La-Sonya Mitchell-Clark is very glad the Ohio Department of Health decided to release the birth records of people born between 1964 and 1996 last month.
Those records helped her find her biological mother.
“Ever since I found out that I was adopted, I wanted to know who my biological mother was,” Mitchell-Clark said to WYTV. So when records arrived in the mail naming her biological mother as Francine Simmons, Mitchell-Clark got to searching on Facebook.
To her surprise, she found that Simmons worked at the same place she did: Infocision in Boardman. Then, she realized the truth.
Watch the mother and daughter’s tearful reunion below:
“There’s a Francine that works at my job. She works in VR and she works at the front desk,” Mitchell-Clark said.
Mitchell-Clark used social media to contact her birth mother’s friends and then waited for the call.
“She called me and I said, ‘Is this Ms. Francine?’ She said, yes. I said, ‘I think I’m your daughter’,” Mitchell-Clark said.
The call was just as shocking and wonderful for Simmons as well.
“I got pregnant when I was 14,” Simmons said. “I had her when I was 15. I was put in a home, a girl’s home. Had her. Got to hold her. Didn’t get to name her, but I named her myself in my heart all these years.”
The two talked and got to know each other, and Mitchell-Clark discovered that she has three other sisters, one of whom also works at the same company. They also learned that they lived just six minutes apart.
Through it all, Mitchell-Clark’s adopted family has been supportive.
“My mom and dad have always been supportive of me,” she said. “[They’ve] always encouraged me to look for them. They’re going to be a part of this, too.”