Woman born in Vernon 27 years ago searching for birth parents | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Woman born in Vernon 27 years ago searching for birth parents

Megan Osterreicher, 27, is looking for her birth parents.
Image Credit: Contributed

VERNON - Twenty-seven years ago, on Oct. 10, 1989, a woman gave birth to a baby girl at the hospital in Vernon. Megan Osterreicher wants to find that woman.

Osterreicher, 27, is searching for her biological mother. She doesn’t know her name or where she lives, but she’s determined to find out.

“I always had questions from a very young age about why I felt empty inside, like something was missing,” Osterreicher, who was adopted by a couple from the Lower Mainland, says. “I love my (adoptive) mom and dad dearly. I’m not trying to replace them. I just want answers to my questions.”

When Osterreicher was born, she didn’t go home with her birth mother, believed to have been 21 years old at the time. She went home with a doctor.

“I stayed with the doctor and his wife and their kids for ten days,” she says.

A videotape shows the day her adoptive parents came to pick her up at the doctor’s house.

Image Credit: Megan Osterreicher

“The doctor and I used to get together once every few years as a family. I called them uncle and aunty,” Osterreicher says.

As she got older, they stopped visiting as much, and in her teens, they lost contact completely. Despite recent attempts, Osterreicher has not been able to track him down.

“He was an amazing man. I loved his family,” she says.

She never asked him about her birth mother.

“I wasn’t in a place where I had those questions,” she says.

Growing up, Osterreicher always knew she was adopted, but it wasn’t until recently that she decided to pursue finding her birth parents.

“I had to get to a place in my life where I was emotionally ready,” she says.

One of her questions is why the doctor took her home in the first place — a seemingly unusual course of action.

“I think there’s two possible scenarios. (Either) they were personally friends with my birth mother and she trusted them, or my other theory is… I know when you put a baby up for adoption, you have a certain amount of time to change your mind. I know it was a difficult decision for her, that she didn’t think she could care for me and my brother.”

Osterreicher was inspired to start looking for her mother after a co-worker shared her story of giving up a child when she was very young.

“She doesn’t know him but has seen his face on social media,” Osterreicher says. “I thought if she (birth mother) is looking for me, I should look for her too.”

All Osterreicher has to go on is a document that was given to her adoptive parents. It has a brief summary of her mother and father’s personality and physical features. It also says Osterreicher has a half-brother. He was five years old at the time.

At 27, Osterreicher wants to know more about her medical history, as well as where she inherited her talent for playing baseball and her prematurely greying hair. She’d also like to know if she has any other siblings.

“I’m a waitress so I work with people constantly. I could have served my family before and never known,” she says. “It has crossed my mind at least a dozen times, I’ll serve someone and a really crazy energy passes between us.”

Since putting her story on Facebook, the original post has been shared more than 32,000 times.

“I’ve received an enormous amount of positive feedback. I have new messages in my inbox everyday of people wanting to share their stories and telling me to never give up,” she says. “I guess now I just have to wait.”


To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston or call 250-309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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