For decades, Ava Fuller had drifted in and out of the D.C. area, and on the occasions when she was in town, she was always looking — hoping to find her long, lost daughter who she was forced to place for adoption after giving birth at the age of 15.
Having been in a military family and moving around the country, she thought nobody stayed in one place forever. Decades later, and over 30 years after settling in Prince George’s County, Maryland, for good, Fuller admitted she had basically given up.
She had so many questions about her own family history, especially because she herself was adopted. Fuller uploaded her DNA to 23andMe on a whim; and doing so has made the holiday season over the last few years all that much better.
“It’s been beautiful,” agreed both Fuller and her daughter, Crystal Bates, who grew up in D.C.
“Every time I came back to D.C., I would look in everybody’s face because I was looking for somebody who looked like me,” Fuller added.
She described 23andMe as her last chance to find out what happened to the girl she gave birth to. But it wasn’t Crystal she spoke with first — it was Crystal’s daughter who reached out first.
“They told me, ‘Mom, just reach out to her and talk to her,’” Bates said. “It was overwhelming for me, so it took me a minute to call and talk.”
Bates had actually lived most of her life not even realizing she had been adopted (in fact, she had been told the opposite even after finding an adoption letter). While she had been interested once upon a time, she had since given up on learning more about her past.
“I think I was in my 40s by then, so I was like it doesn’t even matter,” Bates admitted.
Eventually, her reluctance relented.
When asked about the relationship she now has with her biological mom, Bates said, “I was not expecting it.”
Today, Bates is 57, and Fuller is 72.
In addition to finding her daughter, Fuller has also found a sister she has in California through the DNA matching website. The two have made it a goal to reestablish a relationship and make the most of their time together now that they can.
They both brought together big families, and not just through blood, into each other’s lives. So between siblings, cousins, kids and grandchildren, there were almost 40 people inside a beach house for Fuller’s birthday.
“I just want to make sure that we can make the best of the time that I have left on earth because I have spent so long looking for her,” Fuller said. “I’m just ecstatic that we’re together, and I don’t want to waste any more time, because I want her to know who I am. I want to know who she is, and I want her to have memories, so that when I’m gone, she has something to look back to.”
And even though it took over 50 years to find each other, in some ways, they’ve been surprised by how well they know each other and how much they have in common.
“A lot of things that she’s into or have done … I’ve done the same exact things,” Bates said. “She knows how to fix on cars; I know how to fix on cars. She drives fast; I drive fast. It’s amazing, because I would never have thought that that would have been possible.”
But in fact, the last four years have taught them both that a lot of things they thought were impossible were actually quite possible.
“When she told me she never left D.C., I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe I never ran into to you,’” Fuller said. “And here we are.”
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