Part 2: She Found Her Son After 50 Years and Then Lost Him Again

If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there, it’s the foundation for everything in this episode.

🎙️  Episode Summary PART 2

In Part 1, Laura Engel shared what happened in 1967: the pregnancy, the unwed mothers’ home in New Orleans, the forced goodbye, and the fifty years of silence that followed. 

In Part 2, everything changes.

 In 2016, Laura submitted her DNA to Ancestry.com. A few months later, her firstborn son,  the one she’d been told to forget, actually found her. What followed was five years of reunion: of learning who he had become, of introducing him to family, of filling in the gaps on both sides. And then, in 2021, she lost him again in a way she never saw coming.

 She almost didn’t publish the book. In this episode, Laura talks about what changed her mind, what her story has meant to the thousands of adoptees and birth mothers who found themselves in its pages, and why she’s still speaking for all the women who can’t yet.

🎧  What We Talk About in This Episode

• The DNA test that changed everything and the moment Laura realized her son had found her
• What the reunion with Richard was like after 49 years apart
• The grief of losing Richard in 2021 and what she calls “the most complicated grief I’ve ever lived through”
• Why she almost pulled the book from publication after he died and what made her say yes

📖  Laura's Hidden Chapter Moment

After Richard died, Laura’s husband Gene said something to her that she couldn’t shake.

She told him she wished Richard had never found her. And he said: "don’t ever say that again. Because look what you learned. Look what you got. You loved him. He loved you. And we have three grandchildren we never would have known existed."

That’s the hidden chapter in all of this. Not just the shame, not just the grief, but the love that was there the whole time, even in the parts that hurt the most. 

 🔗 Resources Mentioned:

• Laura’s memoir: You’ll Forget This Ever Happened by Laura L. Engel: available on Amazon and through She Writes Press
• Laura’s website and the Family Secrets podcast episode where she first shared her story: lauralengel.com
• Adoption Knowledge Affiliates: adoptionknowledge.org — education and support across the adoption triad
• CUB – Concerned United Birthparents: cubirthparents.org — support for birth parents
• Adoptee Rights Law Center: adopteerightslaw.com — check your state’s current law on original birth certificate access
• ISRR – International Soundex Reunion Registry: isrr.org — mutual consent reunion registry
• DNA Detectives on Facebook — volunteer search angels to help adoptees and birth parents connect
• Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors: allianceofhope.org
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988