Benjamin Hulleberg, 20, was born in Ogden, Utah, but was sent off to adoption on Thanksgiving Day 20 years ago when his biological mother was only 15 years old.
Hulleberg’s adoptive parents kept Shearer in the loop for the first few years, sending photos and updates of the baby boy.
But after the updates stopped, Shearer’s curiosity led her on a search.
When she found her son on Facebook, she was hesitant to reach out.
Meanwhile, Hulleberg was on a mission to find his birth mother, even taking DNA tests and signing up at an adoption agency.
When Shearer sent that fateful message to her son introducing herself, Hulleberg recalls the moment hitting him “like a load of bricks.”
Hulleberg wanted to meet his birth mother immediately after waiting so many years to find her.
During the reunion, both mother and son discovered they had been working under the same roof without ever knowing.
Both work at HCA Healthcare’s St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City — Shearer is a medical assistant at The Heart Center at St. Mark’s and Hulleberg volunteers at the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
Through his birth mother, Hulleberg also met his younger half-brother and half-sister.
The newly-reunited mother and son meet at least once a week nowadays.
