27 Years After Being Left on Doorstep as Newborn, Woman Finds Her Biological Family
A 27-year-old computer teacher from Greensboro, North Carolina, has finally located and met her biological parents after almost 20 years of wondering and searching.
Precious Bradley was only 2 weeks old when her biological mother left her on the doorsteps of what was then a day care on Jan. 18, 1991.
— Queen P (@PB_KILLIN_EM) March 3, 2018
She didn’t learn of the beginning of her story until she was 9 years old. She was rummaging around downstairs when she stumbled upon an old newspaper article that featured a picture of her as a baby and one word that seemed to have just jumped off the page: adopted.
“I was downstairs being nosy,” Precious recalled. “And I must have just learned the word adopted earlier that week. Because I saw a newspaper article with the word adopted in it. And there was a picture, and I knew the picture was of me and I knew that was my mom and dad.”
She couldn’t get the idea out of her head that she may be adopted so she began questioning her mother, Sheila, about the article she had found and what it meant. Although Sheila tried to brush the questions off, Precious’ persistence finally led Sheila to ask Precious to wait until her father, Ron, came home.
The then-9-year-old Precious took the cue and eagerly waited for her father to come home. Once he did, both of her parents went upstairs to discuss the discovery.
When they came back downstairs, they explained that she was adopted, but that is never affected how much love they had for her.
Precious understandably was upset and went into hysterics. Once she had calmed down, however, the only parents she had ever known gently reminded her how much they loved her and that even though she was abandoned as a baby she was found healthy, with no signs of abuse or any traces of drugs in her system.
For 1st Sgt. Ron Bradley and his wife, Sheila, Precious was an answer to their prayers. When they were ready to start their own family, they learned that Sheila was unable to bear a child on her own. That’s when they began considering adoption.
“You know, me being a man, I probably wanted a boy,” Ron laughed. “But, they told us when she was found on the doorsteps and immediately my wife fell in love with her. And even though we didn’t have children, she was so young that it felt like having our own child.”
In fact, Precious was so young that Ron was able to name her.
“I told myself, since the Lord gave me this child, she will always be Precious to me in my lifetime,” Ron said tearfully. “I told myself, I’m going to do all I can to make this child happy and bring her up right in this world we live in. She knows she can always fall back on her father.”
Check out my children’s book “Precious Baby You’re Mine” available now on https://t.co/3xuBCfZ8qc pic.twitter.com/ZKGk5FhkPn
— Queen P (@PB_KILLIN_EM) January 6, 2018
Although Precious deeply loves her parents and even admits that she knows she’ll never be able to repay them for the unconditional love they’ve shown her over the years, the desire to meet her biological parents continued to get stronger and stronger and her parents were, unsurprisingly, extremely supportive of her search.
In a February 2018 interview, she even recognized that there was a possibility that she would never meet her parents, that the journey may never take her there, but she persisted.
She simply just wanted to know more about her family.
“I need to know who my family is. It’s hard maneuvering in Greensboro not knowing who you’re walking into or who you’re looking at. It’s really hard when it’s your immediate family you don’t know. You have to be careful about who you date. It alters your life,” she said. “Those kids that I’m teaching, they could be nieces and nephews and I don’t know it. I could be working with a family member and I not know it.”
Besides just wanting to know more about her family, she also shared that she wanted to know why she was left on the doorsteps as an infant.
“Maybe it was a cry for help,” Precious said. “Maybe this person just didn’t know how. But, at the end of the day I cannot forget the fact that I was not aborted. And that in itself I will be forever grateful.”
25 years ago I was abandoned as an infant…please RT #FindingPrecious pic.twitter.com/scAHQmoju9
— Queen P (@PB_KILLIN_EM) January 19, 2016
It was a question she would finally get to ask not too much later.
After extensive genealogy tests and much research, all of which was paid for by others in her community, she revealed in October 2018 that she had finally met her biological parents.
A match on ancestry.com led her to her biological father who then connected her with her biological mother; they both had lived in North Carolina the entire time!
Precious said their first meeting was like “a business call.” She just needed to ask her biological mother the questions that had been burning inside of her for almost two decades before she chickened out.
“I definitely think this was a cry for help,” Precious told WFMY News. “She did what she felt was the best option that she had and at the end of the day, I’m perfectly fine with that option. because I’m able to live because of her.”
Since their first meeting Precious has been spending time getting to know some of her biological family, but fully recognizes that she is just taking “baby steps” right now.
Precious now hopes that her story will inspire others to stay steadfast in their search for their own biological family.
She said, “Definitely take initiative. Do what’s best for you. If you feel like you need to find them, continue the search. Never give up until you feel like you’ve searched enough.”
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