BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. — Twenty-four years ago, Allyn Mitchell left Baldwin County headed for nowhere. She had two kids, and was pregnant with her third. She had no resources, no money, wasn’t sure where she was going or what she would do when she got there.

The long and winding road lead to a suburb of Louisville, Ky., but Mitchell did not know where to turn.

“I ended up in Radcliff, Kentucky, living in a little trailer park,” Mitchell recalls. “I really didn’t have enough money to rent.  I had been staying in motels when I could. But this man offered to let me stay in this little trailer there in the park.”

No one knew of Mitchell’s pregnancy, and she was far away from friends and family members. Although she was married, her husband had left for Germany and had no contact with the family whatsoever.

“I looked around and realized I had no money, no job, and I was pretty much in this world all alone.”

After giving birth to her daughter, whom she named Ashley Nicole, Mitchell says that she knew she had an important decision to make.

“When I saw her, she was just like this little angel, and I had to decide if I wanted her to be part of my world or if I wanted to give her the world. With the life I had, I just didn’t want her to be a part of that. I wanted her to see the world and have the best that life could offer her.”

The Adoption

So Mitchell decided to give Ashley Nicole up for adoption.

“I felt that the choice I made was to give her life. It was the toughest thing I have ever had to do. But I prayed to God and I knew that I was doing the best thing for my daughter.”

Mitchell looked up an adoption agency in the phone book, believing that, somewhere down the road, after she got her life together, she would find her baby.

“On the adoption papers, I tried to leave some loopholes so if I ever had a chance to go back and get her, I could.”

Before letting her daughter go, Mitchell sat down and penned a letter to her daughter, letting her know that she loved her and was giving her up so that she could enjoy a better life.

Tragedy Strikes

According to Mitchell, her daughter had been given her letter at a fairly young age.

“I had written it in cursive writing, and she told me that she had to get smart real fast so that she could read the letter.”

As a teenager, Ashley Nicole often though about her mom.

Over the past year, tragedy struck both mother and daughter.

On Inauguration Day in 2009, Mitchell found her other daughter dead in her home in Foley. Quintessa Pickens had been murdered by her boyfriend Jontez Holt.

Ashley was now married and pregnant, but experienced a miscarriage.

“During all of this, we were both grieving and there was a bond that was drawing us to each other,” Mitchell said.

Ashley Nicole went to an adoption but after being given no information, she pulled a fast one.

“She told them that she had a rare blood disease that only her biological mom could help her with,” laughed Mitchell.

The Call

On Tuesday, April 27, Mitchell was relaxing on her porch when her sister told her that she needed to talk to her mother.

“I asked her what it was about and she said I just needed to talk to mom. So I asked her to at least give me a hint, and she told me that my daughter had called.”

Needless to say, Mitchell was confused and anxious at the news.

“I was like, this must be a joke or something. This is not funny.  It had been 24 years and in my heart, I figured I would never see her again.”

Mitchell’s mom gave her an unfamiliar name and said that the woman claimed to be her daughter.

“I got chills. I was thinking, “God, this don’t happen in real life to normal people.”

But indeed it was true. Mitchell placed the call to the number given to her, a North Carolina number, and at the other end of the line was her baby, Ashley Nicole, who she hadn’t seen in 24 years.

The Reunion

Today, one day before Mother’s Day, Allyn Mitchell will see her baby for the first time since she lived in the little trailer in Kentucky.

“I am flying up and will spend several days with her in North Carolina.”

Ashley Nicole is equally excited.

“My mommy is coming here and I get to see her on Saturday,” Ashley Nicole said with excitement.

“This has been like a dream,” Mitchell said. “But it truly has been a God thing.”