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Woman discovers her co-worker is her birth mother

Posted at 12:19 PM, Apr 17, 2015
and last updated 2015-04-17 12:19:05-04

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — An Ohio woman searching for her biological mom got the surprise of her life Monday when she learned her mother was a coworker.

WKBN reports the Ohio Dept of Healthreleased birth records last month for those born between Jan. 1 1964 and Sept. 18, 1996. La-Sonya Mitchell Clark, 38, got her records, including her mother’s name, in the mail on Monday.

La-Sonya looked up her mother’s name, Francine Simmons, on Facebook where she learned the two women work at the same company.

“There’s a Francine that works at my job. She works in VR and she works at the front desk,” she told WKBN.

She reached out to her friends on social media. A day later, she got a phone call.

“She called me and I said, ‘Is this Ms. Francine?’ She said, yes. I said, ‘I think I’m your daughter’,” La-Sonya said.

“I’m still in shock. It’s amazing,” Francine said.

She said she always wanted to reconnect with her daughter, but never knew how.

“I got pregnant when I was 14. I had her when I was 15. I was put in a home, a girl’s home. Had her. Got to hold her. Didn’t get to name her, but I named her myself in my heart all these years,” Francine said.

La-Sonya also learned she has three other sisters she didn’t even know about. One works with her as well.

Mom and daughter live just 6 minutes from each other in Youngstown.