Adoption can be a beautiful thing. Opening your family to a child in need is something few families can do, but those who do commit to a lifetime of nourishing and caring for a person through the many stages of their life.
For the adopted child, there can be a lot of complicated feelings. Of course, they love the families they grow up a part of, but there's always some curiosity about the life that could have been.
Elizabeth Hunterton knows those complicated feelings. The 41-year-old beauty queen grew up always knowing she was adopted. She loved her family, but also wondered about where she came from. She knew she was found by a pair of pilots at the gate of a Nevada airport when she was 10 days old. For years, she wanted to know how she ended up there. Thanks to a DNA service, she was able to do just that.
Elizabeth Hunterton grew up aware of the fact that she'd been adopted. She knew that she loved the family she'd grown up a part of. But like many adopted kids, she also had ideas and dreams of where she'd come from.
When she was old enough to find out the truth about her story, it wasn't a glamorous one. Two pilots discovered a 10-day-old Elizabeth abandoned and alone at a Nevada airport gate in January 1980. "I was about 10 days old," she told People.
"I grew up my entire life trying to figure out what I did in those 10 days that ultimately led to them saying, 'Let's just leave her at the airport,'" she continued.
Seeking the answer to a question like that can cause a person to dig, and Elizabeth did dig. She was curious about her racial background, which wasn't a subject of discussion in the white family she'd grown up in. She often wondered if she could be related to people she encountered in her everyday life.
Elizabeth was crowned Miss Nevada in 2004. The pageant life had an impact on her. Today, she still works for the organization, now as a CEO. While she was happy and fulfilled, she still wanted to learn more about her origins. She had little information to work off of without a place or date of birth or the race of her birth parents.
Elizabeth explored a lot of avenues to learn more. She even worked with a private investigator for the TLC show Long Lost Family. Sadly, none of her pursuits turned anything up.
"When this all started unfolding, there were certainly points that I thought to myself, 'Maybe I'll just walk away now,' because it just got hard," she said.
In 2008, DNA databases helped Elizabeth track down her biological father. Upon finding his identity, she learned he had died four years prior. He also never knew he had a daughter, she discovered upon contacting his family.
It wasn't until last summer when she used 23andMe that Elizabeth had better luck. Several women came up as matches, so she began connecting with them. While they were all related in some capacity, none of them were her birth mother. There was one woman she matched with who had since died, and with no other options, Elizabeth began to believe that woman must have been her mother.
"I pulled out my bucket list, crossed it off, wrote her name down, and that was it," she said of the time.
Elizabeth had all but given up as the health crisis kept her home helping her two children with remote learning. But then a second cousin emerged. She was able to connect Elizabeth with her birth mother.
"It was really through this process of finding my birth mother that I'm able to rewrite my narrative," Elizabeth shared.
"I had really prepared myself to be rejected by both sides of my biological family … And it ended up being so much more beautiful than anything I could've written."
Elizabeth wrote her mother a two-page handwritten letter in August 2020. She explained that she didn't blame anyone for what happened to her and was compassionate to the circumstances that must have led to such a decision. She just had questions and wanted answers to them.
Elizabeth's mother emailed her back, finally able to provide answers to some of Elizabeth's most burning questions. Elizabeth learned that her mother was Japanese and her father was Black. They'd met at the Fort Ord military base. Elizabeth was born in a hospital in California.
Elizabeth also learned that being left at the airport wasn't an action done by her birth parents. When her mother found out, she was deeply distraught about it.
"When I received her email, she shared that she wasn't able to take care of me as she believed I deserved," Elizabeth shared.
"Therefore, she gave me to her roommate who was supposed to take me to an adoption agency," she continued.
"When my birth mother was told that I was actually left at the airport instead, it took quite a toll."
Elizabeth was able to find her birth certificate with this information. She learned she had been given the name "Elizabeth" as a middle name at birth, which was a pleasant little connection to her roots.
Elizabeth's mom, who requested to remain anonymous as she comes to terms with everything, shared a statement about what the email was like for her.
"I was shocked to hear from her and by the amount of research she did. It was all very overwhelming and brought back a lot of painful memories," the birth mother shared.
"However, it's also a tremendous blessing to find out what a strong and wonderful woman she turned out to be," she continued.
"One day, when we've all healed a bit more, hopefully we'll be able to meet."
Elizabeth isn't sure whether her mom ever looked for her, but she doesn't hold that against her. "She has such a good heart," she said.
"We exchange occasional emails and texts and holiday niceties. But the good thing is, I have a mom," Elizabeth noted.
"I don't need to put any unfair, unrealistic expectations on her. I just give her permission to be exactly who she is and it's perfect."
