Thoughts & Revelations (Chapter 2)

Here is the story of my daughter Alyssa. I'm going to make this as short as possible. I'm going to focus on the bad as little as possible. Understand that my children will probably be reading this.

My youngest daughter Alyssa who just turned 15, was born in '92, such a beautiful baby. I have 3 more beautiful children. Anthony is 20, Ashley is 18, and Autumn is 17.

In '94 my daughter Alyssa was kidnapped when she was two years old and we had no idea where she was or if she was alive or dead. My life basically fell apart. If I didn't have my other children, I probably would not have survived. I lived angry and hurt for many years. I was very dark and depressed. I didn't know how to recover from this. How do you move on with your life? How do you try to forget? My children paid dearly because I wasn't able to always be the mother they needed. I was too damaged on the inside. Sometimes it was just hard enough to make through the day.

Eventually I tried to move on in some aspect. All hope of finding her after so many years was lost. I even stopped telling people that I had 4 children. As far as anyone was concerned, I only had 3 children. My children eventually stopped asking about her also. I kept her pictures in a box. I visited that box often to look through it. There was never a day that went by I didn't think about her. Every holiday I would say something to her in my heart. I just couldn't keep explaining the circumstances to anyone anymore. It was way too painful. Life has never been normal to me.

In October '05 I was at a luncheon with people I worked with. I was sitting in the corner of a booth. My cell phone rang. It was my ex-husband and I was busy so I didn't answer it. Then my phone rang again and it was an 812 area code. I had this strange feeling inside like something wasn't right. I decided to call my ex-husband back. He answered the phone and asked me if I was sitting down, if I was going to be ok if he told me something. I got frustrated with him and told him to just tell me already. I was getting nervous because I thought something was wrong with my other daughter Autumn, who lives with him. He then began to tell me how he received a phone call from a caseworker with D.C.S. in Lawrence county Indiana. He said that they believed they had our daughter in custody. He said much more but those were the only words I could remember. I just broke down and couldn't restrain myself. The people around me had no idea what was going on. They thought someone had died. They had no idea that I heard the words I had been waiting to hear for 11 years. I rode in a carpool to the luncheon and I just begged for someone to please take me back to the office. Everyone kept trying to get me to tell them what was the matter. Finally someone took me back to the office. I did nothing but sob the whole trip back to the office and never said a word.

When I got back, I closed myself in a conference room. I called the caseworker, whose name was Angie. I don't believe she understood a word of what I said because I couldn't stop sobbing. Angie explained that Alyssa was abused and had been placed in foster care. I was devastated. I had to explain that she had been missing and we had been looking for her for years but had no leads. She told me that Alyssa's case file had been passed from worker to worker and when it reached her she got the FBI involved and located my ex-husband. My last name had changed of course because of the divorce. I was still a little leery that this was actually my daughter and that this wasn't just some joke. I figured someone would shake me at any moment and tell me to wake up. I asked Angie where do we go from here. I wanted to jump on a plane at that very moment to go and hold Alyssa and let her know that she was now safe. It wasn't that easy, this was going to be a challenge.

The only reason why I was actually searched for was because a family wanted to adopt Alyssa and needed my signature. They were totally unaware of the circumstances. Angie let me know that telling Alyssa about her family that had been searching for her was going to be a slow process. Alyssa just found out that who she thought was her family wasn't really her family and that basically her whole life was a lie. Also she was going through trying to prosecute the person who had been abusing her. She was going through enough already. They really needed to ease this whole other side of the story in.

I knew that eventually they were going to tell her and I was going to have to play by their rules. She was now a ward of the state of Indiana. I soon received in the mail copies of all the police reports and court documents about the abuse. Talk about the ultimate feelings of guilt and regret, I was overwhelmed. I was getting so impatient for them to just tell her about us already. I decided to write her a letter and tell her a little bit about each of us. I also got together some pictures of all of us so that she could see her brother and sisters. I still didn't have any pictures of her. I wanted to see her so badly. Just to see what she looked like. If it was anything like I imagined all these years. I wanted to hug her and never let her go. It was hard to sleep, eat, to function in any way.

Angie told me that the counselor in a session brought up how she would feel if they found her mother. Alyssa responded to her counselor by telling her that most of her life she was told that her mother abandoned her and wanted nothing to do with her, also that her mother tried to put her up for adoption for money. She told the counselor that she wanted nothing to do with her mother. That was a hard conversation to have. I just had hope that when she found out the truth that she would change her heart. I never abandoned her! She was stolen from me!
Finally they set the date to tell her! I was so excited! I couldn't sleep that night. I spoke with Angie the next day and she told me that the counselor cancelled the meeting because she was very sick. She rescheduled for two weeks later. Did these people have any idea of the torment I was going through? That was the longest two weeks ever!

