A mother from Indianapolis who had donated her eggs 25 years earlier discovered her biological son through DNA testing.

Kristin Schoonveld, who was adopted as a newborn in 1969, decided to get her DNA tested as an adult in the hopes of finding her real parents.

She gave 23andMe, a business that offers DNA testing with ancestry breakdown, her DNA in 2019, and was startled to discover a match indicating she had a son.

Because she had never been pregnant, Schoonveld, 52, initially thought it was “some sort of error.” She clicked on the profile, though, and saw that the young man resembled her.

She continued reading and learned that in vitro fertilization was used to create her “son.” He was hunting for his biological family, just like she was.

Schoonveld soon recalled what she had done many years prior—she had given an infertile couple her eggs undercover. After reading an article about egg donation in 1994, she was motivated to do this action.

Intriguing Schoonveld submitted an application to be a donor, and a couple immediately chose her. She underwent months of hormone injections before departing for the egg retrieval in California.

In the years that followed, Schoonveld claimed that she “sometimes marveled” at the prospect that she might have a biological kid, but she hardly ever gave it any attention.

When Schoonveld went to the Special Olympics in June 2012, she ran across Nick, a young man with Down syndrome that she had previously met when she was still in college.

When Nick was in second grade special education, Schoonveld took a semester off to work in the classroom. Nick was nine years old at the time.

Schoonveld even nannied for him for the summer since they were “attracted to each other from the outset.” Sadly, they finally lost contact. So when they ran into each other again during the Special Olympics, it was the ideal chance for them to get back in touch.

They became even closer after learning that Nick’s mother, Grace, had non-lung smoker’s cancer. Schoonveld frequently paid a visit and kept doing so even after Grace, 60, passed away in January 2015.

Additionally, Schoonveld and Brian, Nick’s father, grew close and eventually fell in love. After they got married in January 2018, she gave Nick a legal adoption four months later.

Schoonveld was interested in finding out more about her birth family because the adoption procedure was completed in the same courthouse where she had been adopted as a baby.

She searched for her true father on 23andMe in late 2019 as a result. She had already discovered her biological mother on MyHeritage at the time.

Instead, Parker Erickson, 26, who was born through in vitro fertilization using a donor’s egg, was identified by Schoonveld through DNA testing. She thought back to her egg donation from all those years ago as she read that information.

In addition to looking for his original mother on the same website, Erickson also checked to see whether he had any unknown siblings.

He remarked, “Could there be someone else? There was sort of that question up in the air. “Neither of my parents agreed. However, as optimistic as [my girlfriend] Kaylee and I were, there might have been someone.

Following their initial communication, Schoonveld and Nick drove to Indiana in November 2019 to meet Erickson and his parents.

It was “instant love” when she first met him, she said, adding, “I feel like I’ve known him my whole life.”

It turned out that the sentiment was shared.

Erickson remarked, “It was like hanging out with people I already knew.” “It was just so simple to love each other right away.”

Erickson claimed that he had always wanted a brother and that he had found one in Nick.

Since then, the mother and son have remained in touch, with Erickson following in his mother’s footsteps by submitting an application to volunteer at the Boulder Special Olympics, where he and his girlfriend had made their home.

Schoonveld declared, “We’ve built a bond that will last the rest of our lives.”

Schoonveld and Erickson’s worlds have gotten so much bigger and more wonderful since they met.

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