When Shelley Pitts gave her baby son up for adoption, emotions were running high. As a scared 14-year-old, she didn’t have any loved ones by her side during the delivery, and the mom was convinced that she’d never see him again. But the situation changed dramatically more than three decades later.
Got any tissues handy? Trust us — you’ll probably need a whole box of them for this story! It’s a truly astonishing tale with more than a few ups and downs along the way. So without further ado, let’s get into it. The drama began back in the late 1980s in Texas.
As we’ve already noted, Shelley was just a teenager when she discovered that she was with child. And it’s fair to say that the news left her utterly shocked. In fact, such was her state of mind, the Texan initially refused to accept the reality of the situation. She went into more detail in a lengthy post on the Love What Matters website.
“In my naïveté, I thought I could will the pregnancy out of my body,” Shelley wrote. “Maybe if I didn’t acknowledge my lack of a menstrual cycle for two months, it wouldn’t be real. ‘I’m too young to have a baby,’ I said to myself. Why hadn’t I told my mom to put me on birth control? What were people going to say?”
Given Shelley’s age at the time, you can certainly understand that reaction, right? So, she went ahead with her plan of essentially ignoring the pregnancy. This meant that those around her were none the wiser, for the time being at least. Yet the expectant mom ultimately realized that this couldn’t last for much longer. People would start to notice something was up.
On that note, Shelley decided to share the big news as her first trimester was coming to an end. But she didn’t inform everyone. Instead, the Texas resident just spoke to the baby’s dad. His name’s Sidney, and he’d been in a relationship with her for quite a while prior to the life-changing bombshell.
How did Sidney take the news, then? Quite well, actually. Yes, Shelley revealed that her partner was immediately supportive, with discussions soon turning to their unborn child. “We talked about whether the baby would be a boy or a girl, who the baby would look like, and what we would name it,” she recalled.
Mind you, while that must’ve felt like a weight lifted off Shelley’s shoulders, she could hardly relax. The mom continued, “Even though in our immaturity we were excited about the thought of a baby, we were scared and worried about the backlash we’d get in telling our parents. So, we put off telling them because it was easier to not think about it.”
On top of that, Shelley and Sidney didn’t let anyone else know, either. But that was easier said than done. Due to her growing midriff, the teenager was forced to get creative in how she hid it. Cleverly positioned cushions and wearing large shirts were just a couple of the tactics she employed back then.
Despite Shelley’s best efforts, though, her classmates began to realize what was going on. Then, stories started to spread across the entire school. It was a hot topic! Yet when some of the staff picked up on the situation, they didn’t pull the young couple aside to talk. In fact, no one really broached the subject head-on. Why?
Well, as Shelley explained, “It was taboo for more reasons than just a teenage pregnancy. We were the only interracial couple who was fully public and out for everyone to see. We didn’t hide our relationship like so many other couples where the boy was black and the girl was white, even if it was the expectation in Texas during the late ’80s.”
“We were in love and determined to stand together,” Shelley continued. “We endured whatever was thrown our way. This would just be another thing to overcome.” Regardless of how people viewed their relationship, though, an unavoidable conversation was fast approaching. Yep, the parents-to-be needed to inform their own folks of what was happening.
We can only imagine how tense that moment must’ve been. Anyway, after Shelley and Sidney spilled the beans, their respective folks looked ahead to the future. What would happen to the child? In the end, the two parties came to an agreement: their grandkid had to be put up for adoption.
According to Shelley, she didn’t fight back against that decision at the time. In her mind, it “seemed like the right thing to do.” The teen went on to maintain that line of thinking as the pregnancy progressed, refusing to give in to doubt. And that brings us to the next significant moment of this story.
“The adoption agency we went through was the only one that would help someone with a biracial baby,” Shelley explained. “They offered a home to stay in during the pregnancy, which helped with doctor’s appointments, staying in school full-time, and providing a Christian-based counseling program and church family. Although they were welcoming, it was awkward and lonely.”
“Leaving Sidney behind was gut-wrenching,” Shelley recalled. “I was accustomed to seeing him almost every day, and now all we had were brief phone calls and letters. I was due at the end of March. That was four months away. I was four hours from home, and the days dragged.”
To get Shelley through that tricky spell, her mother would occasionally drop by towards the end of the week. Plus, as she just highlighted, she received correspondence from Sidney and members of her family in the post, too. Remember, social media wasn’t a thing back in the ’80s!
Yet as difficult as those months were, it wasn’t all bad. For instance, Shelley’s face lit up when she was told she’d be having a son. As the big day approached, though, you wouldn’t have blamed the teenager for feeling afraid. None of her loved ones were around, and they ultimately didn’t arrive for the delivery.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though. Shelley’s mother simply ran out of time getting there, while Sidney was barred from visiting by his folks. As for the delivery itself, she recalled, “It was surreal. I hardly spoke at all, and followed the directions given to me like a robot. I breathed out when they told me to. I pushed when they told me to.”
With that in mind, Shelley eventually gave birth to her little boy on March 29, 1988, in the early afternoon. She went on to hold the tiny bundle of joy, ignoring the advice of the facility’s staff. Because the teen was giving the baby up, they feared that she could suffer overwhelming distress when handing him over.
