DNA test reunites mother with child she thought had died after birth
DNA test kits have ruined many a life and can give you information that you’re better off not knowing (not to mention the privacy issues involved in taking them).
But every now and then, something good comes out of taking one.
In this case, a mother was reunited with the child she never wanted to give up and who she thought had died minutes after birth.
Tina Bejarano got pregnant for the second time at 17 and her abusive mother told her she would not be allowed to keep her newborn.
Even crueler, her mother told her the following day that the baby girl, who she had named Kristin, died just 15 minutes after her birth.
“The next day, she comes back to tell me, ‘The baby died 15 minutes after it was born. It never made it. It was sick,” Bejarano recalled.
Her mother lied.
Kristin Cooke went on to be adopted by a loving family in Las Vegas and later New Jersey.
And Bejarano went on months later to meet her future husband, Eric Gardere, get married, and have 5 more children of her own with him.
Gardere (who was not Kristin’s father) would mourn with his wife every year on the baby’s birthday.
“She would go into major depression,” he told KMPH News.
Cut to 29 years later.
Bejarano and Cooke had both taken DNA tests from Ancestry.com. These often alert you when you have a close relative who has also taken the test (if you sign up for that feature).
And you can see where this is going.
Last year, Bejarano got an e-mail from Cooke.
“I think we need to talk, it says we’re related, and it says you’re my mom,” it said.
Cooke is now 29-years old and living in New Jersey with a wife and baby. He is a trans male who still uses the name Kristin but the pronoun he as he goes through his transition.
For Bejarano, this is nowhere near the most important issue – she’s just thrilled to know her child is alive.
“I don’t care. I don’t care if he’s in transition. I don’t care if he hasn’t transitioned. I don’t care. That’s my kid.” We’re just glad he’s alive,” she told KMPH.
But Cooke had been nervous:
“Coming out is always scary, so I was very nervous,” he told the LA Times. “It was a weight off my shoulders knowing how supportive everyone [is].”
Bejarano and Gardere now both consider Cooke their son and have been in touch constantly since finding out about him.
Cooke, his wife, and their 8-month-old baby girl, Scarlet, all finally met face-to-face in November of 2019 in San Francisco.
“Looking at him,” Bejarano said, “just makes me want to cry.”
But it turns out Cooke felt no need to look for his biological parents growing up – he loved his family and simply didn’t need answers about his birth parents. He had no idea that taking the Ancestry.com test was going to introduce him to a whole new set of relatives.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving 2019, Cooke and his family sat down to an early holiday meal with Bejarano, Gardere, and his newfound siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, and family friends at the family’s church.
“I honestly didn’t expect it to feel so easy,” Cooke said of finding his family.
As for Bejarano, she feels as though a huge weight has been lifted off of her.
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