I was out of control as a teenager in a passive defiant way. I got into a lot of trouble and made a lot of poor choices. One of them occurred when visiting my older sister in Vegas. I met a guy probably in his mid to late twenties and had a 1 week fling. I went back home. He said he would call me and even be coming to my state supposedly soon. I never got his information and his last name I lost from my memory because it was a Russian last name I wasn't familiar with. 6 or 7 months down the road I found out I was pregnant. My sister didn't live in the same place anymore and I didn't want to tell her what I was doing while she was at work so I didn't ask her for help finding him. He never did contact me.

I kept my son. He grew up without a dad.  In my young wishful thinking I imagined one day I would just look over and there the guy would be in the crowd and he would recognize me.  It was hard on both of us but mostly hard on my son. He'd ask what I remembered of his dad and I'd tell him all I knew in the short amount of time I knew him. I hoped one day when I had enough money I could hire a private investigator and maybe he could find him with the little bit of information I had Sometimes I would get online and do Google searches hoping to find a clue. I'd tell my son lots of kids grow up in all kinds of different types of families. All that matters is your're surrounded by people that love you. My son was mostly raised by my mom and dad. My dad was his father figure. He also had my brother in law and my boyfriend of 5 years. Then my dad died when my son was 7. My brother in law went to find my sister to tell her and found her with his best friend and two weeks later my boyfriend went to prison. All the men in life were gone in a two week period of time.He felt empty without a father and I wasn't a very good role model either. He got into drugs really bad and was homeless for a while.Now he's 21 and been doing good. Got his GED, a job, and going to college.

Then my mother got him a DNA kit. He called me over the other day to look at the results with him. They enter the results of your DNA into a database and show you if you have any matches with other people who have taken the test too. My son had two matches and they were not related to anyone on my side of the family. I took one of their names and searched for it in Facebook. It said the person lived in Vegas. Even though friend's list are often private sometimes photos albums will list some names so I looked through the persons photos and there he was. I saw someone had made a comment on the photo and they said his name in the comment confirming it was him. Then I used that last name from the original person on the DNA result with his first name in the Facebook search and there was his profile. The 21 year search and wondering was over. 

I told my son to hope for the best but be prepared if he doesn't respond well. I got home and sent him a message. Eventually he messaged back saying he remembered me. Then he called me. It was thrilling and confusing. The dream I'd had of one day finding him was happening, but it had changed.  I had moved on. I had my own family. I answered my phone and we talked for a bit about where we are in our lives and he told me he can't wait to meet my son and he has an entire new family that will be equally excited to me him. I've never talked to his dad again and I don't need to. My son talks to him all the time now and has met with other members of his family we found out that live nearby. His brother and himself look like twins and it's almost spooky. They put a lot of emphasis on family and feel my son has missed out not having a dad so they are very welcoming to him.

I'm still kind of in shock from it all. I honestly thought we would never find his dad. I'm glad I was wrong.