Diane Bazella, 64, is having an extra-special holiday season this year after getting to spend the holidays with her birth mother after a nearly 40-year search, revealing that she may have been switched at birth. “It means the world for me to be with my mom at the Christmas holiday,” said Bazella during a phone interview with Fox News. “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.”

Bazella has nothing short of an extraordinary story when it came to finding her birth parents. It all started when she was five years old, her parents, Walter and Ila Peterson, told her that she was adopted. After learning that she was adopted at nine-months-old, Bazella began on a quest that took her 39 years to find out who her birth parents were. When Bazella was 23, she looked through public birth records and was able to track down the woman who was listed as her mother on the birth certificate. “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.” The woman welcomed Bazella with open arms, telling her specific details about her birth, including that  she was originally named Kelly Jean. Bazella spent the next 39 years trying to form a connection with the woman she presumed to be her mother. Unfortunately in 2000, the woman died. Looking back, Bazella recalled never having a strong bond with the woman. “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 try and track down her birth father and to see if he had any other children. So, she took an at-home DNA test – a new technology on the market – and the results confused her even more. She didn’t match with any of her known siblings. “I was shocked and just so confused,” Bazella said. “But at the same time, I wasn’t.” Over the next four years, Bazella reached out to the family that were listed on her genealogy report, having no luck. Until she finally got an email response from one woman who showed up as a close DNA match. “She reached out and said, ‘I want to figure this out with you,’” Bazella said. “We were thinking [that] maybe I had a different birth father … and that maybe it was one of her relatives. She went and confronted her dad and came back with the name Sherri Nordlie.” The woman’s father admitted to fathering a baby girl with Sherri Nordlie, now Sherri Geerts, in 1960. That’s when it clicked for Bazella – everything on her birth certificate was wrong.  “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.”

Two baby girls were born within hours of each other on September 29th at the same hospital for unwed mothers. One of the babies was named Kelly Jean, the other was named Dawn Marie. Bazella learned that she was not Kelly Jean, she was Dawn Marie, and her mother was Sherri Nordlie Geerts. Bazella emailed Geerts and they began speaking regularly. They began talking on the phone and finally met for the first time in July 2022. Since then, they have taken multiple trips to see each other and make up for the 39 years they lost. Bazella said that she has met all four of her siblings and has also formed a relationship with her birth father, Victor Rebeck.

“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.”