Linda Jeanne Elizabeth Cousino Vecchio
Birthmother to Muguet Desjardins Bradbury
Born on April 14, 1965
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
she was found living in
Lawrenceville,Georgia
I live in LaFayette, Georgia
Just two hours from Muguet
LJV414@aol.com
Hello My name is Linda. As of 1-14-99 I am proud to say that I am a reunited birthmother.
I would like to dedicate this page to all my wonderful cyber friends and Sunflower Sisters, without all of your daily incouragements, love and support this page would not be here today. I will cherish your friendships always. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I will start this with a detailed description of the hours just prior to my actual discovery of my daughters name, address and phone number. And then continue on from there. Januray 14,1999 started out like every other typical Thursday. My husband Ross and I own a video rental store and live above it with our son Tony. The beginning of my days are spent getting the store open and ready for business. Then I concentrate on my household chores and whatever errands that need to be done. This particular work day afternoon ended with picking Tony up from High School. This is usually when I come out to the computer to work on my search. I would get on-line and check my mail and answer what emails needed to be answered. Then it would be time for me to start dinner. This day was different. Little did I know what was about to happen would change my life forever. I approached my computer at approximately 4:10PM. There was a instant message on my screen from Debbie, a search helper of mine. It said "Linda I have a picture. Linda are you there? I went to Cooper City High and I have a picture from a yearbook. Linda....Linda....Linda...."Hello Linda...are you there?" this went on and on for about two screens. Finally she wrote...I guess you are not here. Here is my phone number---------- call me when you come in.
Needless to say I was so excited when I saw this on the screen. After catching my breath, I said, "Oh my gosh, can it be?" I yelled to my husband to come out to the room where the computer is and told him what was on the screen. He said, calm down, you don't even know if it's her. I dialed Debbie's phone number and said, this is Linda. She was so excited. She explained to me that she had gone to the school and tricked the lady in the office to let her see the yearbook. She told the lady that her daughter's son had ripped out the D's from her 1983 yearbook and that she would really appreciate it if she could make her copies of the pages with the D's on them. The lady said sure, and did this for her. We were not sure if this person, Desjardins had adopted a girl or a boy, but since we knew that they still lived in the same house since 1969 it was probable that their child went to this High School and would have graduated in the year 1983. When she saw the name Muguet Desjardins, she knew that this must be the child that the Desjardins adopted. This was one of 33 names that we were considering after a search was made by a local Search Company. These were 33 names of people who adopted children in the time frame that my child would have been adopted from Broward County Florida through Catholic Charities. At this point we didn't know for sure if this was my child. So Debbie faxed the picture to me. My husband was the first to see the faxed picture and as he looked at it he said with some uncertainty,"Well, I guess she might look something like you, but I don't know. She might have your smile." I then took the picture from him, after taking a deep breath. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The tears started to role and I said to my husband,"what do you mean, she MIGHT' look like me? I said, she looks exactly like I looked when I was 18." I seen my smile in her smile. It was as if I was looking in the mirror 33 years ago. I told Debbie who was still on the phone and going nuts, "Look no further, this is my daughter, no doubt about it."
I don't have to tell you how the adrenalin was rushing throughout my body and I could hardly think at all. My husband said well, just call her. I said, I can't just call her. For one I couldn't hardly breathe , let alone call someone that important. I wasn't even sure if calling her was how I wanted to make first contact. I had discussed this a few weeks earlier with my good friend and searcher Mary. I had told her that when the time came for first contact, that I thought I would not be able to make the call. She said that she would make the call but it would break her heart to tell me bad news, if that was to be the case. Also, in all of my support groups on-line, we are instructed not to call at dinner time and never call after 9PM. Well, I had to prepare dinner so I figured that this would give me the time to think about what I wanted to do.
After dinner was over (not for me, becasue I couldn't have eaten if my life depended on it), those butterflies left no room for food, I had thought hard about what I wanted to do. For one I didn't feel like I could go one more day, knowing who my daughter was and not contact her. Also I decided that if my daughter didn't want contact with me, at least, if I was the one to call her, I would have the chance to hear her voice at least this one time. Also I could determine a lot by hearing how she would respond to me when I called her.
