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After decades, sweethearts reunite, find their son

Two teenagers reluctantly allowed their son to be adopted in 1977. They lost touch for years, got back together, found their son and plan to marry.

EVERETT, Wash. - He held his son only once, in a sterile office at Catholic Children's Services that November day in 1977.

Bart Stokes gazed into the eyes as blue as his own, and covered his boy's cheeks in kisses.

"You're coming home with me soon, son," he whispered. "Daddy loves you. We're going to all be together soon."

He was still a child himself, a junior in high school with shoulder-length hair and a lanky teenage frame, hardly the picture of a father.

But a father was all Bart dreamed of becoming. That, and a husband to his girl, Brenda.

He had it all worked out in his head. He cherished Brenda Litzo, had even proposed before they ever learned she was pregnant. His mother would get a bigger apartment with a room for them and the baby. He worked after school at a gas station, and could make enough for them to get by until he graduated and found a permanent job.

The most important thing was keeping his family together.

Yet even the best intentions can fall by the wayside when those older and wiser have other plans in mind. Brenda's parents already had made adoption arrangements, and she was too scared to fight them.

A few weeks after seeing their infant son, Bart and Brenda found themselves in the same sterile office, adoption papers spread on a table.

They were told the family was Catholic and lived somewhere in metropolitan Seattle. They had one child, a 13-year-old boy.

Brenda signed and slid the document over to Bart. He stared, speechless, then stormed out.

"We can have more kids," Brenda promised him. "We'll always be together." She begged him to just get it over with.

Knowing it was the biggest mistake of his life, he signed.

"I just lost my son," Bart thought, never imagining he could lose her, too.

He called her "my Brenda," and from the first moment she had been. They'd met a year earlier at Edmonds High, north of Seattle.

Soon, they were flirting in biology class and going for rides on his motorcycle along the shores of the Puget Sound. The next Valentine's Day, they were engaged, both 17 years old.

Then the stomach cramps started.

Thinking it was just gastrointestinal problems, Brenda went to the doctor with her mother. After the tests were done, the doctor walked over to Mrs. Litzo and pointed at a slip of paper with the word "positive" on it.

"Positive for what?" she asked.

"Pregnancy," the doctor said.

Abortion wasn't considered because her family was Catholic; it never entered Brenda's mind anyway.

Brenda's parents sent her off to a school for girls to finish out the pregnancy, and yet even as the adults moved forward with the adoption scenario, Bart and Brenda talked in secret about keeping their child and starting a life together.

But Brenda was torn. Wanting to do right by her parents, she finally came to believe she had no choice.

Bart was hunting the morning she went into labor but arrived at the hospital within hours of his son's birth on Oct. 25, 1977. They named him Michael.

Bart never understood why Brenda went along with the adoption, but once their baby was gone, the couple argued endlessly. Bart dropped out of school and Brenda stopped returning his calls.

The snapshot of the baby, one the hospital provided of Michael at 3 days old, never left Bart's wallet.

It remained after he met another woman and got married in 1983, after they had a son together, Bartley Jr., and long after they divorced in 1988. It remained after the birth of his next son, Austin.

Bart tried to locate his firstborn by contacting various adoption rights groups, but he was told little could be done unless the child registered with them.

He wondered what Michael looked like, if he acted like him, whether he knew that he was adopted.

He also wondered about Brenda. Through friends, he learned she had married, had other children - three boys - and moved to California. He didn't know, however, that she also had divorced.

In 2001, he registered his name on Classmates.com, a Web site that allows people to track down and contact former schoolmates. Brenda had registered, too. He e-mailed, but got no response.

In December 2003, Bart went into work at Boeing, where he assembles jets, and sat down at a computer. A message popped up in his inbox: "You've received a Classmates e-mail!"

Brenda, living in Placentia, Calif., had lacked access to a computer. But as soon as she received Bart's note, she responded.

They had a long exchange about life, work and their children. She wrote, "I think of you often."

When he got home that day, Bart and Brenda talked for hours. Within days, all the things they'd never said were pouring out. "I've loved you all my life," Bart told her. "My dream of dreams is to have you - and to search for our son together."

In the waiting area of Sea-Tac airport, Bart paced. Finally, her flight arrived, and he saw her coming up the escalator. "Oh, my God," he said. "It's my Brenda!"

She ran into his arms and cried.

It was January 2004, and she had arranged to stay for 10 days, so they could get to know each other again. They also would finish the paperwork to petition a court to open Michael's adoption file.

Then a chance conversation with a stranger accelerated the search for their son.

Brenda and an old friend stopped by a car dealership in Tacoma, where the friend had a meeting, and Brenda struck up a conversation with a saleswoman.

Brenda told her that she was in town to reunite with her high school sweetheart and they were hoping to find the son they had put up for adoption.

How old was the child? asked the woman, Michelle Abbott.

Twenty-six, said Brenda: born Oct. 25, 1977.

What a coincidence, Abbott told her. She had a cousin born the very same day. And, he was adopted.

Where was he raised? Kent, said Abbott, a city in metropolitan Seattle.

What religion is he? Catholic, she said.

Does he have any brothers or sisters? Just one, Abbott said. A brother, 13 years older.

The young man in the picture had Bart's nose and chin, and those same blue eyes that Bart remembered, though they were shaped just like Brenda's.

Bart and Brenda were looking at a high school yearbook photo, of a student named Andy Fenkner. Michelle Abbott had called her mom, who contacted Abbott's aunt, Michael's adoptive mother.

Andy had known he was adopted since he was 16, but hadn't searched for his biological parents. Now, word reached him of the strange meeting between his cousin and this woman. Andy, living in Scottsdale, Ariz., phoned Abbott, who in turn told Bart and Brenda their son was waiting to hear from them.

On Feb. 6, 2004 - less than a month after their own reunion - the couple arrived in Scottsdale.

They arranged to meet outside a bookstore. As Bart and Brenda rounded the corner, they saw him: A handsome young man with a wide smile and beautiful blue eyes. Together, they took him in their arms.

For the first time in more than 26 years, Bart and Brenda held their child.

Their second night together, Brenda told Andy she had something to ask. On Oct. 1, 2005 - the anniversary of when the high school sweethearts started dating - Bart and Brenda plan to finally marry. Andy agreed to walk his mom down the aisle.

This past November, the three piled in the car on the way to the hospital. They stopped first to buy some film, and Bart couldn't contain his excitement.

"We're going to have a baby today!" he gushed to the store clerk.

Andy had flown in. As the infant's cries suddenly filled the hospital room, Andy called her by the name his parents allowed him to choose.

"My little baby sister, Madisyn."

Brenda and Bart beamed at their daughter, at their son, at each other - their family, finally together.

[Last modified February 13, 2005, 01:09:06]