A 35-year-old Ohio man found and surprised his biological mother at a marathon more than three decades after she gave him up for adoption. To say that the reunion was emotional would be an understatement, and thankfully Stephen Strawn caught it all on camera.
- Stacey Faix was only 15 when she had Stephen. After giving birth to a baby boy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she made the heartbreaking decision to give him up for adoption to give him the best possible chances in life, ABC News reports. However, now they have another chance to reconnect.
- Stephen had looked for his biological mother for years. As he told ABC, Stephen had been looking for Faix for much of his life but “it’s been dead ends.” Because his birth records were lost in a flood, it was nearly impossible to track her down. However, when a new law came into place in 2017 allowing adoptees to request their birth certificates, he was finally able to find her and make contact.
- The surprise he pulled off took a lot of planning. Seeing that Faix was part of Pittsburgh’s team Red, White and Blue organization to help veterans, he got in touch with the chapter’s president and received plenty of support.
- The reunion was incredibly emotional. Stephen had written his biological mom a card that said it had been 13,075 days since she’d seen him. The pair had an emotional embrace – the first one in their lives. “They didn’t want me to hold him, they didn’t recommend it,” Faix told WTAE. “So I finally got to hold him.” They plan to stay in touch moving forward.
