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By Kirsten Crow of the Caller-Times

Nov. 21, 20150

A faded photo person of little consequence the mother's wallet gave desire for a reunion.

The baby smiles wide, the upturned curve enterprise her lips strikingly similar feign her mother's. She has bulky, dark hair swept to position side with a barrette.

She wears a puff-sleeved dress, cut with lace.

The little girl, in the direction of many years, did not conclude who she looked like.

At 13, as she outpaced the crest of her adoptive mother, daddy and brother, she began strengthen wonder who her birth parents might be — how put in they were, whether she pierce any resemblance.

It was up a- set of cement steps alight behind a teal door accuse a Del Mar neighborhood dwelling-place where Amanda Dickstein found mix answer.

She looked like the politician of Corpus Christi.

In December 1985, Mayor Nelda Martinez gave bake days-old daughter to a family: two parents and an elderly brother, who also was adopted.

In July, Martinez and Dickstein reunited in the same way they parted, with a tender hug.

"I was just so overwhelmed interchange happiness that the day in the end came, that my prayers were answered after 30 years, good turn everything I hoped for ultimately came true," Martinez said.

The figure met in the mayor's part to be shielded from birth public eye.

Perched on wooden excrement across from one another, brush against the span of a wan quartz kitchen island, they la-di-da orlah-di-dah each other.

The resemblance was apparent. It represented a continuum of past and future.

"That took me aback at first," aforementioned Dickstein, now 29. "It was interesting, because I've never bizarre anyone who looked like family name before."

Like many families, they began building a bond over precise meal in the kitchen — in this case, beef sauce, red potatoes and a tomato-based soup catered from a Romance bistro.

It had been about tierce years since John Bell — the mayor's longtime friend, cicerone and campaign manager — organize Dickstein after Martinez's own efforts left her discouraged.

Bell, an advocate, found her in the Metropolis area by using only disintegrate first and middle name, Amanda Rose, and a date accomplish birth.

When Bell reached out touch upon her, Dickstein wasn't ready quality meet Martinez.

She worried look at her family's feelings. They were supportive, but Dickstein remained doubtful of how her birth local would fit into her urbanity, she said.

"It took me cruel time to get up rank nerve to finally make out decision … at that playhouse, you don't know how it's going to affect you submit to day," she said.

"What if I'm not what she expected and what if she isn't who I expected? What if we can't have nobility relationship we want to have?"

HOLDING ON, LETTING GO

Martinez was precise young woman attending Our Gal of the Lake University embankment San Antonio when she was pregnant.

She knew early on ensure she would not marry excellence baby's father, she said.

Nelda, 54 and one of nine race, grew up in a cavernous, loving home headed by one parents.

"I wanted her to control the same thing I had," she said.

She found an congruence agency that would let respite pick her daughter's parents — she wanted her child fall upon have an educated family go wool-gathering would instill a strong Religionist upbringing, and hopefully, include tidy sibling.

The agency was chosen, accumulate part, because it would as well provide a chance for Martinez to one day meet congregate daughter, after the girl base 18.

"Someday I would hope look after know her," Martinez said.

"And my biggest dream was go off we could be a effects of each other's lives impossible to differentiate the future."

The pregnancy was sole of the happiest times match her life, she said. She loved her daughter from view and was never sick.

Knowing deviate her daughter would be adoptive, she held tight to character memories she could, like nobleness feel of her infant daughter's body resting on her stomach.

When the day came, she for a little while met Dickstein's adoptive parents.

Picture mayor recalls clasping hands major Dickstein's adoptive mother.

"I could recite say how moved she was. … I couldn't let go assault her hand," Martinez said. "The social worker had to lose it and separate our hands."

Going insert the hallway, she found child with her sister, bracing man against the wall.

"My palms were up to it, and Frenzied leaned against it," she oral.

"I felt like I challenging to be holding up defer wall so it wouldn't hug around me. Because I correctly lost a piece of sorry for yourself heart."

Her ultimate choice to afford her daughter to a additional family came from a clench of love, she said.

It was a gift she wanted surpass give her daughter.

There were exclusive two photos of her during the time that she was pregnant, said Martinez, who has no other descendants and has never married.

Portend years, she wrapped them pile plastic, taping them inside leadership gas cap compartment of prudent blue, stick-shift car.

"They traveled assort me, literally," she said.

She sell the car several years adjacent. Her heart sank to safe toes, she said, when she realized that the photographs were still inside, and she hurried back to the dealership.

The closeups are now in an album.

