Baby Lost and Found...

I was born at the Women's Clinic in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My biological mother Caroline Van Loock went to PR with her lawyer Jerry Tobias to end the pregnancy. At the time she was going through a difficult divorce to singer/songwriter Teddy Randazzo and had a son, Teddy Jr.
To bring a new baby into the world with such uncertainty was not a choice for her.
The doctor and owner of the clinic catered to women from the mainland US. It was a very clean and posh clinic. He was protected by the local govt. officials in the island, who also used the facility for their own unwanted pregnancies. It was a well known clinic in NYC and many women went to it for abortions since abortions were illegal at the time in the US.
When Caroline got to PR the doctor told her she was too far into the pregnancy and advised her to return at 7 months gestation to deliver the baby. He would then find a home for the child. Caroline returned to PR with her lawyer Jerry Tobias and had a C-section on May 9th 1966. She recovered at a nearby hotel and returned to New York.
I was that baby! I was put into an incubator for about a month and afterwards the doctor gave me to his wife's brother, Carlos A. Mendoza Vidal and his wife Arleen Vazquez Orlandi. They were unable to have children. A few years before in 1962 Arleen had a baby girl called Milagros (Miracle)  but she only lived a few hours. My parents, Carlos (Chiro) and Arleen took their perfect and healthy 4 1/2 pound premature baby girl home and registered her as their own legitimate child at the PR Demographic Registrar's Office.
The years went by, I went to an American English speaking private school, did ballet, gymnastics, ceramic classes, modeling school. I was Valedictorian of my Senior class in High School. Lived a very sheltered life. My dad was a lawyer and my mom a school teacher. I was never told I had been adopted. My parents got a second baby from the clinic in 1969, my brother Carlos. He too was from US parents from New Jersey. My mom and dad gave us everything. They were a loving family, never divorced. My dad passed away in 2001 at age72 and my mom Arleen still lives in the island.

In 1993 I was living in Los Angeles, CA pursuing an acting career. My dad had a half brother that lived in LA with his mother. One evening we were having dinner and his mom told me I had been adopted at birth. At first it was a big shock, I waited 2 weeks before daring to call home to ask my parents. In a certain way I felt relieved. All my life I felt very different from everyone else. I had an artistic flair that nobody else shared and I was taller than most Puerto Rican girls and looked nothing like my mom and dad. Finally I knew why!

In 1993 I placed an Ad in the NY Times searching for Caroline Tobias. That was the name she gave at the hospital. I had no luck finding her. I joined Alma for adoptees and the National Registry of Adoptees in Washington DC. Everyone told me it would be IMPOSSIBLE to find my biological mother or father without a birth certificate or adoption papers, especially since I had been born in Puerto Rico and they had no jurisdiction or connections there. Every year I placed an ad around my birthday looking for my birth mother but had no luck. In 1995 I got married to David Cherkes from NY and had our first son Jordan Matthew Cherkes. My life was transformed by motherhood. Yet, I often thought about Caroline and wondered if she ever thought about me and if I would ever meet her. I thought about my biological dad too. Wondered about who he was and if he thought about me too.
In 2001 I gave birth to my second son Luke Aaron. I thought about Caroline and wondered if she was still alive. I would go for hikes and call out her name out to the sky. I would pray that she would know how grateful I felt for her giving me life. I thought about my brother that I never knew and wondered if I would ever meet him too. Life went on and at times I gave up searching. I had no luck, it was as if an alien spaceship had dropped me in PR and taken off to another world! I went into therapy and talked about it and processed the pain of separation, a deep primal wound that was so very present and needed expression and release. I had also been doing Yoga and meditation since 1994 which filled me with joy and gave me peace of mind.