So that was my choice. I would call her. I wanted to be alone. So I went to my daughter Angels apartment, leaving instructions with my husband that I was going to make the call at 7:30PM and if I didn't call him back in a few minutes after that, he would know that she was truly my daughter. He said good luck and I love you.
I got to Angel's apartment and just sat down. I was literally shaking. I said to my self," I can't do this...Yes you can...but I can't even breathe how will I ever talk?.....Just do it....Oh...Oh....Oh....I looked at the clock and it said 7:28PM. I knew I couldn't back out now. So I just picked up the phone and somehow dialed the number. Can you even imagine how fast my heart was beating?
This is how our very first contact went: She answered the phone. I said hello, I am sorry but I don't know how to pronounce your name. She said, Muguet. I said, will you please write down this phone number? She said, Who is this? I said I really need for you to write down my phone number first before I tell you anymore. She sounded somewhat upset but she said OK. After I told her my phone number she said, now who is this? I said, were you born in April? She said,yes. I said, April 14th? She said hesitantly yesssssss. I believe I started crying at this point and could not speak for a second. She said Oh my! a few times. And then I said, April 14th,1965? She said yes and again more oh my's. I said do you know who this is? She said you have to be my birthmother. As we both were saying things like, I don't believe this!,and Oh My! over and over again, she said, you are an answer to prayer. She said, when I went home to visit my parents for the Christmas holidays, I wanted to ask my parents for more information about my adoption so I could start searching for you. But I could not bring myself to ask them, for fear of the hurt it might cause them. So when I left there, I prayed that you would be searching for me, so I would not have to hurt my parents by asking them for that information. Also Muguet said that she had sat down one night a few months prior to this call and wrote me a 2 page letter,asking me many questions that she wished that she knew about me and her heritage. She said that she had wished she kept this letter now but she did not.
The next hour we spent asking each other questions. She was trying to be sure in her mind that I truly was her birthmother. I was so relieved that I was not going to be rejected, as I am sure she was glad to know that I have loved her and wanted to know her, from the very first day she was left for adoption.
One thing I remember is that her voice sounded so familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I knew she was from my blood and my genes.Later I would realize her voice sounded so familiar because she sounded just like me. While we were talking we exchanged e-mail addresses and when I returned home and turned on my computer there was an e-mail from her that read " I hope this is the first of many more e-mails to come." After getting off the phone with me, Muguet called her mother-n-law to tell her the news and to get advice. Then she called her parents and told them that she had just got off the phone with a women who says she is my birthmother. Her mother said in amazement, "No"? They told her to be sure I really was her birthmother before she got her hopes up. She told them things that I had told her, giving dates and names and places. There was a discrepancy about the Hospital that she was born in. Her parents always thought that she was born at Hollywood Memorial in Hollywood FL. But she was not, She was born in Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Laudedale. Since there was a discrepancy Muguet decided to be 100% sure, so I told her to call the adoption agency and to see what they would tell her. I gave her the phone number and told her to call and ask for the Social worker that I had been in contact with for the past year. She did this the next day and was told that they could not give her any information until she sent a notorized waiver of confidentialty, to them. She sent this waiver the next day, which was a Friday. We continued to exchange chats on instant messages for hours, every day. Like I said before, there was never a doubt in my mind that she was my daughter but I knew she would feel better if she knew for herself 100%. During these chats, we had a discussion about what she was going to call me once she got her confirmation from the agency. She said that she wanted a unique name for me. I said well what do you call your mother? She said I call my mother mom and I call my mother in law mom. She said how about Bmom or boopsie bmom, ha ha! I said, ok bmom it is. Then when it was time to close for that chat because she had to fix dinner. I said, oh, I guess I'll just have some butter pecan ice cream..bad bmama! She said, Bmama I like that, may I call you Bmama. I said fine with me, Bmama it is. We thought that she would hear from the agency by tuesday but she didn't get the call until Wednesday with the confirmation. She called me right away and the first thing she said was, Hi Bmama! You know my heart just about stopped..It was music to my ears. Then she said, when can we get together? I said, whenever you want sweetie. So she said, are you doing anything on the 24th? I said, hmmmmmmmmmmmm...no and if I was... no. So that was when we were to meet for the first time along with her husband Neal and 2 daughters Virginia and Kathleen. They would come to my home, just two and a quarter hours away from me.Click here to go to page 2 Our Reunion Day