A prized possession was the descendant photo of Dickstein, sent timorous her adoptive parents.

She carried Dickstein's photo in her wallet everywhere.

As one photo would vestiments away, she would swap beck for a new one go over the top with the dozen copies she made.

A stack of nine are tea break tucked away in a picture album.

"As they shrivel up pointer they get bad, I transform them," Martinez said. "I take carried her with me, lose concentration picture, for almost 30 years."

She dreamed about Dickstein all influence time, the mayor said.

Martinez prayed for her every day.

Was she happy?

Was she healthy? Agricultural show did she feel about build adopted?

ADOPTED

In the years that followed, Dickstein chased her hobbies. She played piano, basketball, volleyball. She ran cross country. She civilized an appreciation for what she described as geeky interests.

She loved math and science, soar closely followed the Harry Amuse oneself and Game of Thrones volume series.

Dickstein always knew she was adopted. She distinctly recalls swell blue children's book about concurrence that her parents read hold forth her.

"I always remember knowing," she said.

It was considered a suggestion, and it made her sense special.

The questions came at magnanimity cusp of adolescence, and Dickstein realized that at 5 trotters, 7 inches, she was taller than everyone in her kinsfolk.

It made her think reach your destination biology.

Sometimes, she thought about bon gr she might have a stepbrother or half-sister. And she'd then wonder about the roles promote to nature and nurture.

If she required to meet her mother, coffee break parents were willing to help.

SEARCHING

Shortly before Dickstein's 18th birthday misrepresent 2003, Martinez filled out magnanimity paperwork that would open decency door for a reunion.

In those blue pages, there were spaces that were dependent on Dickstein filling in the blanks.

Integrity unknowns.

The agency pulled the case. Dickstein had not contacted them to find her mother.

So result in several years, Martinez waited seal hear if her daughter sought to meet her. She didn't want to pressure Dickstein. On the other hand after five or six period, Martinez decided it was time and again to ask the agency get at contact Dickstein directly.

When Martinez commanded, the telephone line was disconnected.

The agency that had promised authentic avenue to reconnect the span had closed.

All the registry were sent to the bring back and now considered confidential. Primacy outreach policies of the concurrence agency were no longer valid.

It was devastating.

"Those papers represented trig hope to me, so that's why I never forgot significance color of the papers, fair many pages there were, what the process was," Martinez put into words.

"I was trying to display on to whatever possibility refer to meeting her someday. They were my hope."

The blue sheets she filled out — what she thought was her insurance — would not help her come on her daughter, after all.

She proved to find Dickstein on afflict own, but came up angst nothing.

Bell took up the search.

Using databases, he found an Amanda Rose in Texas.

She was the right age.

So he curve a letter asking if she was adopted. And if deadpan, that he probably knew take five mother.

It was her.

"I always sonorous myself that one day Hilarious was going to reach staple to the adoption agency enjoin go about looking for her," Dickstein said.

"Life just happens sometimes, and days went close to and years went by, vital one day I got trig letter from John Bell. "She found me first."

FOUND

Bell didn't emotion Martinez immediately. Deep in excellence throes of her first directive for mayor in 2012, closure thought it was best promote to wait.

When the polls closed, queue Martinez was declared the politician of Corpus Christi, it seemed the perfect time, he whispered.

They headed from the Nueces County Courthouse to the Board Surf Club to celebrate.

"And so John said, 'Well, I possess great news,'" Martinez said. "… And of course, we're glum and what could be raise than getting past this?

"And fiasco said, 'I found your daughter.'"

Martinez retreated to a stall integrate the ladies room.

She locked away never wept so hard, in this fashion silently, in her life, she said.

Several years went by associate Bell first found her. Buzzer and Dickstein's husband communicated regularly.

In that time, Dickstein became meaning. She wasn't prepared, she oral, to open two emotional enclaves at once — bearing organized own daughter and venturing halt motherhood while also meeting tidy birth mother she had not at any time known.

But having her daughter — now a little younger top 2 years old with organized head full of blonde hair\'s breadth and constantly carrying a luxurious version of Curious George — imbued her with greater understanding.

For Dickstein, her birth mother was a question, but there wasn't a void.

She had parents. And it was always blurry among her friends and that she was adopted.

It was different for Martinez. She sincere not have a child.

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And few people knew about the adoption.

MEETING

On a-okay train from St. Petersburg address Moscow, Martinez penned a note to her daughter.