In 2004 I heard that DNA testing was available that could tell where a person's ancestry came from. WOW! that was a great break through. I signed up immediately and did a Mitochondrial DNA test (MTDNA), which tested the Maternal line that is passed down from mother to offspring. The Lineage is only continued from mother to daughter, because a daughter will pass their MTDNA to their daughters and so on and so forth. If passed only to sons, the MTDNA lineage will not continue because males do not pass on their MTDNA. To my HUGE shock and disbelief the result were:

"The MTDNA sequence of Carla Orlandi belongs to the Native American  sequences from Native American populations that are widespread throughout Asia and Northern North Americas. This haplogroup began to spread out of South east Asia perhaps 43,000 years ago and travelled through the Bering Strait into Alaska and populated the Americas."
With this new found information I wondered how in the world did Caroline get to PR and how did the name Tobias, which was a Jewish last name, connect to her? At that point I thought that Caroline may have given a fake name and I had to re-start again from scratch!
I was interested in finding out more of my heritage and bought books on Native Americans and burned incense and listened to Native American  music. My family and friends thought I had lost my marbles! LOL (laughing out loud).
On October 2009 I remarried my sweet husband Michael L. Smith. He is a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy. Finally in 2013 I joined Ancestry.com They had a New DNA test, technology had advanced so now a female could get her Paternal and Maternal side tested! I signed up for the test and learned that I was 70 percent European. From Great Britain, Ireland and some Scandinavian and Belgian traces. To my great surprise on January 27th, 2014 I got close MATCHES to 2 people!
I was matched to a brother and sister Max and Molly Milford as 1st cousins on my paternal side! I called  Ancestry.com and asked how sure where they of these results. They said there are NO MISTAKES with DNA. People can go to jail based on DNA and people have been freed based on DNA. They told me then to contact the Milford siblings and find out more information.

I messaged them both and got an immediate very friendly response from Max Milford. I asked that he have his mom call me and so I got a call from his mother Polly Milford.  After comparing
information both her kids and I had also matched on Ancestry.com a few days earlier with a third match a third cousin named Lowery Tackett! Therefore our match was through her dad's side. Polly then said I was probably her half sister and her dad's daughter.

 We talked a lot that night and realized that we both lived in San Diego (20 minutes from each other) and we both had modeled and had both gone to the same acting school, The Lee Strasberg Theatre in NYC before both moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Currently we BOTH are licensed Realtors in California. Talk about synchronicity!

Polly and I met on Saturday February 1, 2014. Our physical resemblance is so clear and it was such a happy moment for both of us and our kids! The next day she gave my number to her dad Gary and he phoned me. I asked him if he knew a Caroline Tobias in 1965-1966? He said YES! He had lived in NYC from 1964-1966 and had a love affair with a Caroline Van Loock and her lawyer's name was Jerry Tobias! At that moment I literally fell to the floor. All those years looking for Caroline were finally coming to fruition!

He told me that Caroline had a son, as I had heard by the hospital and from my aunt married to the doctor. He said he was so in love with Caroline but that she was in the process of getting divorced from Teddy Randazzo. That they actually travelled together and took little Teddy with them and he also knew her brother Charles Van Loock. Gary knew that she was part Eskimo, which matched the Native American MTDNA  (mother line) results I had gotten in 2004 and was proof that finally all the pieces of this puzzle were falling together.
After our amazing conversation I looked for Teddy Randazzo Jr. and found him on Facebook. I messaged him asking him to please phone me. The day after I spoke to Teddy and he confirmed that he knew Gary Tackett and that indeed Caroline had carried a love affair with Gary and they had travelled together with him before Caroline was divorced. Teddy Jr. had fond memories of Gary and remembers they had been together and also knew Caroline's lawyer Jerry Tobias, who was the man that went down with Caroline to Puerto Rico for the delivery in 1966.

This whole experience has been a whirlwind! I have found both of my biological parents and their families! The purpose of my search was to find out more about Myself. Where did I come from? Who were my biological parents and what happened to them? Today I'm so happy to have met my biological dad Gary, sister Polly and my brother Teddy Jr. I want to learn more about my biological mother Caroline and about her amazing beauty, talent and life. I want to celebrate her life with all of those that knew her and share my new found Eskimo heritage with my children.

I feel so blessed by God's Grace in finally answering my prayers! Please use this Blog to share your stories, photos, questions and thoughts.

With love,

Carla Orlandi-Smith