What would you do if you found out that you were adopted?
Some people would feel sad and disappointed, and others would feel grateful for the family who loved them as their own. It was the latter for Jim Hayes.
Hayes knew from the start that he was adopted. His father, a policeman, and his mother, a waitress, didn’t want to keep secrets in their family.
That’s why, at an early age, the couple decided to tell their children, who were both adopted.
When Hayes got older, he started getting curious about his birth parents, which is normal for all adopted children.
He was 20 years old when he reached out to the adoption agency that handled his case. Due to confidentiality, he only got limited information about the woman who gave birth to him.
Of course, Hayes looked for her and tried to reach out. He was disappointed when he saw the reaction of his biological mother.
She wasn’t thrilled when she found out, and she refused to meet him.
“I was a little bit perturbed, like, how could this be?” Hayes said. “I was probably more surprised than anything.”
Still, Hayes tried to ask his mother about his biological father, but she was not willing to give any information.
Hayes didn’t force himself to be a part of her life. He moved on, got married, lived his life, and another 20 years had passed.
Now that he has his children, he can’t help but think about his biological father. He wanted to know who he was and if he was okay.
Last 2017, Hayes was encouraged by his friends to try out Ancestry.com. So he took a DNA test and submitted the results.
He wasn’t expecting anything. Until one day, he received a notification. There was a match, and Hayes didn’t expect it to be this fast!
“It says father-child, and I dig deeper and it says ‘You are a match, this is your parent,'” Hayes recalled. “And it gives the initials, but there is no name.”
For the first time, Hayes had hope. He was so close to his birth father, and it was time to meet him.
The only problem was that Hayes only had the initials “T.N.”
Thanks to the help of people and the internet, he discovered that the initials were short for Tom Nuveman.
Nuveman lives in California with his wife, Susan. They have been married for 44 years and have two children.
Hayes finally dared to call his biological father.
“Susan picks up,” he shared. “So I say, ‘Is Tom Nuveman there?'”
Nuveman then said, “He started asking questions … and we’re kind of … what’s happening here?”
Hayes asked his father to sit down before telling him the shocking news.
“And I said, ‘Uh, Why?” Nuveman recalled.”Well, it shows on Ancestry.com that we have a father-son relationship, and I’m not the father,” Hayes explained to his father.
There was a long pause. Nuveman tried to process what the man said. He was shocked when he realized what was happening.
Hayes found out that before his biological father got married, he dated someone else. Unfortunately, they broke up, so he didn’t know she got pregnant.
They started talking more frequently. Until one day, they decided to meet.
When they saw each other, they embraced.
“I’m sorry,” Nuveman said to his son.
Hayes asked, “For what?” Then he smiled at his father and hugged him again.
“I don’t know,” Nuveman added. “Sorry that you had to wait 50 years for this … I’m speechless.”
Their resemblance is uncanny!
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