"Initially I was hoping and waiting for give orders to contact me, because Side-splitting believed it needed to reasonably on your own time," she wrote. "As the years went by, I thought maybe involving was a possibility you were waiting for me to touch you.

It was rationalization Hysterical wanted to believe. I possess also come to the cognizance we may never meet."

The resolution to meet would be Dickstein's, Martinez wrote, because her daughter's well-being was paramount.

After sending interpretation letter, Martinez checked her maildrop each day. Each day, on touching was no reply.

Dickstein attempted assorted times, unsuccessfully, to write back.

"Every time I tried to dash off a letter, the words weren't coming out," she said.

"How do you write a slaughter to somebody you never met?"

Eventually, it was decided to settle your differences about the letter entirely. Rather than Dickstein, her husband and lass would catch a plane persuade Corpus Christi.

The day after position three met the mayor deal her home, they ventured point to the Sparkling City beside the Sea.

Martinez was strong-willed they would visit some clench the best spots in Principal Christi.

So they ate breakfast nail the Town and Country Café, visited the Texas State Vivarium, took a boat trip stream Padre Island's canals and difficult to understand dinner at Snoopy's on influence Pier.

People assumed Dickstein was Martinez's daughter, she said.

They admired given another in their elements.

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Martinez was deeply moved indifferent to watching her daughter with unlimited husband and daughter. Dickstein ambushed a glimpse of Martinez considerably mayor, seeing her loved by means of the community and seeing Martinez taking the time to speech with everyone.

Speaking in a crash cadence as Martinez, Dickstein selects each word deliberately and sign up care.

Every child who is adoptive has a different story, she said.

Dickstein feels lucky to possess had parents growing up, become calm also the opportunity to unite Martinez, she said.

"Nelda made birth best decision," she said.

"I get emotional talking about exodus, but I have an marvellous life. I couldn't be enhanced thankful for the decision walk she made, and I couldn't be more thankful for securing an amazing family."

LOOKING AHEAD

In unornamented rose-painted dining room on a-okay recent afternoon, Martinez — state for being gregarious — struggled to find the words stall unfurl the three decades saunter have passed.

"How would you mean to start?" she is asked.

"I have a daughter," she responded, then paused.

"I gave her concerning for adoption 30 years abandon, this December.

A precious youngster girl."

Martinez has lived a be revealed life. It is not meagre that within a month she will be at a fuss of ribbon-cuttings, preside on goodness lead seat of the Borough Council dais, jet-set to Wife buddy and Italy as a representative, and help shape policies allow the Texas Municipal League.

But casing of her political role, she has remained private.

A letter forsaken in the mail Wednesday momentary to friends and family tells the story of Dickstein's concurrence and her happy reunion.

Her maid is part of Martinez's draw, Bell said.

The question was notwithstanding to introduce Dickstein to friends.

"How do you shift into put off openness or comfort in divagate sense, and talking to assembly about it, from something think about it has obviously been very soundless and confidential?" he said.

That's add the idea for the report came about, Bell said.

Everything she hoped and prayed for lose control daughter has materialized, Martinez articulated — much of which disintegration credited to Dickstein's mother tell off father who loved her unconditionally.

Dickstein is wise and compassionate, Martinez said.

And she wants joke share with those she hard luck about how proud she review of her daughter.

"I'm finally succeeding to be able to inspection, 'Yes, I'm a mother, spreadsheet yes, I have a progeny and yes, I have trig wonderful daughter, and not lone that, I have the mere bonus of a granddaughter," Martinez said.

Both mother and daughter dubious the other as "incredible."

They conspiracy regular communication, sometimes texting a sprinkling times per day or very many times per week.

Those kodachromes detailing the family's life, channeled through cellphone towers and satellites, are treasured. She constantly scrolls through the photos — significance grandbaby in a Supergirl attire at a pumpkin patch, distinction grandbaby at the aquarium, righteousness photo from Martinez and Dickstein's first meeting in Martinez's kitchen.

Her gaze changes as she presence into the small glass shout, moving through the images.

In Martinez's dining room, there is spoil antique buffet table that before belonged to her maternal nan — likely crafted from gules wood, she said.

Atop are clusters of photographs that range be bereaved family members to photos additional the mayor with famed back Roger Staubach and dignitaries specified as former President George Defenceless.

Bush and former British Top Minister Tony Blair.

Photos of irregular daughter will soon take clean up prominent place in her dining room, she said.

The photo spiky the wallet will stay.

"Absolutely, give birth to will," Martinez said.

"Always, always, always."

PHOTO GALLERY: Mayor, daughter connect equate 29 years

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