I was in love with your birthfather. He was the first man that ever cared about me. When I told him that I thought I was pregnant, he was excited. When I found out for sure, he cried. We cried together.

We were excited until the truth of our situation hit home. I was 19; he was 20. I was a selfish, confused, very young girl. There was something - something I can't name today - that told me this was a foolish thing to do. Me? A mother? Realizing that I couldn't be an effective parent was an insight that I didn't know I had. It must have been a miracle.

I look back on that time, that time being pregnant, knowing that I wouldn't keep you. The pain in my heart stabs me. How childish I was, thinking that it would all be over soon, this experience would be behind me. I didn't know, didn't realize, the great incompleteness that would envelop me later.

I listen to other birthmothers. They have lived their lives in such horrible pain. It hasn't been like that for me. I listen to adoptees, to their pain and feelings of abandonment. I pray so hard that it hasn't been like this for you.

Now, today, I will say that there is an empty space in my heart. Maybe it's been there all along. Maybe it had to grow there, as I grew from that silly girl of 19 into a gray-haired mother of two... three.

Will it be like this forever? When someone asks how many children I have, I reply, "Two." In my heart I think, "Three! Damn it all, three!"

I wait for you to find me. I wait for that foolish, daring girl of 19 to come forth from inside me to help find you.

I miss you so much.

Jeannette Robnett (nee Dudley) is waiting for the emotional strength to search for her son whom she relinquished upon discharge from the hospital. He was born on Sept 18 or 19, 1980 at Madigan Army Medical Center.