A Georgia mother has been reunited with her daughter - 42 years after she was taken from her at birth.
This summer, Nancy Womac greeted her long-lost child Melanie Spencer with a tearful embrace after four decades apart. And their reunion was all thanks to a 2018 DNA test on Ancestry.
In an interview with TODAY, Womac said that her daughter was "just what I thought she would be."
More on this incredible story in the video below:Womac was just 16 when she fell pregnant. She was living in an orphanage at the time, but when the director found out about her baby they sent her to Bethesda Home for Girls in Mississippi - a strictly religious institution Womac described as "like a nightmare."
After six months at the Girls Home, Womac was flown to Tennessee to have her baby.
"I remember going into labor, and they just give me a shot and put me out," she said. "I don’t remember having her. I don’t remember them wheeling me into the delivery room. I don’t remember nothing. She was then gone by the time I woke up."
"She was my firstborn," she added. "It’s something that you never really get over."
Over the next 42 years, Womac would never forget her daughter. She was so haunted by the loss that she would bake a cake every year on her birthday, and never stopped wondering where she had been taken.
"I remember thinking, 'Well, she should be taking her first step now,' or, 'She should have lost her first tooth,' or, 'Her first day of school should have started,'" she said. "And every year on her birthday, I know it didn’t make any sense, but I always baked her a cake. She would be 12 today. She would be 13 today. She would be 14 today."
In fact, Womac's child was sent to South Africa, where she grew up as the adopted daughter of missionaries under the name Melanie Spencer.
Like Womac, she too had always been curious and held out hope of learning more about her biological mother. After moving to the U.S. for college, she decided to do some digging and see if she could find out the truth.
"I really started thinking about what will I tell them about where they’re from," Spencer said. "I decided to do Ancestry. The most interesting part was that it came up with a DNA match. It had been almost 40 years, and I thought, 'Why not?'"
The results led Spencer to Womac's sister, Cheryl Blackwell, who in turn put mother and daughter in contact. After a brief but exciting Facebook exchange, the two decided to meet face-to-face.
Spencer drove to Womac's Georgia home and spent several days meeting the rest of her family. Mother and daughter were overcome with emotion to be reunited over 42 years since they had been parted.
"I’m happy she will know that she was loved," said Womac.
"It feels like coming home," added Spencer.
