Adoption is a bittersweet choice for many birth mothers who want to give their children loving homes but realize they cannot do it themselves.
For Melanie Pressley, of Medina County, Ohio, adoption was the difficult but right decision for her and her son. She was 18 at the time and unmarried, and she wanted her baby boy to grow up in a loving, two-parent home, News 5 Cleveland reports.
Now, 33 years later, that decision brought about unexpected joy when the mother and son reunited for the first time since birth.
“Life has a funny way of giving you what you need, not what you want. And I guess life just realized that we needed this connection and our families needed each other,” her son, Greg Vossler, told the local news.
Vossler and Pressley found each other earlier this year through a DNA matching service online, according to the report.
Pressley, who later married and had more children, said she really wanted to know if her son was happy. She said she thought about him often over the past three decades, especially on his birth date, June 17.
“One of the very first questions I asked him, which was big for me, was, ‘Are you happy?’ And he came back that he was—oh my gosh—that he’s married, he has two boys. I mean, it was just like spilling everything,” Pressley said.
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She and Vossler said they sent messages back and forth for a while, asking for details to confirm that they were indeed mother and son and finding out more about each other.
“You’re just sitting there and it’s not something that you can ever prepare for mentally, and the way I would constantly describe it was just a surreal moment,” Vossler said.
Then, in June, they finally agreed to meet, and Vossler drove his family from Virginia to Ohio for a visit.
The local news described their meeting:
Both Vossler and Pressley were worried that the connection wouldn’t happen, and that it was somehow all a farce, but they were happily mistaken.
… Vossler said he and Pressley talked for four hours straight that first day. He also met 17 members of his new extended family, including two of his siblings, his aunts, and grandfather.
Later, Pressley and her husband drove to Virginia to visit Greg and his adopted family.
“I am just excited with the ball moving and I am just going to soak up every moment and just enjoy it. Enjoy the little ones also with every opportunity that we get to see them,” Pressley said.
Her son added: “It’s an amazing feeling. And it just goes to show that there’s always room for families to grow and always room for more love within each other.”
Adoption is a beautiful and often self-sacrificial choice for birth mothers. Though difficult, adoption also brings unexpected joys to so many: a couple who may not be able to have their own children, a child who needs a home and a birth mother who finally gets to reunite with her child and see the amazing results of her choice.
