Benjamin Hulleberg: Utah man, 20, reunites with birth mother for first time, realizes they work in same hospital

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She was a 15-year-old teenager when she gave up Benjamin for adoption and for three years, the Hullebergs had sent letters and photos. Shearer's curiosity grew after the updates stopped and their adoption agency closed in 2014. She landed on Benjamin’s social media page while searching online. “He was 18 when I found him and I was very hesitant,” she recounted. “He had so much going on his life. … The last thing I wanted to do is to throw a wrench in his life. So I just watched from a distance.”

For years Benjamin Hulleberg had spoken about trying to find his biological mother with his parents. He penned letters, signed up with an adoption registry, and even took a DNA test, hoping to find the woman he knew only as Holly. Hulleberg’s world turned upside down half an year ago when Shearer sent him a Facebook message wishing him a happy birthday.

“I can remember the exact place that I was at when I got the message. I was at work. I was a machine operator [at the time] and I remember I was in machine No. 15,” Hulleberg said. “I was in between our hourly quality checks and I got on my phone and I saw her message and I just replied.” He added, “When she texted me back and she actually explained who she was, it hit me like a load of bricks.”

Hulleberg said that he broke down on seeing the message. “I was crying. It was all very positive emotions,” he said. “But to me, this is a day I had been waiting for the past 20 years of my life and to imagine that it was finally happening was outrageous. It was a lot to take in.” Hulleberg immediately asked Shearer to meet with him after waiting for so long. “He asked to meet, like right away, which I was like, shocked a little bit,” Shearer said. “I wasn't expecting that but he wanted to meet right away. And so we planned a dinner the next day to meet at Red Robin with both of our families.”

“I was not willing to wait any longer. I'd waited 20 years and that was long enough for me", added Benjamin Hulleberg. Shearer and Hulleberg finally reunited with their families on November 21, 2021. Shearer and her family met with Angela and Brian Hulleberg first. “They looked the same basically as I remembered so it was nice. We just sat there talking until we sat down,” she said. “Then, about five minutes after we sat down, Benjamin arrived and he walked up and tapped me on the shoulder and joy just overflowed me, and we just sat hugging for about five minutes and crying and it just, I can't believe that it happened.”

“When I saw her, she stood up and she gave me a hug and I cried. I just looked at her and I was like, ‘You're real, like you're in front of me.’ And it was surreal", Hulleberg said. “I would definitely say it was a dream come true,” he continued. “I've said that about things in my life, like ‘Oh, I'm so glad I graduated. It's a dream come true.’ But this? This was the most true time I've ever said it.” 

Shearer and Hulleberg's reunion lasted more than three hours. “It felt like it hadn't been 20 years, even though it had been 20 years because Benjamin had grown up, but that connection is still there,” Angela Hulleberg, 46, told the outlet. “I think Benjamin is super lucky to have all of these people in his life that love him,” she added. 

Shearer and Hulleberg also realized that they co-incidentally hadn't been too far away from each other after all. Both of them worked at HCA Healthcare’s St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City in the last two years. While Shearer is a medical assistant at the hospital, Hulleberg volunteers at the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. “Every morning, I would come in through the women's pavilion to come into work. So I passed right by the NICU every single day. We parked in the same garage, could have been on the same floor, had no idea that we were so close,” Shearer said.