- Michelle Rooney was abandoned outside flats in east London in 1968
- Her biological mother, Angie Smith, was a 23-year-old divorcee at time
- Adopted Ms Rooney began looking for her birth parents after turning 21
- The pair have been reunited almost 50 years since Ms Rooney was born
A woman who was dumped in a dustbin as a baby has finally been reunited with the mother who abandoned her after 46 years.
Michelle
Rooney was adopted after being found in a bin bag outside a block of
flats in Walthamstow, east London, on November 18, 1968.
She
had been left at the site by Angie Smith, then a 23-year-old divorcee
who had hidden her pregnancy and given birth in her father's garden
shed.
Michelle Rooney has been reunited with
Angie Smith, her biological mother who abandoned her in a bin bag when
she was born in 1968
Michelle Rooney (as a baby with her
adoptive mother) was adopted after being found in a bin bag outside a
block of flats in Walthamstow, east London
Terrified
of bringing further shame on her strict family after an ugly separation
from her first husband, the young mother deserted the baby, hoping she
would be picked up by a loving family.
The pair have now come face to face after Ms Rooney, a mother-of-two herself, made appealed to her long lost parent publicly.
Harbouring
no ill will towards her biological mother, she said of their emotional
reunion: 'I was so nervous my heart was pounding as I saw her for the
first time.
'But
as we embraced it was like greeting an old friend. It felt natural, as
if we had always known each other, yet also surreal,' she told Angela Careless of Dailymail of UK
Mrs Smith
was just 23 when she gave birth to her daughter in secret after
divorcing her first husband. Ms Rooney was taken in by nurses (right)
before being adopted
Despite being left as a baby in the lobby of a block of flats, Ms Rooney said she has no ill will towards her birth mother
Dustbin Baby: Michelle's discovery (pictured aged five) sparked a media frenzy
'I'd
been searching for Angie for 25 years and now that missing part of my
life was complete. Finding her was never about recrimination.'
It
has been nearly 50 years since Ms Rooney was found in a bin bag by Fay
Bliss, a passer-by who heard her cries on a freezing November night in
the 1960s.
The discovery sparked a media frenzy with the then unnamed child becoming known as The Dustbin Baby.
Her
parents' identity was unknown, with neither Mrs Smith nor the baby's
father - milkman John Good - coming forward to claim her.
She
was adopted by policeman Les Fuller and his wife Daphne and grew up at
their Surrey home with their other children, unaware of how the family
found her.
On
her 21st birthday, Ms Rooney learned how she had come to be adopted,
reading about herself as the Dustin Baby in newspaper cuttings from the
day she was found.
Meanwhile
Mrs Smith, who already had two sons from her collapsed marriage, had
spent years racked with the guilty of abandoning her only daughter.
'Abandoning
Michelle was an act of desperation for which I have felt guilty my
entire life. Not a day has passed when I didn't think about her.
After launching a public appeal Ms Rooney met her biological father, John Good, before his death last year
'I
always wanted to find her, but I didn't know how. Even if I did, I
didn't think she'd want to know me... the mother who'd dumped her as a
newborn baby.'
Ms
Rooney was able to track down her biological father before his death
last year. He was unaware she'd ever been born, having had a fleeting
romance with Mrs Smith after her divorce.
Then
last year, ahead of her 46th birthday, Ms Rooney, who now lives in West
Sussex, launched another attempt to track her mother down.
In an emotional appeal for the parent she'd never met, she said: 'Mum, if you are reading this, please get in touch with me.
'I’m not angry with you, I've never hated or blamed you, but I’d like some answers.'
The pair reconciled and have since enjoyed family occasions with Ms Rooney's sons, Oliver, 15, and Connor, 12.
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