It’s never easy for a mother to give up her child.
Carrying that child for months is never easy, and the rollercoaster of emotions is one of the mysteries women have to experience.
However, an expectant mother sometimes has no choice but to place their child for adoption in order to give them a better life.
Melanie Pressley made that difficult decision when she was 18 years old.
She gave birth to her first child on July 17, 1988, at the then-Timken Mercy Hospital.
Her boyfriend at that time wasn’t supportive of her pregnancy and asked her to abort the child.
However, Melanie wanted to give the child a chance at life.
So, she made a difficult choice.
“I just knew, financially, I wouldn’t be able to do it. And the other thing—I wanted him to have a mother and father, so I decided at that point it was best to put him up for adoption,” said she told News 5 Cleveland.
The only remembrance she had of that baby was this photo.
Melanie’s sister captured this moment when the nurse gave her some time to spend with her baby before setting him up with the adoption agency.
This was everything that she had to hold on to of her baby boy.
Years passed, and Melanie went on with her life and soon had her own family.
She was happily married to a man with whom she shared three loving children.
But despite all that joy, something was missing, and she knew that the baby boy she had given up a long time ago would always have that void in her life.
That little boy soon had his own happy little family, too.
Greg Vossler was adopted by a loving couple from Stow, Cleveland, and lived there for seven years before they moved 307 miles away to Winchester, Virginia.
His adoptive parents didn’t keep his adoption a secret for so long; he knew about it since he was nine.
But it wasn’t until 2019 when the curiosity kicked in.
“My wife and I were sitting and talking one night, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know any of my medical history, genetics, you know, where I’m from,'” he shared with News 5 Cleveland.
He saw an advertisement from 23andMe, and he thought he should sign up and take the test, hoping that they had the answer to all his questions.
Two years after, Melanie took the same test.
One of her daughters gifted her the 23andMe kit.
She took the test, and the results arrived days after, saying they found her a match.
She knew this was what she had been waiting for all those years.
Melanie reached out to him, saying ‘I believe we’re related’ followed by ‘I believe I am your birth mother.’
And the rest was history.
The two exchanged messages and asked questions about each other until they agreed that the time was finally right for them to meet.
Greg and his family drove to Wadsworth to meet his biological mother for the first time.
His wife, Chelsea, took a photo of that moment, which was what Melanie had hoped for.
The picture showed how much this moment made their lives whole again.
At least now, Melanie could add this to her photos of her and Greg.
Learn more about their touching story in the video below!
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