Alma Louis Vuitton What do you say to a pair you've never met,

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A selfless decision gave ISU's Kidd Blaskowsky two families that define her life

It can start so innocently, perhaps with a pair of teenagers falling in love.

Portachiavi Louis Vuitton Then 20 years later, here it's reflected in 3 year old Boston. Oh, he's a spitfire, for sure. First, Boston's having trouble with a late morning decision between Cheerios and Frosted Flakes. When he finally settles on Cheerios, it's mom, not dad, whom he wants to pour the cereal and milk.

It's not clear why this matters whatever he's eating will be as much for personal entertainment as nutritional value, anyway. That's why you can't help but smile at him.

Tracolla Louis Vuitton His parents, Zach and Farrah Greenwood, they smile at him, too. The next time they glance at him, they chastise him for his inability to sit still and behave.

And once in a while when Zach and Farrah look into Boston's dark brown eyes, when they see a healthy little bugger full of energy who's so proud to put on his small Nikes, they feel guilt.

He's the youngest of their three kids. They gave up their first child, Nicole "Kidd" Blaskowsky, for adoption as teenagers.

"We aren't expected to still be together," Farrah says. "I myself would've never thought we'd still be together and then we have two more kids. You know, the guilt can kind of come in."

Time is not your friend with guilt. Other undesirable emotions anger, sadness, fear don't often linger like so. In this, the wonder, the longing created with the passage of time, it leaves guilt sinking deeper and deeper, until a crater of emptiness that can only be healed by guilt's roots is forged.

Then the uncertainty that guilt can cause, that's the hardest part, Zach says. Guilt is not black and white like anger. So much of it can be perceived, and when you're hard on yourself, your soul sheds a tear.

Zach Greenwood's soul has shed a waterfall of tears.

Alma Louis Vuitton What do you say to a pair you've never met, to the couple who brought you into this world but were never there for you growing up? Where do you even begin?

Pochette Louis Vuitton For Blaskowsky, a freshman on the Iowa State women's basketball team, there was only one approach. She would be direct.

And so it was on Aug. 17, 2011, on another scorcher of a 100 degree day in Houston, that Blaskowsky, then 17 and entering her senior year at Austin High, logged onto her Facebook account and sent a message to her biological mother, Farrah Greenwood.

"hey, this is nicole blaskowsky you and zach greenwood are my birth parents carol and douglas are my parents and i am about to be a senior in high school i go to austin high school and play basketball and verbally commited to iowa state university i was just messageing you to get in contact please message back"

This was a day Carol Onofrio, Blaskowsky's adoptive mother, had long anticipated. She didn't see it developing so quickly, but the power of social media provided Blaskowsky a means to reach out just a day or two after discovering her birth parents' last names in an old letter sent through the adoption agency, one Carol waited to show Blaskowsky until she believed her daughter was ready to handle it.

Even now, Blaskowsky doesn't pinpoint a sole reason for initiating contact. "Growing up, I never felt like, 'Dang, I want to meet them' or anything like that," she says, but now it just felt like it was time.

It was a mix of curiosity, opportunity, maturity and, Carol says, a longing for one's beginnings.

"Just her personality and how independent she was," Carol says of why she sensed a reunion would happen. "She would ask about them every once in a while. So I knew it was in the back of her head."

Bored and surfing her phone in an office meeting around the noon hour, Farrah saw the initial message. "I really wanted to hyperventilate," she says, for it was a day she and her husband had dreamed of.

More than 17 years earlier, after Blaskowsky had been adopted at 10 days old by Doug Blaskowsky and Carol (who have since divorced), Zach and Farrah met the couple they were entrusting their child's life to. Carol called it "one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had" because of the appreciation the Greenwoods showed.

When it was over, after Zach got his first chance to hold his daughter, Farrah raised the idea of having more visits. No, Doug and Carol said, that might be confusing to a young Blaskowsky. Carol also thought it best she and Farrah didn't have a face to face relationship, for she might come to view Farrah, who was about two decades years her junior, as a daughter as well.

So for the next 17 years, Zach and Farrah only knew their daughter through the letters and photos.

With a meeting soon scheduled, amid nerves and excitement the Greenwoods wondered: What type of person was their daughter now?

"The not knowing," Zach says of why it's so hard. "Knowing that you got a piece of you out there that you don't get to see, you don't know how it's doing."