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Sandy Hutton and Richie Millidge haven't seen each other since she gave him up for adoption in July 1967, but they've been talking and plan to meet again once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
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Richie Millidge had been searching for his birth mother for almost all of his 53 years. When he found her, he discovered she had been searching for him, too.
On July 26, 1967, Sandy Hutton, then Sandy Jones and only 17 years old, had a baby boy in Montreals Royal Victoria Hospital. With great reluctance, she gave him up for adoption.
I really didnt have much of a choice, she said. But first she held the newborn for the first and last time.
He had peach-fuzz hair and blue eyes. Of course we bonded. My sweet baby boy. Thats what I called him.
Hutton named the baby Leonard. That was changed to Richard when he was adopted four months later.
Years passed and Hutton married and had three more children: Lonney, Jen and Drew. She never kept their brothers existence a secret from them.
Hutton tried to find her son, but it was a closed adoption, and she didnt have key information she needed to locate him. There was even a failed attempt to find him by hiring a researcher to comb through birth records.
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Meanwhile, Millidge knew from the time he was seven or eight years of age that he had been adopted. He had never felt truly at home in his adoptive family, but his adoptive parents refused to provide any information about his birth mother. His adoptive father died when he was 11.
Last September, at the urging of his girlfriend, Tracy Ward, Millidge took a 23andMe mail-away DNA test, hoping to find family through through the companys relative finder database.
He didnt have any information to go on, not even a birth name. It was a shot in the dark, but it was worth a try, Ward said.
Millidges adoptive parents had told him his biological parents were Norwegian. He discovered, though, that he is mostly Irish and Welsh. There was a distant cousin in the database, who forwarded Millidges contact information to another distant cousin, who recalled the date of birth and reached out to Huttons stepmother.
Millidge and Hutton corresponded by email and checked out each others Facebook pages.
I recognized myself in him. He looked like me. He had my smile, Hutton said.
She seemed so down-to-earth. I knew it was her, Millidge said.
They wanted to wait until they had DNA confirmation before they actually spoke to each other, though. Millidge received the results confirming a match with Hutton on Feb. 21, and they agreed to speak by phone later that day.
I found his voice to be very soothing. He wasnt nervous. I wasnt, either. When he started talking, it was like a big weight had come off my shoulders. I had been worried that I wouldnt live long enough to meet him, Hutton said.
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We spent about three hours on the phone, Millidge said. I called her Mom. It just came naturally.
Soon after his three half-siblings, who live in Montreal, drove to Kanata to meet their newfound half-brother. He discovered he had four nephews. They discovered they had a niece.
They sat together for four hours. We hit it off like he was part of the family since Day One, said his half-sister, Jen Smith.
He looks more like my mother than any of us. I didnt even have to wait for the DNA match.
They have much in common. Like Millidge, Jen and Drew also work in the renovation business. The siblings share a taste for 70s rock. Theyre all fond of animals. Ward had noticed on social media that all of the siblings tended to make peace signs when they had photos taken.
It must be in the DNA, she said.
Millidge talks to his mother often, but the two wont meet face-to-face until COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted. He has always envied close-knit families and is happy to be part of one.
Its like theyve always been there, he said.
It has been wonderful to see my three children bring my son into the fold, Hutton said. Im at peace now.
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Mother and child reunion: They had looked for each other for decades. A DNA test reconnected them. - Ottawa Citizen
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