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news/advertiser December 18, 2019
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When St. Helens local Janice Tauscher was 23, she was pregnant with her third child. She had two daughters from a previous marriage and was now pregnant with her third child, but the child’s biological father had just left her six months pregnant. She was a struggling single parent now, and she had a difficult decision ahead. “I just thought, you know, I’m not providing a good home for my daughters. I felt that it was better for me to give him up for adoption so that he would have a better life,” Tauscher said. So, when her son was born, she wasn’t allowed to hold him because of the choice she’d made. Tauscher said her goodbyes. However, four days after the adoption, the boy’s father returned. He and Tauscher got back together, and he asked her if she could “get the baby back.” But Tauscher had been given a time frame to change her mind, and that time had passed, so she reached out to the caseworker who handled the adoption. “The case worker had told me it takes a very unselfish mother to give her baby up to have a better life, and the case worker shared that with the adoptive parents,” Tauscher said. “And so, Craig knew that always, all of his life.” Until recently, Tauscher had been searching for her son for 54 years. She’d gone onto the internet, put in his birthday and where he was born, but never got any results back. Most recently, her friend got her a DNA kit for Christmas, just in case the adopted son had tried the same thing. They wanted to find him, too. Tauscher said she never gave up, even though she’d heard that boys don’t usually look for their biological parents as much as girls do. She wondered if he even wanted to find her. Then, on Sept. 17, 2019, after a lifelong search, a message came via Facebook. “Hello, my name is Craig Blair,” the message read. “I recently had my DNA ana-
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DNA test reunites family after 54-year search Photo: Janice Tauscher
Craig Blair stands with his birth mother, Janice Tauscher of St. Helens, on the day they finally came face to face.
lyzed on AncestryDNA and just got my results back. You were listed at the top as a match for a parent.” Blair went on to explain when he was born, and that he’d reached out through the Ancestry website but was afraid Tauscher didn’t check it often. So, he’d tracked her Facebook down using a matching picture and hoped she didn’t mind him contacting her there. “I have been waiting to find my birth mother for a long time. I never expected it would happen as easily as this. I wonder if you have been hoping I would look for you and contact you some day,” the message from Blair read, adding that he still lived in Montana near where he was born. “Please write back if you would be interested in connecting.” Tauscher said when she
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read the message, she was “on a cloud.” In tears, she responded. “I’ve wanted to contact you for so long. I’m so excited, you have three sisters and a brother.” A family reunion Blair had known he was adopted since he was very young. He said his parents told him what little they knew about his birth mother, and that she had given him
away because she’d wanted him to have a better chance at a life that she couldn’t provide. Throughout the years, his adoptive mother continued to encourage him to one day look for his birth mother. At first, Blair said it felt like a “really difficult task” because the records were sealed. He knew he needed a lawyer and a valid reason to get the documents opened, and he was over-
whelmed with the process and didn’t know where to begin. “I kept saying to myself time is running out. If she’s still out there – maybe she’s passed away,” Blair said. Finally, Blair’s adoptive sister gifted him a DNA kit. “I never thought that when I got the results back that I would have her listed right at the top,” Blair said, before explaining how he tracked down his birth
mother’s Facebook page. “I noticed that the friend request had been accepted, and then the message started coming through. You know, the little dots going by … she’s writing to me. She’s writing to me now!” As fun as it was, Blair said it was also overwhelming at first. The same day he
See REUNION Page A2