Mother in Court for Allegedly Stealing Babies

Jan. 2, 2007 — -- The biological mother of 17-month-old twins will be in Canadian court today to face charges that she kidnapped the children she gave up for adoption.

Authorities arrested 49-year-old Allison Quets on Friday after she had been hiding out with the twins in an Ontario bed and breakfast during a week on the run.

The babies, Tyler Lee and Holly Ann, are back in their Raleigh, N.C., home with their adoptive parents.

Investigators say Quets had visitation rights with the babies and was with them before Christmas. Instead of giving them back to their adoptive parents, Quets took the children to Canada.

"She was taken in quite peaceably and the children were recovered as well, and they're in fine health," said Cpl. Art Mayne of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Quets' arrest is a sad turn in what has been a long battle between her and the adoptive parents.

Quets is a single engineer who gave birth to the twins after undergoing in-vitro fertilization. Her family said it was not an easy pregnancy. She suffered from hyperemesis -- severe nausea that never eases.

"She couldn't hold food or liquids down. She was being fed through a pick line, I believe. The nutrition was being fed directly into her heart in order to keep herself and the babies alive," said Quets' sister Gail Quets.

When Allison Quets gave birth, the twins were healthy. But her family said she was so debilitated that she worried about her own ability to care for them and agreed to give them up for adoption.

According to her family, she regretted the decision almost immediately.

"Since that time she has gone through all of her life savings, all of her retirement money, everything she has, in an effort to get her children back," said Gail Quets.

Allison Quets' attorney said the case was currently before an appellate court in Florida, where the babies were born.

"She wants to be the mother to those two children. They're her children. She should be allowed to raise them," Jeff Schroeder said.