Yet that didn’t appear to happen. Shelley refused to shed a single tear as she said goodbye to her baby. In fact, the new mom believed that she “didn’t have the right” to weep. This mindset changed, though, when she started to make her way back home later on in the day.
As Shelley wrote on Love What Matters, “I made it all the way to the car with no show of emotion, but when I buckled myself in, I felt a lump form in my throat. Looking out the window as we left, tears fell down my face. ‘Stop crying, Shelley,’ I said to myself. ‘He will have a better life.’ He had to.”
After that emotionally draining day, Shelley tried to move on with her life. Yes, she started a family a few years later, welcoming three little girls into the world before splitting from her husband. But despite all that, the Texan didn’t forget about her son. He was always at the forefront of her mind.
“I would silently celebrate my son’s birthday each year,” Shelley revealed. “Although I thought of him constantly, he dominated my thoughts every March 29. I always envisioned he had the same stocky, muscular build as his father. I saw him having my eyes and his father’s smile. I wondered if he was happy.”
Anyway, Shelley didn’t tell too many folks about him as the years rolled on, only informing some pals and her three daughters. In truth, there wasn’t much to say — she didn’t know anything about the adoption process, barring a few details, or even her son’s name. Yet that was all about to change in 2021.
You see, Shelley believed that her son would start to look for her as he hit his 30s, so she “joined adoption Facebook pages” at that juncture. From there, the mom stumbled across a potential lead in March 2021, just before her son would be due to turn 33. Then, after doing some additional digging, she found a profile for a guy named Daniel Smith.
“I scrolled down the page searching for any indication this was my son,” Shelley recalled. “I got to a picture of a young man in a heavy coat taking a selfie in the snow. The eyes staring back at me were mine. The lips were his father’s. I knew it instantaneously. I found my son!” And this happened on March 29. How fitting!
At that point, Shelley tearfully contacted Daniel via Facebook. A couple of days passed without reply, so she then reached out to his partner. Thankfully for Shelley, that was the breakthrough she’d yearned for. Just hours later, he got in touch with his mother. But how would that long-awaited conversation go? Could they ever bridge the gap caused by the 33-year separation?
Well, one of Daniel’s messages to Shelley made the situation a lot clearer. It read: “This is like a dream almost. There are a million things I want to say, and at the same time, I can’t find the words. Just know I love you. I have never once been upset with you.”
Unsurprisingly, Shelley was overjoyed with those words. Wouldn’t you be? The pair went on to chat on the phone for the next few hours, as they finally got to know each other. But a sad piece of information also cropped up during their conversation. As it turned out, Daniel couldn’t reconnect with Sidney — his dad had passed away back in the early 1990s.
Talk about a gut-punch. Yet while that sadness no doubt lingered, Shelley and Daniel continued to form a bond with their lengthy conversations. Yep, the mom and son were now speaking daily, learning more from every chat. For instance, she discovered that she had three grandkids. How cool is that?!
And as those chats went on, Shelley shared the news with her daughters as well. “They were so excited,” she wrote. “They asked where he lived, if he had children, and to see every picture I could get a hold of. They all added him on Facebook, and although their conversations were shorter than ours, they wanted to meet him soon.”
Speaking of which, that does raise a good question: where did Daniel live? Well, he had a place out in Virginia, so he couldn’t have been much further away from Texas! Still, that didn’t stop his mom and sisters from looking ahead. One way or another, an in-person reunion was going to happen.
So, that brings us to April 29, 2021. That day, 33 years after he was last in Texas, Daniel returned to the Lone Star State. And to say his mom was delighted would be quite an understatement. Shelley admitted, “The anticipation at the airport was almost too much, and I was so excited I could barely stand still.”
“The first hug from Daniel was unlike anything I’d ever felt,” Shelley continued. “My heart filled up and overflowed. ‘I can’t believe you’re finally here,’ I kept saying into his ear. All he could do was laugh under his breath. The moment had made him speechless and understandably so. My son was home.”
Is anyone else welling up here? Or is it just us? Anyway, Daniel stayed in Texas for a week, during which time he was introduced to his relatives. They all had a lot of catching up to do! As for Shelley, though, she was eager to share as much about Sidney as she possibly could while her son was there.
But before they knew it, Daniel’s spell in Texas eventually had come to a close — and Shelley found it tough to say goodbye. But unlike their first farewell, she knew that this wouldn’t be the last time she’d see him. As the mom revealed with her closing words on Love What Matters, they had big plans ahead.
“We’re both planning on things involving our journey on a grander scale. We want to share it with the world,” Shelley wrote. “We want to inspire hope and spread a message of love. I hope other adoptees and birth parents can find the courage to take the leap towards finding their families. It could change your entire existence. The possibilities are endless!”
Since then, Shelley may well have found her “grander scale.” In November 2021 she took to Facebook to reveal that a TikTok clip of her reunion with Daniel had done huge numbers. The mother-of-four wasn’t exaggerating, either — it’s earned over one million views so far. Wow! And we can’t wait to see how this wonderful tale continues to develop from here.