It's a Girl!

It was on this day, in December 1953 that Kelly, as she would first be named, was born a healthy and pink, 8 pound baby girl at the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers, in the city of Los Angeles. The birth came about 5 weeks after Kelly's mother, a very troubled, but beautiful teen named Diana turned 17 years old.

It was a time reminiscent of the television show Happy Days; high school sock hops with pink poodle skirts, rock and roll music, The Ed Sullivan Show and Elvis Presley's provocative hips.

And, there was the handsome, olive-skinned boy; a new arrival from Oklahoma that caught Diana's eye as she watched him flipping hamburgers at The Clock Drive-In, a local "hot spot" that she and her girlfriends would frequent. That young man who worked so hard to disguise his Okie drawl, would father her child; conceived in the back seat of his "souped-up '47 Ford."

Diana's mother would later describe her only child as "promiscuous" and she told a story of taking a Lolita-like Diana to the psychiatrist, only to later find that she'd seduced the Doctor. Sighing, she then said that she sometimes thought she brought the "wrong child" home from the hospital back in 1936, but in her heart she knew otherwise.

She said it was easy for her to see herself in her beautiful baby granddaughter's sparkling green eyes, that were nearly identical to her own. There was no denying the genetic connection, as much as she would have liked to distance herself from her daughter's shameful unplanned pregnancy and ongoing problems.

During the time that Diana spent hidden away at the Crittenton Home pending the baby's arrival, she went school and met with counselors who presented her various options.

Diana, with or without pressure from her mother, elected to place the yet unnamed baby up for immediate adoption. She was fully advised of her rights, including the fact that she could change her mind before the adoption was finalized when the baby turned 6 months old.

Kelly, as her new, young adoptive parents named her, thrived in their loving home becoming a happy, chubby-cheeked and extremely adored addition to their family. All was right in their world until Diana changed her mind and exercised her rights to reclaim the child that she'd given birth to 5 months earlier!

A few short days later, Kelly's extremely distraught parents carried her and all her colorful baby belongings in their loving arms, up the long walk to the front door of her maternal grandmother's home. With hot tears streaming down their faces and intense anguish, they returned their daughter to the arms of the teen birth mother who was a complete and utter stranger.

Diana named her Mary Elizabeth and nicknamed her "Lisa." The teen "mother" and daughter would remain strangers for all their days as a loving maternal bond was never established.

Shortly thereafter, in August 1955, Diana gave birth to her second child, again out-of-wedlock and............... the cycle continued.

The End....


sort of.




But....if it wasn't for this sad story...I wouldn't be here...so Happy Birthday to me!



Photo from December 2007