When Rose Valade was 14 years old, she says she was stunned to learn that she had been adopted at birth.
It turns out she had been born in Sydney in the 1950s and was immediately placed with her adoptive family in Antigonish, N.S.
It was not something that had ever been mentioned to her before, and for years to follow, she wondered who and where her family was. But it wasn’t until Valade was ready to have children of her own that she started to search for answers.
“When I was pregnant with my first child, that’s when the question rose, I wonder if there are any illness that I should be aware of that are in my family line – hence knowing that I’m adopted,” said Valade.
But Valade’s search was met with red tape, and to this day, her adoption records remain sealed.
After decades of dead ends, Rose turned to science and submitted a DNA sample to Ancestory.ca. After two years of waiting, she finally found a match.
“I had a message come through from Ancestry, that I had a very close person that was a relation of mine genetically,” Valade said.
That person was Jackie Rice from Colorado, and the two were able to figure out that Rice was actually Valade’s niece.
Rice then contacted her mother, Dorine Molenoski, who is Valade’s sister, and she says they were all in disbelief.
“Both my sister and my mother decided they were going to do the DNA test with Ancestry, so they did they test, sent it in and waited and waited,” said Valade, “I guess it was about a month and I got a message from my sister, ‘Hello sis’.”
“I got chills and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I have somebody that I’m blood related to’.”
Verde and her new found family spoke on the phone daily, and just last month she flew to Las Vegas and met her sister for the first time.
Verde says their resemblance is striking.
“We have the same shoe size, the same ring size, we even take our coffee the same way – white! And have chosen the same career paths,” said Verde.
From Las Vegas the sisters embarked on a road trip to San Diego, where Verde’s 84-year-old mother had settled after marrying and raised a family.
“When I was born all she remembers is seeing the top of my head and the black tuft of hair and even today, she says in her weakened voice, ‘I couldn’t do anything, they took you from me, I couldn’t have kept you anyway’,” said Verde.
“She didn’t even know if I was a girl or a boy, or if I had lived, or if I had died. I came to find out, she had thought about me for my entire life,” she said.
Verde says she feels incredibly privileged to have been able to find her mother while she was still alive, and she still has yet to meet another sister, Cindy, and a brother, Jerry, whom she speaks with daily.
“I’m just overjoyed, my life is complete now,” she said.
