British brothers had an emotional reunion recently after being apart for nearly 50 years.
When Steve Belshaw, 54, of Blackpool, Lancashire, England was born, his 17-year-old mother decided to make an adoption plan for him, according to the Daily Mail.
Belshaw never met his half brother, Rob Hall, until a TV show reunited them recently. Much to the brothers’ surprise, they live only about 1 mile away from each other, the report states.
Just a teenager, Belshaw’s biological mother, Frances Unsworth, chose life for her son. However, when her boyfriend was killed in an accident, she made the difficult decision to make an adoption plan for him. She placed an advertisement in a newspaper and chose a loving family to care for him, the report states.
Unsworth died in 2004, and never got the chance to meet her son as an adult. However, ITV’s “Long Lost Family” reunited Belshaw with his half brother, Rob.
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Here’s more from the report:
Presenter Davina McCall caused Mr Belshaw to break down in tears after she produced a photograph of his mother – a woman he had never seen before.
She stunned him by saying: ‘Do you know where we got it? You have a half-brother called Rob.’
And there was a further shock when he was told the 49-year-old had also been living in Blackpool the whole time.
Following a tear-jerking meeting, Mr Belshaw said: ‘To have a little brother… I never saw this in my wildest dreams. Meeting Rob has allowed me to feel closer to my birth mother. He has got so many memories to share. All that will help to build a much clearer picture of the kind of person she was.’
Belshaw praised his biological mother for her love and bravery.
“To have lost her boyfriend, the father of her child, I can only see her world fall apart,” he said. “It’s unusual to advertise your unborn child but I think it’s an extraordinarily loving thing to do. And knowing she had gone to all that trouble to find the most suitable parents speaks volumes about her character. If I had one chance, it would be to say ‘thank you’.”
Adoption is not an easy decision for birth mothers, but it is a loving alternative to abortion when she feels unable to parent. Many adoption agencies and pro-life pregnancy centers now offer counseling and support to birth mothers both before and after they make an adoption plan for their child. These mothers deserve to be commended for their sacrifice.
