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Forsyth woman finds child on Facebook after 37 years
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| | | Gena Ingram, center, is surrounded by her recently reunited children Kristina Leal, Lauren Gaines, Micah Leal and Vicki Rogers. Ana Edwards Photography. (click for larger version) | |
November 23, 2009
FORSYTH COUNTY - Gena Ingram and her family will have a special Thanksgiving this year.
Ingram had spent more than three decades wondering what happened to her first daughter, Vicki. She never dreamt she would find her on the social networking site Facebook.
Ingram's story began in 1972 when she was a pregnant teenager.
"I didn't tell my family until they figured it out," she said. "I was a terrified teenager."
She moved to a home with 88 other pregnant girls, what Ingram described as the "ostracized bad girls," where she was placed on a very strict diet to manage weight gain. Three girls including Ingram were brought in a van to Crawford Long Hospital.
"I was just starting to have labor pains," she said, "but they wanted me to come just in case I went into labor and there was no transportation."
The Friday before Mother's Day, Ingram gave birth to Vicki.
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"They let me hold her one time for about an hour," she said. "The case worker told me her parents wanted me to know I was not a disgrace. They wanted me to know I was a gift from God."
The following Monday, Ingram went home and tried to move on, but she said the transition was not easy.
"It's supposed to be simple," she said, "but I missed my daughter every day. I thought about her all the time, but I didn't want to disrupt her life."
Ingram's life went on. She had other children — Lauren, now 25, Kristina, 19 and Micha, 16. Lauren Gaines, Ingram's second daughter, was told about her long lost sister when she was 18. Gaines said she wasn't completely surprised.
"I always had this sense there was something more out there," she said.
Ingram decided to look for Vicki the Friday before Mother's Day this year. It was then Ingram thought about Facebook.
Ingram found what she thought was her daughter, but believed she looked too young to be 37. She sent a message anyway and went back to work.
After exchanging messages, there was little doubt Ingram had found her daughter.
"She wrote, 'I don't know how to say this, but I think you found your little girl,'" Ingram said. "And then she wrote, 'I am not sure if this is the time to tell you, but you are a grandmother.' When she sent pictures and I saw my granddaughter for the first time, she looks just like I did when I was young. I knew there was no doubt."
Vicki Rogers, who works at West Georgia College, said her mother's e-mail came "completely out of the blue."
Rogers first started looking for her mother after she had children.
"After going through that process," she said, "it stirred more emotion than I had ever experienced before."
They met the Tuesday after Mother's Day this year. Ingram said knowing her daughter has been "phenomenal."
"It's like she has been a part of me always," she said.
When Gaines met her sister for the first time, "everything just fit."
"It was like she had never been gone," she said. "Now, I have a big sister I can call now if times are bad."
Ingram said she does not want to interfere with Vicki's traditional holidays.
"I don't want to disrupt anything with her family," she said. "They gave her a home when I couldn't."
There is "some stress" regarding the holidays, Rogers said. She compared the transition to figuring out how to celebrate the holidays after getting married.
"I want everybody to be happy," she said. "It's an adjustment we are going to feel our way through."
Rogers said she feels nothing but love toward her mother.
"She was so brave for the choice she made," she said. "How could I be mad at her? She gave me life. It makes my heart hurt to think of the pain she carried all these years. My greatest hope is that she now has great peace."
Rogers said her life has been changed.
"I feel I have found my closest friends and I didn't even know they were out there," she said.
 View images.
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