23andMe Christmas Gifts Reunite Mother and Son – 23andMe December 22, 2020

I noticed this recently on 23andMe – 23andMe Christmas Gifts Reunite Mother and Son: https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-customer-stories/gifts-reunite-mother-and-son/. Slightly longer article.

December 22, 2020 By 23andMe under 23andMe Customer Stories

By Amanda McCorquodale

For Christmas a few years ago, Tami Hawley’s brother gave her a 23andMe kit, a life-changing gift that ultimately connected her to the son she’d given up for adoption more than three decades ago.

“I was 17 and scared,” she said. “No one ever knew.”

When she received the gift, Tami had been writing a novel based on her family history and her experience of having to give up her son as a teenager, but she hadn’t finished it. She didn’t know how to write about that part of her life. That’s why the gift, even before she made the connection, had been so important.

“I just remember opening the 23andMe kit, crying and saying, ‘This is why my book’s not done,’” she said.

–snip–

Finding her son took time. For nearly two years, Tami opened up emails from 23andMe alerting her to new DNA relatives with bated breath. After a while, however, she stopped looking at the emails as regularly. But one day, she decided to take another look and saw she had new DNA Relatives on 23andMe. Among her matches was as predicted “Son.”  

“I was sitting on my living room couch and for five minutes, I just sat there in shock,” she said.

Tami saw his name for the first time. When she told her husband the secret she had kept for so long, he immediately urged her to direct message her son from her 23andMe account.

–snip–