Woman born in Indiana using social media to find birth mom
ELKHART, Ind. (AP) - A Florida woman born in northern Indiana is using social media to reconnect with her birth mother.
Kelley Baumgartner of Jacksonville, Florida, posted a photo of herself to Facebook on Saturday in hopes of finding the woman who gave birth to her. The sign she's holding in the photo includes the details she knows about her birth mother. It also lists her contact information and urges others to share the post.
The South Bend Tribune (http://bit.ly/1xyQ9i6 ) reports her post was shared on Facebook nearly 14,000 times within the first five days.
Baumgartner has been searching for her birth mother for the past eight years. She has tried a tracking company, called area hospitals and the agency she was adopted from, and joined the Indiana Adoption Registry. But she has come up empty.
"I thought maybe it was not meant to be," Baumgartner said. "I was running into brick walls everywhere. I didn't know where to start or where to end."
Baumgartner was born Feb. 3, 1987, in Elkhart County to a hairdresser in her early 20s with seven siblings. She was adopted two months later through Catholic Social Services.
When Baumgartner was 3, she moved with her parents and adoptive brother Kevin to Jacksonville.
"I had a wonderful, normal childhood," she said. "I played soccer growing up; I went to school. There wasn't a single negative moment."
Indiana seals records for adoptees born between 1941 and 1993, the newspaper reports, unless birth parents give the OK. A bill being considered by the Indiana legislature would allow adoptees to access some records unless birth parents want them sealed.
Baumgartner said she's gotten several leads since her Facebook post, but they led nowhere. She wants to thank her birth mother for bringing her into the world, she said.
"My family went through infertility and years of waiting," she said. "I owe a lot to her. I want to tell her thank you."
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Information from: South Bend Tribune, http://www.southbendtribune.com