Woman’s plea to find daughter 43 years later
A DESPERATE woman who was forced to give up her daughter 43 years ago has launched an emotional appeal in a lastditch attempt to find her long-lost child.
Rowena Fuller last saw her daughter, who she named Nicola, when the little girl was just 10 days old.
But Rowena, now 59, had to hand her child over due to her parents’ disapproval.
An emotional Facebook plea by Rowena detailing her story and asking for her daughter, who was named Nicola Brett on her birth certificate, to get in contact has been shared nearly 550,000 times in just two days.
Rowena gave birth to Nicola on December 17, 1973, at what was then the Heath Hospital in Cardiff .
In her Facebook post Rowena wrote: “For 10 days I learned how to bath you, keep you warm and cuddle you. You were with me for my 17th birthday on the 27th December that year.
“On the morning of the 30th December it was snowing. I dressed you in your snow white layette and took the lift down to the car park.
“A woman was waiting there and I couldn’t let you go There was an undigni- fied struggle and my mother wrested you from my arms and handed you over.
“The woman turned and walked away – I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my body.”
After her post was shared around the world, Rowena appeared on ITV show This Morning yesterday.
On the show she said: “My mum would have forced an abortion. I kept it secret until I was six months pregnant. She thought she would lose her place in the golf club.
“It was a very different world then.”
She added: “It was so callous and so un-feeling.”
Rowena now lives in France and has gone on to have her own children and become a foster mum to several others over 17 years.
Rowena added: “I begged [my father] to let me keep Nicola.
“It was Christmas time, there was going to be a miracle. But it didn’t happen.”
Rowena was sent away for two days after handing over her baby and claimed she had a nervous breakdown when she returned.
She added that her daughter’s adoptive parents had sent her a picture of the toddler taken when she was a year old.
Describing that, Rowena said: “It was comforting to see it. She looked beautiful – she had a lovely coat.
“I accepted that right from the beginning once she had entered into the family I was never going to intervene.”
Rowena said she plans to close down her Facebook account after receiving hateful messages, including more than 120 people who claimed to be Nicola.
Rowena said in her Facebook post on November 26: “I have tried to find you but without success so now I am begging all my friends, their friends and their friends’ friends to share this post.
“I have lived 43 years with a tear in the cloth of my life, notwithstanding a wonderful daughter, a fine son and a whole posse of adopted/kids by marriage – but this pain will always linger with me.
“I will be 60 this birthday and would love to hear from Nicola (or whatever her name is now) in the hope that together we can
.“darn the hole.
“I think you were brought up in South Wales, but by now you could be anywhere.
“Please, please if you read this, give me a chance – I did and do love you. Your half brother and sister, my husband and the majority of my friends know all about you and my attempts to find you – you would be welcomed by all.”
Nicola was adopted through the Church of England Children’s Society.