fantasised about her biological family, imagining that she might fit in better with them. This grew into a consuming anxiety when was in her early teens.

After graduating from high school she attended a cosmetology school and got a job doing manicures at Hair By Stewarts.

At the salon, she was one of about a dozen young women who did hair and nails. Ms Henzen greeted customers and scheduled appointments.

Mrs Wetzell remembers her mother as the glue that held the business together with her bubbly personality and her ability to stay cool during busy times.

Ms Henzen's two grown daughters — who were 6 and 7 when Mrs Wetzell was born — would visit her at work and say hello to the other employees.

"We were envious of her two girls, Carrie and Chrissy. We were like, 'Oh man, we love Cathy so much. We wish our mom was like Cathy,'" Mrs Wetzell said.

In the 10 years since leaving the salon, Mrs Wetzell moved back to Prophetstown, got married and has a 2-year-old daughter. She works part-time jobs as a bartender at a country club and as a manicurist.

Ms Henzen, who is single, left the salon in 1998 and now works as a receptionist for a trucking company.

The two women were reunited because of the medical advice.

Mrs Wetzell's adoptive mother, urged caution. "I just didn't want her to be hurt. As it turns out, it was fine. But I said to her, 'You have no idea what you're going to find,'" she said.

Mrs Wetzell went to her adoption agency and Deanna Solis, the programme supervisor, agreed to help, only if the biological parents wanted to be contacted.

"It's a very sensitive situation and needs to be approached delicately," she said.

Ms Henzen agreed to give her medical history and contact information. Her ex-husband agreed to give his medical history, but has not yet had contact with Mrs Wetzell.

The first communication was a letter from Mrs Wetzell to her birth mother in mid-January. At this point, the women didn't know they had met before as adults.

In February a case worker noticed that the two women had both worked in cosmetology and mentioned this to Mrs Wetzell who asked for more information about Ms Henzen's job experience.

After a few minutes, it clicked. The case worker then called Ms Henzen to tell her the news that her daughter was a former co-worker.

"I was like, 'Oh ... my ... gosh,'" Ms Henzen said.

The pair spoke on the phone and then met in person, Mrs Wetzell with her adoptive mother and sister at her side.

Since then they have spoken or met every few days and are slowly trying to figure out what kind of relationship they will have and how their immediate families will be involved.

"Where does it go from here? I just think that we take it a day at a time," Ms Henzen said.

Mrs Wetzell said she can see elements of her outgoing personality in her biological mother, something that helps her understand herself.

Ms Henzen said she feels validated that she made the right decision 30 years ago because she can see that Mrs Wetzell turned out to be the kind of person anybody would want as a daughter or a friend.

"In my heart I believe I did make the right decision," Ms Henzen said.

[tigereyes]

That's a very nice story.