Finally on the new appointment date I called Angie and made for sure that no one was sick and that this appointment was going to actually happen. She assured me that all was good and everyone was going to be there that needed to be. The appointment was for 6:00 that evening so I wouldn't hear anything until the next day. I stayed awake all night long wondering and imagining how that meeting went. I was so hopeful that Alyssa took it well. I knew she had been through so much already.

The next morning, which was a Friday, I started calling as soon as I could. Angie finally contacted me, and told me that everything went well. She said that Alyssa sat there and had a big smile on her face while the counselor read the letter I had written her. Angie also said that everyone in the room was telling Alyssa how much she looked like us from the pictures I had sent. I told Angie that I would still like to have some pictures of Alyssa too. She said she was working on it. I felt so relieved. She finally knew that she wasn't alone and that she had this huge family that loved her and had been looking for her for all these years.

Then Angie informed me of some more hard news. I had to wait two more weeks to talk to her because according to their rules it had to be in a counseling session so that we had a mediator. I thought to myself, how could I make it another two weeks? The insane patience they were asking of us! I called my family and let them know that Alyssa knows about all of us. I cried most of the day.

That evening I was working late and had some deadlines to meet. My desk phone rang and I looked up, it was an 812 area code. I answered thinking it was the caseworker Angie. I said, "Hello, this is Vanessa, can I help you?" A small voice responded and said, "Do you know who this is?" I felt my heart come up in my throat and skipped a few beats, I said, "Who is this?" She responded, "This is your daughter Alyssa." I said, "Oh my God, I didn't expect you to be calling and I think I'm going to cry. I started sobbing and the lady that works at the desk next to me brought me Kleenex because she just knew it was my daughter. I talked to her for a few moments and asked her if there was any way I could call her back because I had a deadline to meet at work. I also wanted to have a more private conversation with Alyssa. She asked her foster mother and gave me the telephone number. I could hardly focus on my work! I wanted out of there to call her back so badly!

When I left work I talked with her for hours. We had no problems talking with each other. My oldest daughter Ashley called while I was on the phone with Alyssa. I told her I was on the phone with Alyssa and she had her friend bring her home in panic. I told Alyssa how Angie had told me that I wasn't able to talk to her for 2 weeks. Alyssa said she called Angie and told her that she wasn't waiting 2 weeks to talk to her mother and Angie gave her my contact information. Hearing Alyssa on the phone was the best feeling in the world. Remember at that point that I still haven't seen pictures of her yet. So at that point if a voice was all I had then I was very grateful for it.

The next few weeks we talked daily on the phone. According to the rules she was only allowed to be on the phone for so long so I had to respect their rules. Alyssa told me that she had a court date coming up to confront her abuser. She asked me if I would be there. I told her I wouldn't miss it for the world. Alyssa told me that she was putting together a scrapbook of pictures of her growing up so that I would have them. According to the foster parents rules with the state, they weren't allowed to let their foster children give out pictures of themselves. Once again, I had to play by their rules. Everyone in my family took turns talking to her on the phone so she could get to know us as much as possible. Angie told me that she set it up to where I could come to court the same day to make it known I had intentions of regaining custody of Alyssa.

My mother, my daughter Ashley and I made plans for our trip. The court date was December 7, 2005. It took every bit of money I had to make this trip. Being a single parent, this was going to be hard and I knew it. I told Alyssa of my intentions of eventually bringing her home with us. She got a little scared and had a conversation with me. She told me that she was glad she found me but that she was happy where she was and wanted to stay there. I really questioned my self on if I was doing the right thing. Would I be the kind of mother she needs? Should I bring this child who has suffered so much and has now rebuilt her life back home with me unwilling? What kind of issues would this cause for her mentally and emotionally? I had several conversations with my children and how they felt about it and cried to them about it. My son said the best words ever to me. He said, "Mom, you would die for us and that makes you a good mother" They all agreed that this was the right thing to do.

I got on my knees and prayed a lot after that. Asked God to show me the way. If He brought me this far then He had to take care of this. I knew at that point that his hand had to be in this because it was almost an impossibility that they even found us. I have learned that God will make a way when there seems to be no way. Then I just went on with making our plans for our trip.

I will continue the rest in my next blog.