A mother who placed her son for adoption as a teenager discovered more than 20 years later that the pair had unknowingly been working at the same hospital.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Holly Shearer was a young teenager when she placed her son Benjamin for adoption on Thanksgiving Day in 2001.
Benjamin was adopted by Angela and Brian Hulleberg and grew up knowing he was adopted. His parents spoke openly with him about his biological mother, who he knew only as Holly.
“It was always a very positive conversation,” Benjamin told GMA. “It was my parents either expressing gratitude for Holly or me talking about how I’m grateful for her and how I want to meet her one day.”
While Benjamin grew up wondering about his biological mother, Holly continued thinking about the son she had placed for adoption.
“He was always on my mind. More so on holidays and his birthday, roller coaster of emotions,” she said. “I thought about him all the time.”
For the first three years, Benjamin’s adoptive family sent Holly letters and photographs providing updates on his life.
Those updates eventually stopped, and the adoption agency later closed in 2014.
Benjamin actively tried to find his biological mother as he grew older. He wrote letters, registered with an adoption registry and even took a DNA test in the hope of finding a connection that could lead him to her.
What he didn’t know was that Holly had already found him online.
She discovered Benjamin’s social media account when he was 18 but initially decided against contacting him.
“He was 18 when I found him and I was very hesitant,” Holly said. “He had so much going on his life… The last thing I wanted to do is to throw a wrench in his life. So I just watched from a distance.”
Eventually, Holly decided to make contact.
She sent Benjamin a Facebook message wishing him a happy birthday in November 2021.
Benjamin was at work when the message arrived.
“I can remember the exact place that I was at when I got the message. I was at work. I was a machine operator and I remember I was in machine No. 15,” he said. “I was in between our hourly quality checks and I got on my phone and I saw her message and I just replied.”
Holly then explained who she was.
“When she texted me back and she actually explained who she was, it hit me like a load of bricks,” he revealed.
After spending years trying to find his birth mother, Benjamin said the message immediately became emotional.
“I was crying. It was all very positive emotions,” he said. “But to me, this is a day I had been waiting for the past 20 years of my life and to imagine that it was finally happening was outrageous. It was a lot to take in.”
Benjamin had no interest in waiting any longer to meet her.
“He asked to meet, like right away, which I was like, shocked a little bit,” Holly recalled. “I wasn’t expecting that but he wanted to meet right away. And so we planned a dinner the next day to meet at Red Robin with both of our families.”
Benjamin explained: “I was not willing to wait any longer. I’d waited 20 years and that was long enough for me.”
The families met at Red Robin on November 21, 2021.
Holly first reunited with Benjamin’s adoptive parents, Angela and Brian, before Benjamin arrived several minutes later.
“They looked the same basically as I remembered so it was nice. We just sat there talking until we sat down,” Holly said. “Then, about five minutes after we sat down, Benjamin arrived and he walked up and tapped me on the shoulder and joy just overflowed me, and we just sat hugging for about five minutes and crying and it just, I can’t believe that it happened.”
For Benjamin, finally seeing the person he had spent years trying to find was equally emotional.
“When I saw her, she stood up and she gave me a hug and I cried. I just looked at her and I was like, ‘You’re real, like you’re in front of me.’ And it was surreal,” Benjamin said.
He added: “I would definitely say it was a dream come true. I’ve said that about things in my life, like ‘Oh, I’m so glad I graduated. It’s a dream come true.’ But this? This was the most true time I’ve ever said it.”
The reunion between the two families lasted for more than three hours.
“It felt like it hadn’t been 20 years, even though it had been 20 years because Benjamin had grown up, but that connection is still there,” Angela said. “I think Benjamin is super lucky to have all of these people in his life that love him.”
But another extraordinary discovery followed their reunion.
Holly and Benjamin learned that despite spending two decades apart, they had recently been working at the same place.
Both had roles at HCA Healthcare’s St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.
Holly worked as a medical assistant at The Heart Center at St. Mark’s, while Benjamin volunteered in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
For at least two years, the mother and son had been going to the same hospital without knowing they were related.
They even lived around five miles apart.
Holly explained just how close they could have come to encountering one another before discovering the truth.
“Every morning, I would come in through the women’s pavilion to come into work. So I passed right by the NICU every single day. We parked in the same garage, could have been on the same floor, had no idea that we were so close,” she said.
Since their reunion, Benjamin has also developed relationships with his younger half-brother and half-sister.
He regularly visits Holly at work, where the pair can now spend time together before he heads to his NICU shift.
“Being able to sit down with my biological mom and just have coffee and talk before I go on my shift at the NICU? It’s been amazing,” Benjamin said.
Holly has similarly spoken about what it means to finally have her son back in her life after spending years thinking about him from a distance.
“It’s just exciting. I’m part of his life. Just knowing that his phone number is in my phone and I can call him or text him anytime … it’s amazing,” she said. “My heart is full.”
Benjamin said the reunion had a profound effect on him after years spent trying unsuccessfully to locate his biological family.
He encouraged other adopted people searching for their birth parents not to lose hope.
“Don’t give up hope. For me, I felt like I was at a point where I’d given up just a little. I had tried so many things, and they just hadn’t worked,” he said. “It came when I was least expecting it. It was something that just happened out of the blue. That isn’t what happens to everyone.”
For Benjamin, finally meeting Holly and the rest of his biological family provided answers to something he had carried throughout his life.
“Meeting my biological family and meeting my half-siblings and meeting my biological mom, it was very healing for me. There was a little hole in me that I didn’t know about and finding them really filled that in. I feel very whole, I feel very complete. I feel like I’m finally ready to continue in my life.”
Featured image credit: Courtesy of HCA Healthcare’s St. Mark’s Hospital
