Beth Stewart of Arizona knew she was adopted and has always wondered about her mother, but when she turned 18, she found out her adoption records were permanently sealed. That was 25 years ago. She had tried several other ways of tracking down her birth mom including hiring attorney's to petition the court and then hiring private detectives. But there was just no way to crack the code.
That was until she found Ancestry.com website. As CBS 5 Phoenix reports Beth took the DNA test and prayed. A few weeks later she got some matches and after reaching out via the site found her mom, Annette Gajewski in Michigan.
It turns out, Annette too had been searching for decades for the daughter she put up for adoption. She had been in a physically abusive marriage and in order to escape as a young woman she put her daughter up for adoption and took a suitcase of clothes and disappeared. About 15 years later she started searching for her. She had had the records permanently sealed so her ex could never find her or the baby but now she desperately wanted to see what had become of her little girl.
After 43 years apart, the women finally met face to face. They had a tearful reunion and went on to get matching tattoos and vowed to stay in each other’s lives.
“She’s always been in my heart,” the mother says. “I just never thought this day would come.”