The author traces the vicissitudes of a thirty-year analysis. The patient came into analysis as a suicidally depressed teenager, and has become a confident, content wife and mother of four. Among the most intense conflicts that were worked through were transference issues related to abandonment. The patient was given up for adoption at birth, and during the course of the analysis, developed a longing to be reunited with her biological mother. The author understands this longing as a displacement and avoidance of the pain of the transferential fear of the analyst repeating her history of rejection and abandonment. Through fits and starts, through the patient repeatedly leaving the analysis, and the analyst searching her out to come back, this analysis is testament to the power of self-transformation that is possible when historical repetitions are resolved.