For 42 years, Maria Angelica Gonzalez believed her son died soon after childbirth, but that all changed after her long-lost son took a DNA test to learn more about his birth family.
“Mijo (son), you have no idea the oceans I’ve cried for you, how many nights I’ve laid awake praying that God let me live long enough to learn what happened to you,” Jimmy Lippert Thyden’s mother said to him when they were reunited.
Thyden’s quest to learn more about his Chilean origin began after he read a USA Today article of a California man being reunited with his Chilean family, CBC reported.
The criminal defense attorney from Virginia reached out to the nonprofit Nos Buscamos in the hopes that he would be able to reunite with his birth family.
After submitting his DNA to My Genealogy, Thyden received a match from a cousin who then connected him with his birth mother Maria. At first, Maria was hesitant to connect with Thyden with fears that it was a ploy for a financial scam, but that all changed after Thyden shared with her a photo of him with his wife and two young daughters, Fox News Digital reported.
After breaking the ice, Thyden sent his birth mother photos from various moments in his life, from his time in the Marine Corps to his wedding.
“I was trying to bookend 42 years of a life taken from her,” Thyden told Fox News. “Taken from us both.”
Thyden then arranged for his wife and two daughters to fly to Chile to meet his mother.
Upon their reunion, Thyden was greeted by his four brothers and sisters, along with 42 balloons which signified each year of life that he was separated from his birth family.
Thyden was born premature, and he was immediately separated from his mother by the hospital staff. Maria returned to the hospital a few days later and was told that her son died. She asked for his son’s body, so she could give him a proper burial and was told that the hospital had already disposed of his body.
“The real story was these kids were stolen from poor families, poor women that didn’t know. They didn’t know how to defend themselves,” said Constanza del Rio, founder and director of Nos Buscamos.
Under Gen. Augusto Pinocret’s rule, tens of thousands of counterfeit adoptions occurred dating back to the 1950s.
“People who were on the receiving end of the [adoptions], they were led to believe everything was on the up and up, everything was legitimate. And they believed they were paying for things like medical fees for the mother or check-ups for the baby or postpartum care, etc.,” Thyden said.