Manitoba mom searching for her son 40 years after he was taken away

 

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais
APTN News
Lynn Paul, a Manitoba mother is searching for her son who taken away nearly 40 years ago. 

She said she was just a child herself when she was forced to give up her firstborn.

“I wouldn’t have been the best parent at fourteen,” she said. “I didn’t have the skills to do it. I was still very much a little girl looking back”.

Now she’s taking to social media in hopes of reconnecting with the son she named Robert Michael Paul.

He was born at Winnipeg’s Misericordia Hospital on July 8th, 1979.

Paul said she remembers the day clearly.

“By 1:20 in the morning I had this big baby boy laying on my belly and his eyes were wide open. And just…I fell in love.”

She said was able to spend three days with the baby as she recovered.

One of the nurses warned her not to get too attached.

“I didn’t listen to them,” she said. “I wanted to hold him, I wanted to snuggle him. I wanted to love him for as much as I could.”

Even after she was discharged Paul said she needed to see her son one last time.

“I snuck into the hospital when he was ten days old and I could see him inside that nursery window,” she said.

She doesn’t know where he ended up after that day.

“I’m hoping with all my heart that he had wonderful parents”.

Paul’s mother thought it was best to withhold their heritage on the adoption paperwork.

Paul is of Cree, Ojibway and Métis descent, but on the submitted birth information, the boy was listed as Welsh.

“I can see where my mom would want me to say that because it wasn’t a very…it wasn’t popular in 1979 to say you’re Indian.”

Paul said she’s thought a lot about her son over the years.

“At the beach, or at the zoo who would be about the same age as the child that I gave up…I would wonder, is that you? Is that you my boy?”

Both her legal name at the time, Lynn Denise Thomas and her current name, Lynn Denise Paul were on the adoption records.

Because it was a closed process, Paul doesn’t know who adopted her son.

She’s joined a Facebook group that has more than 6,000 members made up of adoptees and birth families in search of each other.

For now, she said she will be patient with the reconnection and hopes her long-lost son will reach out and try to find her.

“I’m hoping that he’ll be accepting of me and of his cultural background.”