A bonfire was lit, the lighting created, and the cameras positioned for the last scene to be shot that day, my first day on the set of "The Other Mother". Corrie Clark, playing the young Carol, sat on the beach with Kavan Smith, playing my boyfriend, in a few minutes to become a father, too.

Steven Loring, the writer, had created a little schtick that the actors were to do with french fries, something reminiscent of the sixties' innocence, while we debated whether to go 'all the way.' A microwave was close by to keep the fries warm.

As soon as the actors progressed to more passionate kissing, the airport changed its flight pattern and the sound of planes flying overhead ruined every take. When the director, Bethany Rooney, had figured out the timing and filmed the scene during a lull, a flock of geese honked overhead.

Between takes, Corrie came over shaking her head, joking, "I have not had this much foreplay in my entire life!"

"But the sixties were nothing but foreplay," I laughed, as the younger members of the crew looked on a little incredulous. "You could date someone for four years and never get passed first base." Did I really say 'first base'? How had we found any passion in the terminology?

Corrie walked back for another take. By now the air was icy cold. I found myself pulling away, needing to be alone to etch in my mind all that was happening. For a moment, I stopped feeling the cold. In awe, I scanned the scene before me, the lights, the crew, the cameras, all these people, even the extra with the beehive hairdo, were all assembled to tell our story.

I watched through a filter of my own memory as we succumbed to a force too great to control or even to comprehend, the power of creation.

Then it struck me like a bolt of lightening. What would have happened if the condom had not broken? This scene would vanish into thin air. The little beach would be inhabited solely by the geese who were complaining overhead. One little twist of fate, a faulty condom, changed not just our lives, and the lives of our families, it was about to change a great many more.

Twenty-five million people watched "The Other Mother" when it aired, Easter Monday, April 17. My son, Jack, had been conceived on Good Friday, April 16, thirty years before.

Each of the hundreds and hundreds of stories I have heard over the years could have become what mine became for others. I felt them all when I wrote THE OTHER MOTHER, and again as the movie aired that night.

Countless times during the writing, whenever I began to doubt my memory or my story, I would get a call from someone who wanted to talk about the very thing I was writing about. I always felt guided and supported, and so risked a great deal, and learned trust again. While in the home for unwed mothers, I had prayed to God to help me keep my son, and I had felt utterly abandoned when I lost him to a society that did not hold sacred my motherhood.

I hope that everyone who watched the movie felt the healing that I experienced. To have been invisible for so long, unacknowledged in our painful loss and our soulful need to reconnect and love each other and ourselves again, and then to have NBC honor our stories in such a powerful, caring way was to me a miracle. All involved with the production felt a divine protection was at work. It was time.

The response to the movie has been overwhelmingly positive and loving. Statistically, the majority of viewers naturally had nothing to do with adoption. Still, they lived in that era and remembered its effects. Conversations were opened up in many families at a deep feeling level. Few viewers did not weep for us.

All at NBC were thrilled with the movie and were quite moved by the hundreds of letters they received, by mail and by the Internet, before and after "The Other Mother" aired. It came in first in the ratings that night, insuring that more of our stories will be told.

Most people's first questions have been about my family's reaction.

Whereas the book was told from my point of view, the screenwriter met or interviewed almost everyone in my family. In the process, we examined and revealed more of our feelings, healing at deeper levels as a result. I told Steve he had become like the rabbi for our family.

For instance, late one night, Steve called to read me the final scene. The words moved me to tears, but I laughed and told him he must be feeling adopted himself, now, to have written such lines. "No, Carol" he said. "Jack wrote those lines."

Everyone in my family loved and felt very proud of the movie. Even my mother. Despite being portrayed as much harsher than she was at the time, she sent me flowers the next day.

For Jack, the reality was, for the first time, starkly understood. I think that was true for most who watched. It was for me.

Even though none of this could ever make up for losing my son, I still feel overwhelming gratitude for all I have experienced and for the beautiful souls I have been privileged to meet on this incredible, healing journey.

Our stories have the power to remind everyone who hears them to treasure the bonds that connect us all. What else is going to heal the planet?

Credits: Carol Schaefer