After searching for 40 years, Diane Bazella of Minnesota finally found her birth mother
"Merry Christmas" has a whole new meaning for a woman who gets to spend holiday time with her birth mother after a nearly 40-year search that revealed she may have been switched at birth.
"It means the world for me to be with my mom at the Christmas holiday," Diane Bazella, 64, of Minnetonka, Minnesota, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
"It’s all about love," she added. "My prayers have been answered, and my heart is full. We both hope we have many more Christmases to spend together."
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Enjoying Christmastime with her oldest child — and only daughter — has been a long time coming for Sherri Geerts, 81, of Sunnyvale, California, Geerts told Fox News Digital.
"It’s a story with a good ending," Geerts told Fox News Digital.
Diane Bazella (left) is pictured with her birth mother, Sharon Geerts. The two women met in person for the first time in 2022. (Diane Bazella)
For Bazella, it appeared the search for her birth parents would not be an ordinary one — but rather an epic journey with numerous twists and turns.
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The process took grit and determination, research and genealogical skills and most of all, a deep-rooted desire to find out where she belonged, Bazella said.
‘Spent a lot of time’
Bazella first found Geerts, her birth mother, in May 2021, and they met in person in 2022.
Bazella (center) is photographed with her adoptive parents, Walter and Ila Peterson, on her wedding day in 1992. She was 32 at the time. (Diane Bazella)
But it was only recently that she actually found the courage to share the story of her decades-long search, she said.
"I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with the healing part of it," Bazella said.
"I think it kind of gives people hope that miracles are still going on, and the world needs to hear that right now. So that’s part of the reason I’ve stepped out and told my story now."
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When Bazella was five years old, her parents, Walter and Ila Peterson, told her she was adopted.
"I finally feel at peace with everything, which is really nice."
— Diane Bazella
That was the start of her quest to locate her birth parents, and in the 1980s she did just that.
Bazella spent the next 39 years trying to bond with the woman whose name appeared on her birth certificate as well as those she thought were her biological family.
"I'm thinking I found my birth parents and my half-siblings," Bazella said. "It's like the story was kind of over in 1983."
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Adopted at nine months old, Bazella had been raised by kind and loving parents, the Petersons, in Edina, Minnesota.
Diane Bazella is seen here when she was photographed at 9 months old — the age when she was adopted by Walter and Ila Peterson of Minnesota. (Diane Bazella)
When she was a child, Bazella learned through her adoptive parents that she was adopted in 1961, nearly one year after being born at Booth Memorial Hospital — now known as the Booth Brown House Youth Shelter — in St. Paul, Minnesota, to 18-year-old parents who were unmarried.
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"The Booth Brown House, which now serves as a safe place for youth to turn, began as a safe haven for unwed mothers," The Salvation Army Central Territory, which owns the Booth Brown House, states on its website.
"Started in the early 1900s as The Salvation Army Women’s Home and Hospital, the facility moved to its current location – 1471 Como Ave. W. in St. Paul – and became The Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital in 1913."
Fox News Digital reached out to The Salvation Army Central Territory for comment by email.
Pictured here is Sharon Geerts, Bazella’s birth mother, whom Bazella did not find until nearly 40 years after her search. (Diane Bazella)
Bazell said that when she was 23, she looked through public birth records and was able to track down the woman she thought was her birth mother.
The woman welcomed Bazella into her fold. Bazella was able to learn intimate details about her birth, including that she was originally named Kelly Jean.
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Bazella said that looking back, however, she never had a strong bond with the woman she thought was her biological mother, according to those birth records she had found.
The woman then died in 2000.
Bazella’s birth father, Victor Rebek, is pictured in a high school graduation photo. (Diane Bazella)
"She was raising younger children," Bazella said of the woman she thought was her biological mother. "She had a lot going on. There just wasn’t that bond."
Still searching for a connection, Bazella decided in 2017 to see if maybe her birth father had other children.
‘Shocked and confused’
So, Bazella took a home DNA test — a technology that was newer on the market — and the results brought more confusion: She didn't match with any of her known relatives.
"I was shocked and just so confused," Bazella said. "But at the same time, I wasn’t."
