A man who was adopted at birth and his biological mother looked for one another for years — and discovered they had never been that far apart.
Benjamin Hulleberg and Holly Shearer quickly found out in their first meeting that they worked in the same Salt Lake City hospital.
“It was like … hard to describe,” Hulleberg told HuffPost via Facebook messenger about finally meeting his biological mother and finding out their very close proximity. “Very peaceful and calming but like crazy af.”
Shearer is a medical assistant at the heart center at HCA Healthcare’s St. Mark’s Hospital. Hulleberg volunteered at the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
“Every morning, I would come in through the women’s pavilion to come into work,” Shearer told “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “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.”
Shearer was 15 when she gave birth to her son. She began looking for adoptive parents six months into her pregnancy out of fear that she couldn’t provide the life she wanted for her baby.
Angela and Brian Hulleberg adopted Benjamin on the day of his birth — Thanksgiving Day 2001. The couple was open with Benjamin about his adoption and talked to him regularly about his biological mother, who he had only known by the name Holly.
“We knew Holly loved Benjamin from the day she handed him to us,” Angela Hulleberg told Salt Lake City news channel KSL. “She loved him with her whole heart and soul.”
Benjamin Hulleberg said in a Facebook post in November that he always had “a deep desire to meet my birth mother” and searched for her for years.
He’d “written letters to adoption agencies of Utah, done DNA testing, registered with the adoption registry,” he wrote in November 2021. “Nothing.”
Little did he know that Shearer had already found him on social media, searching on Google. She had been observing him from afar for years before she took the plunge in November — two days before her son’s 20th birthday — and messaged him on Facebook.
“You don’t know me,” Shearer began her message, shown on “GMA” and KSAL. “20 years ago I made the hardest decision of my life and placed my beautiful little baby up for adoption with a beautiful family.”
Shearer said in her message that she had “no intention of flipping your life upside down,” but wanted him to know that she had “thought about you everyday.”
I “finally had the courage to send you a message wishing you a happy birthday,” she wrote.
Benjamin Hulleberg was stunned.
“I can remember the exact place that I was at when I got the message,” he told “GMA.” “I was at work. I was a machine operator and I remember I was in machine No. 15. I was in between our hourly quality checks and I got on my phone and I saw her message and I just replied.”
Benjamin Hulleberg told Shearer he wanted to meet her right away, and they planned to have dinner with both their families the next day. On Nov. 21, 2021, the two finally reunited.
“I have no words that can describe the feelings that I felt meeting the woman who gave birth to me 20 years ago,” Benjamin Hulleberg wrote on Facebook. “My roots. My DNA. I have never had that in my life. Another fun fact? I received this on November 20th. National adoption day.”
During their meeting, Benjamin Hulleberg also got to meet his two half-siblings and discovered that he and Shearer worked at the same hospital.
After that, he began visiting Shearer while the two were at work, he told “GMA.”
“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,” he said.
Benjamin Hulleberg told HuffPost that the two even lived together from January until April, an experience he said was “great.” He said he’s soon moving to Logan, Utah, for school.