Woman born in Vernon 27 years ago tracks down birth mom

VERNON – Nine days, five hundred messages and more than 100,000 Facebook shares later, Megan Osterreicher has found her birth mom.

The 27-year-old was born in Vernon Oct. 10, 1989 and went home with a local doctor for ten days before being adopted to a Lower Mainland couple. Osterreicher has always wondered who her biological parents are, and earlier this month decided to share her story on Facebook in hopes of finding them.

Nine days after her post went up, Osterreicher got the message she’s been waiting for.

“I found a message that said ‘hey Megan, we don’t know each other but I think that’s about to change’ and it had a little heart emoji,” Osterreicher says.

She was skeptical at first, but then she looked at the woman’s profile picture.

“I knew right away it was her,” she says. 

Since then, Osterreicher has been messaging back and forth with her birth mom, finally getting answers to dozens of lifelong questions. She's found out that she’s somehow related to Patrick Swayze, that Yonge Street in Toronto was named after her family, and that she has a younger sister.

“My sister wants to be a make-up artist, which is what I went to school for,” she says. “We have tonnes of similarities.”

Osterreicher still doesn’t know if her biological father will want to meet her (he and Osterreicher’s mother are not together anymore but she knows where he is). Osterreicher does plan on meeting her birth mother, and possibly her sister, in person this summer. She’ll have her adoptive mom at her side.

“It’s emotional for her too,” Osterreicher says. “I’m not trying to replace her at all.”

After being born, Osterreicher was taken care of by a doctor and his wife for the first ten days of her life.

“Legally, when you give a baby up, you have ten days to change your mind. That’s exactly why they (doctor’s family) kept me,” she says.

While it was a difficult decision to post her story online and watch such a personal aspect of her life play out publicly, Osterreicher has no regrets.

“I don’t think I got a single negative comment or message throughout the entire process. There was so much positive feedback,” she says.

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