‘God really does work in our lives’: Mother unexpectedly reunites with daughter she placed for adoption nearly 35 years ago
In a moment of pure joy, Roni Carroll, left, of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis embraces Heather Neuroth, the daughter that Carroll placed for adoption nearly 35 years ago. The mother and daughter were reunited for the first time on Palm Sunday weekend in Indianapolis. (Submitted photo)
By John Shaughnessy
Veronica “Roni” Carroll had waited for this moment for nearly 35 years.
As she listened to the woman share her incredible story on the phone, Carroll felt tears rolling down her cheeks.
At 55, Carroll wanted to believe that the woman on the line would finally bring a healing end to the terrifying time when Carroll was raped and became pregnant as a teenager.
More than anything, Carroll wanted to believe that the woman on the phone on this spring day in 2011 was the daughter she had placed for adoption as a newborn in 1976.
As nearly 35 years of built-up emotion swept through her body, Carroll also felt herself being swept back to the most frightening time in her life.
It was a time when she had to choose between her fear and her faith, a time when she had to choose between the life and death of a child.
Making a deal with God
It was 1975, the year when Carroll was 19 and a soldier in the U.S. Army stationed in Fort Carson, Colo.
“I was a virgin when I became pregnant,” recalls Carroll, a member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis. “We had a very small military company, and I attended a party at a house on a Friday. When I got there, I took a drink from a cup. The next thing I remember, I woke up in this house on a Sunday. I was partially clothed. There was no one around. When I later found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. I thought about getting an abortion.”
A visit from a stranger changed her mind.
“I was living in base housing,” Carroll continued. “Early in April, a young girl approached me and asked if I would come to her room and talk. She told me she had a little boy, and she gave him up for adoption through Catholic Social Services. We talked all night long. That’s when I realized there was an answer for me. I think God sent her to me because I never saw her before, and I never saw her again.”
A few weeks later, Carroll met with a Catholic Social Services’ staff member in Colorado Springs. Before she agreed to place her child for adoption, she had the counselor promise that her child would be adopted by a Catholic family. She also wanted her child to have siblings. Then she made a request of God.
“I told him, ‘If I’m going to give up my baby for adoption, I want you to watch over this child more closely than any child in the universe, and I also want you to give him or her a happy life.’ ”
Carroll gave birth to a baby girl on July 1, 1976. Three days later, she handed her child over to be adopted. Before she did, she made sure of two things. She put together a small packet for herself to remind her of her daughter, a packet that included two photographs, a birth certificate and her baby’s crib tag. She also had a priest baptize her baby as she held her.
As she said goodbye to her child, she knew that her adoption arrangement required her to never try to see or contact the child again.
“I was devastated and so sad,” Carroll recalls. “I just had to have faith that I did the right thing, and God’s going to take care of her. But I missed her so much.”
‘My heart stopped’
Flash forward to March 28, 2011—the day when a 34-year-old woman named Heather Neuroth from Ankeny, Iowa, once again renewed her search to find her birth mother.
“I started looking when I was 20,” Neuroth says. “I’ve always had a wish to find my birth mother to say ‘thank you’—not just for carrying me to term, but that she also had the insight to know she couldn’t care for me like other families could. Every time I searched, I hit a brick wall. Still, I prayed a lot and hoped that my prayers of thanksgiving would reach her if I was never able to.”
At 34, Neuroth grew up in the loving, Catholic family of Dennis and Beverley Neuroth. She has an older brother, Erich, and a 4-year-old daughter, Emma. She also remembers having a wonderful childhood. But in March, she was struggling with depression because of concerns about finances and the future.
Unable to sleep in the early hours of March 28, she tried to do something constructive so she checked the Internet and eventually landed at the website www.adoption.com, a database where birth parents and people who are adopted can post information. It was the first time she looked on the website. It’s the same website where Carroll posted information in 1998, just in case the girl she placed for adoption ever wanted to find her.
Neuroth created a profile on the website, listing all the facts that her mom and dad had shared about her adoption. Seconds later, the website signaled that there was one match.
“My heart stopped,” Neuroth recalls. “I clicked on the link to go to the person’s profile. Everything I read was a match. She had a girl. She gave her up for adoption at Catholic Social Services in Colorado Springs after giving birth in Fort Carson Army Hospital. I was numb. I couldn’t believe it.”
An overwhelming connection
Later that night, with the help of some connecting through the social network website Facebook, Carroll and Neuroth found themselves talking on the phone together.
The conversation was marked by more tears than words. Still, Neuroth managed to tell Carroll about her family and how her parents always praised her birth mother for making the sacrifice she did. And Carroll told Neuroth that she has two more brothers—Carroll’s sons, Doug, 29, and Alex, 26.
Three weeks later, Neuroth came to Indianapolis on Palm Sunday weekend to meet her birth mother and her brothers. They spent the weekend at a hotel, talking, playing cards, eating meals together and catching up on nearly 35 years of their lives.
Carroll and Neuroth also had DNA testing done to confirm they are related even though their physical resemblances are striking. The test results revealed an overwhelming connection. So did the reunion.
“In the matter of three weeks, I was able to cross off the top three things on my bucket list,” Neuroth says. “First, to find out who my birth mother is, to just find a name. Second, to talk to her and thank her for giving me life and a chance at a better life. And third, just to meet her and look at this woman who made the most unselfish choice a mother can. It’s been better than I ever thought it could be.”
Doug Carroll has seen the difference that the reunion has made in his mom.
“It’s brought a completion to my mom’s life,” Doug says. “She’s not one to dwell on regret, but to know she made the right decision to give her up and see what a wonderful person Heather is has given my mom a lot of peace.”
‘The hand of God’
In the weeks since the reunion, e-mails, letters and phone calls have deepened the bonds, and there are plans for visits to Iowa and Indiana this summer.
“It’s just been so much fun to talk to Heather, to bounce off ideas of what we’re going through in our lives,” Alex says. “It’s really been a wonderful, wonderful thing for us. I love being able to say ‘my sister’ in conversation.”
His mother has the same reaction to using the phrase “my daughter.”
“When Heather came here, she had made me a book showing pictures of her through the years,” Carroll says as the tears flow down her cheeks. “Pictures of her first birthday, her first day of kindergarten, her first Communion, pictures with her Mom and Dad, pictures of her teenage years. It was so amazing. In the back of the book, she wrote, ‘To be continued.’
“We’re looking forward to that.”
Both Carroll and Neuroth see “the hand of God” in everything that has happened to reunite them.
“The family just keeps getting bigger and happier,” Neuroth says. “We just have a lot more love. God really does work in our lives even when we think he’s not listening anymore.” †
