Adopted Son Finds Birth Parents After Six-Year Search, Thanks Them for Choosing Life

Francis Menard and Birth Mother Melanie Cantwell

By Lisa Bourne

Life Site News

After years of searching, a young Canadian man given up for adoption as a baby has located his birth parents and thanked them for giving him life.

“They never saw me as a mistake,” Francis Menard said. “They made a decision that was best for me at the time.”

Menard’s story highlighting the blessing of adoption unfolded recently in the local media.

“A lot of people would have (chosen) abortion,” Menard said, “but they put me first, to put me with a family to get the best I could possibly get.”

Menard, who is a student and hockey player at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born in 1992 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

He looked for his biological parents for six years without success and became discouraged, The Guardian reports. Menard got in touch with the news outlet in the last few weeks thinking that publishing his story might help in the search.

Francis Menard and his birth father, Alan MacQuarrie

In less than two hours after it posted online, Menard heard from his birth mother via email.

Melanie Cantwell was a high school student when she became pregnant with Menard, who was two months old when an Ontario family adopted him.

“I have found the love of my life when we found each other,’’ Cantwell said after meeting her son for the first time. “There is nothing ever that could top this.’’

Life Site News story continues