(NewsNation) — A 42-year-old Virginia man got to embrace his birth mother for the first time during a long-awaited family reunion in Valdivia, Chile.
For months, Jimmy Lippert Thyden has been on a journey to uncover the mysteries of his counterfeit adoption and to reconnect with his biological mother, brothers and sister.
Hospital workers took Maria Angelica Gonzalez’s son from her arms right after birth and later told her he had died. Now, she was meeting him face-to-face at her home in Valdivia, Chile.
Thyden's journey to find the birth family he never knew began in April after he read news stories about Chilean-born adoptees who had been reunited with their birth relatives with the help of a Chilean nonprofit called Nos Buscamos.
The organization found Thyden had been born prematurely at a hospital in Santiago, Chile's capital, and placed in an incubator. Gonzalez was told to leave the hospital, but when she returned to get her baby, she was told he had died and his body had been disposed of, according to the case file which Thyden summarized to the Associated Press.
"When my adoptive parents, who were always upfront with me about my adoption, provided me with my paperwork I realized that there were three versions of a story that couldn't all be true," Gonzalez explained. "One version of the story said I had no living relatives, another said I was given up at birth for adoption, another said I was given up at the age of two. So, obviously these three divergent stories that can't all be true."
Nos Buscamos has been partnering for two years with the genealogy platform MyHeritage, which provides free at-home DNA testing kits for distribution to Chilean adoptees and suspected victims of child trafficking in Chile.
Thyden’s DNA test confirmed he was 100% Chilean and matched him to a first cousin who also uses the MyHeritage platform.
Thyden sent the cousin his adoption papers, which included an address for his birth mother and a very common name in Chile: Maria Angelica Gonzalez.
It turns out his cousin had Maria Angelica Gonzalez on their mother’s side and helped him make the connection.
He eventually traveled to Chile with his wife, Johannah, and their two daughters, Ebba Joy, 8, and Betty Grace, 5, to meet his newly discovered family.
“It was amazing to finally come to this moment, to make better the harm that was done. We can’t make it right, and we can’t give the 42 years back in any way but it was made better in that moment," Gonzalez said.
Thyden recalls his birth mother’s response to hearing from him: “Mijo (son) you have no idea the oceans I’ve cried for you. How many nights I’ve laid awake praying that God let me live long enough to learn what happened to you.”
Nos Buscamos estimates tens of thousands of babies were taken from Chilean families in the 1970s and 1980s, based on a report from the Investigations Police of Chile which reviewed the paper passports of Chilean children who left the country and never came back.
The child trafficking coincided with many other human rights violations that took place during the 17-year reign of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who on Sept. 11, 1973, led a Chilean coup to overthrow Marxist President Salvador Allende. During the dictatorship, at least 3,095 people were killed, according to government figures, and tens of thousands more were tortured or jailed for political reasons.
Over the past nine years, Nos Buscamos has orchestrated more than 450 reunions between adoptees and their birth families, del Rio said.
Other nonprofit organizations are doing similar work, including Hijos y Madres del Silencio in Chile and Connecting Roots in the United States.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.