A Happy Mother-Daughter Reunion

The year was 1982, and Inge Lawrenz had just had her first baby, a girl named Jamie, at Schusterberg Air Force Base in Germany.

Inge, 19 and a native of Holland, had met an American soldier while he was touring Holland during leave from the Air Force. The two dated for six to eight months before marrying in Holland. Lawrenz gave birth to Jamie on July 31, 1982, in Germany. In May 1983, Lawrenz left her baby with her husband to take care of her ailing mother in Holland. When she returned to Germany, her family was gone.

"It wasn't a very good marriage," Lawrenz told The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler. "I went to visit my mom, came back and she was gone with him. The house was empty. They didn't want to tell me, you know, the base didn't tell me what happened."

Lawrenz soon learned her husband was given a hardship discharge, which is given if you are in trouble or in bad health. Lawrenz said, "I tried to get in contact because I knew where he took her, to his mom's house. And I called there and then some guy told me to never ever get in touch with them again. I tried for three years, being overseas."

Once she realized that she was not going to get her baby back, she knew she had to move on. She said, "The first three years, I tried really, really hard. And then it kind of, you know, ate at me and then I decided, OK, I've got to move on and you know, keep a little opening in my heart for her and then, you know, just wait till she gets older."

Lawrenz moved back to Holland, where she met another American soldier, Kevin Lawrenz, who is her current husband of 20 years. They married and moved to Texas in 1985. After her eldest son, Daniel, was born, the family moved to Germany and lived there for 5 1/2 years. That's where her youngest son, Sean, was born. From Germany they moved to Michigan for 1 1/2 years, then they lived for two years in Washington state. Once her husband left the Army, they moved to Kansas, where they currently reside.

Lawrenz resumed her search for Jamie when she arrived in the U.S. She contacted services that find people and looked through phone books, calling every Jamie Arnold listed.

Through all the years of waiting, Lawrenz said bitterness was not in her heart.

"I became a Christian and forgave," she said. "I mean, things happen and you learn. I mean, it's a hard lesson to learn because you want to learn different lessons and not by having a child taken away from you."

One day, she was playing Bingo, when a friend suggested that she try the online peoplefinder service at Myfamily.com. Lawrenz went online and filled out the forms. The service immediately found Jamie.

Troy Dunn, the chief reunion officer for Myfamily.com, says, "Our number one technique for finding lost family members is actually to do genealogy. We are a large genealogy site through Ancestor.com. She told us the story. She had good information about her daughter and ex-husband and the family line and through genealogy, we were able to connect the lines and the dots and pull a bunch of information together."

Upon graduating from high school, Jamie wanted to actively pursue finding her mother. With her father's permission, Jamie started the hunt.

She says, "I had written to Maury Povich. I had contacted the Dutch embassy, but I didn't know she was in the United States. But I guess this was the time to do it."

The two met for the first time Tuesday morning on The Early Show.