Social Networks: Mom finds adopted son on Facebook

VANCOUVER -- Lori Haas never thought the journey to find the baby boy she gave up in a closed adoption 20 years ago would end on Facebook.

The closed adoption meant all the relevant documents were sealed, and Haas spent a decade waiting to get her son's name through an active registry, where the names of birth parents and adopted children are revealed at both of their requests.

When she got the name but no other identifying information, the 37-year-old nurse tried Google searches to see if anything would come up.

It wasn't until June 24 that a friend suggested she try typing her son's name into the popular social networking website.

"I thought, 'Let me put his name in and see if anything comes up,'" said Haas, a Richmond resident who had been a Facebook member for less than a month.

What she got was a list of Facebook members with the same name as her son.

"There were probably about a dozen names, but when I saw one of the tiny pictures, my heart went crazy."

Haas knew deep down it was her son.

But it took her a week until she overcame uncertainty and messaged him on Facebook. "I wrote to him that I was looking for someone I might be related to and asked him if this was his date of birth and full name," she said.

"Twenty-five hours later, he messaged me back confirming it was him. I freaked out."

Haas said that when she became pregnant at 17, she never told her parents, friends, or the father that she was carrying a baby until after she gave birth a few weeks before her high school graduation.

"Just knowing that I was very young, I knew that I couldn't take very good care of him," she said.

But life went on. She eventually married and had two more children.

Her son, 11, and daughter, 9, grew up knowing that they had an older brother out there somewhere.

Little did they know, their older brother Travis Sheppard was also dreaming of some day finding his birth family.

Four months ago, Sheppard packed up his life in Winnipeg and came to Vancouver to track down the mother he knew only from adoption papers.

Sheppard grew up in Victoria before his adopted parents moved the family to Winnipeg. His adopted parents told him "as young as I could remember" that he was adopted and were supportive of his journey out to B.C.

He said that when he clicked on Haas's profile after she sent him her message, he started to shake.

"I just knew she was my mom," he said.

Since meeting in person in a Vancouver restaurant on July 3, the two have grown close.

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