"When I met my mom, I truly felt unconditional love."
— Diane Bazella
Over the next four years, Bazella reached out to people who were listed on her genealogy report, trying to figure out how they could be related, but with no success.
Finally, one woman she contacted, who showed up as a close DNA match, emailed her back.
"She reached out and said, ‘I want to figure this out with you,’" Bazella said.
It took the two women more than a year to unravel the story.
Diane Bazella’s birth father, Victor Rebeck, 84, is photographed. Bazella has developed a relationship with him and her mother, she said. (Diane Bazella)
"We were thinking [that] maybe I had a different birth father … and that maybe it was one of her relatives," Bazella said.
"She went and confronted her dad and came back with the name Sherri Nordlie."
The woman's father admitted to having fathered a baby girl with Sherri Nordlie — now Geerts — in 1960.
That's when Bazella said she had the revelation that her birth certificate — and everything she had thought for the past 40 years, including the identity of her birth mother was — was wrong.
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"I knew right away I was switched at birth," Bazella said.
"There had been a huge mistake, and it was like it all just came together."
After a 40-year search and multiple DNA tests, Diane Bazella (left) found her actual birth mother, Sharon Geerts (right). Bazella said that her journey to find Geerts led her to realize that she may have been switched at birth. (Diane Bazella)
Two baby girls had been born within hours of each other on Sept. 29 at the hospital for unwed mothers.
One of the babies was named Kelly Jean — and the other was named Dawn Marie.
Bazella, it turns out, was Dawn Marie — not Kelly Jean, as she originally thought. And Sherri Nordlie Geerts was her mother.
Bazella emailed Geerts and they started corresponding regularly.
"I lost 39 years … There’s a lot of grieving with that."
— Diane Bazella
"We were slowly getting to know each other through email," Bazella said. "She had a lot on her plate as a caregiver to her husband, so we were slowly establishing our mother-daughter relationship."
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Finally, on Christmas Day 2021, Bazella and Geerts heard each other’s voices over the phone for the first time.
They met in person in July 2022.
Since then, they have been talking on the phone frequently, sometimes for hours at a time.
‘Same sense of humor’
During their conversations, Geerts opened up about having a baby when she was just 18 years old.
"I do remember the day I had to give her up," Geerts told Fox News Digital.
Diane Bazella (center) with her daughter Kelly and Kelly’s boyfriend Joe (on the left), her birth mother Sharon Geerts (right) and Bazella’s son Matt (far right). (Diane Bazella)
"I got to name her and I got to dress her. There was a lady there to take her away, and she was kind of shaky and it scared me because I didn’t want her to pick her up."
Geerts said she thought about her daughter every single year on her birthday.
Now that the two have met, they've been getting together several times a year, either in California or Minnesota.
And from the first time they met in person, they began discovering things they have in common.
"We both keep things in order," Bazella said. "We have our lists and we like to get things done."
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"I also remember the first time we met — ee were getting ready to go out and she dug in her purse and pulled out all these tubes of lipstick. I said, ‘Oh my God. You've surpassed me.’ We both constantly put on lipstick. It's so funny."
Bazella continued, "We both like [garden] gnomes and we’re kind of collecting them now. Our mannerisms are similar. We have the same sense of humor."
"One of the main dreams is that we stay healthy and I live long enough … so we can make up some of this time."
— Sherri Geerts
Bazella said she has met all four of her siblings — and also has formed a relationship with her birth father, Victor Rebeck, 84.
While she has found a place with her birth parents, Bazella knows she may never solve the mystery of how she was switched at birth.
"I lost 39 years," Bazella said. "There’s a lot of grieving with that."
Still, Bazella said she believes she's found unconditional love with her mother.
After searching for 40 years, Bazella finally found her birth mother. (Diane Bazella)
"It's overwhelming for me coming from where I have been," she added.
"I always felt like I was kind of in survival mode and alone. I finally feel at peace with everything, which is really nice."
As for Geerts, she said she hopes to make up for lost time.
"One of the main dreams is that we stay healthy and I live long enough, like a hundred years at least — so we can make up some of this time," Geerts said.
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Gretchen Eichenberg is a contributing reporter for Fox News Digital.
