When they returned to New York, they went to court to sign the necessary paperwork for the adoption.
"We were escorted into a room...and they were all Fenichel babies, 10 families with little babies. The babies were all the same age and they all looked exactly like my son, blonde and blue-eyed. I thought it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen," she said. "My God, any of these little babies could have been given to me."
Two years later, Kaufman got a phone call and instantly recognized the person calling.
"I knew who it was immediately and I hadn't spoken to him or heard his voice in two years," she said.
It was Fenichel asking if the couple wanted another baby.
"I was shocked. I didn't know they came to you. I thought you had to go to them when you want one...I said this is too good to turn down, maybe it was meant to be," she said.
Kaufman and her husband agreed to pay Fenichel and the adoption agency $10,000 for a baby girl that they named Beni.
"I didn't think baby mill. I just knew it was weird and then who cares, I was so happy. I got the baby," she said.
Kaufman and her husband picked up the baby in the parking lot of a hospital in Utica, N.Y. While the couple waited in their car with their attorney, two attorneys who were associates of Fenichel came out of the hospital door with a woman.
"The woman was holding the baby and she handed the baby to my lawyer...I didn't see her face, but I saw that she was petite with blonde hair. She got into a cab with no family and I found that very sad because there was no one there for her," Kaufman said.
Happy to have a daughter, Kaufman thought nothing more about it. Kaufman even referred Fenichel to a friend who was looking to adopt a child.
Scott Tovin is the adopted son of the couple Kaufman referred to Fenichel.
"My dad had to run into the hospital to grab me and run back into the car," Scott Tovin said.
Tovin's birth mother was moved to Pennsylvania by her family for the last six months of her pregnancy, he said.
"I have a feeling that I might have been born at one of those houses and brought down to the hospital for my parents to pick up," he said.
Adoptees Face Uphill Battle to Unseal Birth Certificates
Tovin is still searching for his biological mom but is lucky in that his family knows her name.
"My [birth] mother was 15 years old. Her name is Rhonda Moore. They had none of my father's information at all. They think he was a mechanic," Tovin said.
Fenichel sometimes encouraged birth mothers to leave out the names of the babies' fathers on birth certificates which has made it difficult for Tovin and other adoptees to find their birth families.
Tovin now lives in Florida and is searching for his birth family so that he can pass down his medical history to his two sons. His 6-year-old son is autistic.
Tovin joined Seymour Fenichel Adoptees after reconnecting with childhood friend Beni Cunningham, Lois Kaufman's daughter.
Bernstein's group has already led to one reunion between Lori Appleton, the Jacksonville, Fla., teen who gave her baby up for adoption in 1985, and the woman she thinks is her daughter. Appleton's other daughter, Amanda Overdorf, saw a posting on the group's wall by a woman whose description of her birth mom seemed to match Appleton.
"I was in shock…I see a lot of resemblance…We still have to do DNA testing to get it finalized," Appleton said. "After finding out about the baby-selling, I thought I'd never find her."
Two months before Appleton was to give birth, the Lauers and Fenichel paid for her to fly from Florida to New York. Appleton stayed with the Lauers at their home along with another pregnant woman named Kim, she said.
Appleton said she was treated well, but that Kim was not.
"I definitely wanted to give the baby to a wonderful home, that was the only intention that I had," Appleton said. "I didn't really realize at the time that he [Fenichel] was shady and the practices that were going on."
Now 43, she still remembers the October day she gave birth.
"When I was done and ready to leave the hospital, they told me there would be a third party that would come into the main lobby. I went to sign the birth certificate," she said. "They placed the baby in my arms. I walked to the elevator, the elevator doors opened....[The third party] looked at me mean and took the baby... I turned around the corner and started bawling."
Fenichel had a car pick up Appleton and an envelope with $8,000 was there for her to take. She returned to Florida. Though she would marry and get divorced, Appleton kept her maiden name hoping that she might find her daughter.
Other birth moms and adoptees hope to have the same luck as Appleton.
"It's kind of like a Pandora's box. Every time you find one piece of information, it can be overwhelming to put that all together. It can be frightening sometimes…like frighteningly exciting. You feel so close, but yet so far," Teri Beeler, a birth mother, said.
Beeler's only glimpse of her daughter was at a Miami hospital in 1975 as she gave birth at 16 years old.
"The lights were so bright in the OR, I could see her reflection in the doctor's glasses," Beeler said. "It's a sacrifice…what better gift to give somebody than to give them life and to give them love, even if it means to give them away."
Beeler's maiden name was Hays.
"In my heart, I've always thought of her as Baby Girl Hays," she said.
For Resources and More Information About Searching for Birth Families or Adoptees, Click Here.