"Merry Christmas" has a whole new meaning for a woman who gets to spend holiday time with her birth mother after a nearly 40-year search that revealed she may have been switched at birth.
"It means the world for me to be with my mom at the Christmas holiday," Diane Bazella, 64, of Minnetonka, Minnesota, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
"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."
COUPLE ADOPTS FLORIDA BABY WHO WAS ABANDONED IN THE WOODS ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER HER BIRTH
Enjoying Christmastime with her oldest child — and only daughter — has been a long time coming for Sherri Geerts, 81, of Sunnyvale, California, Geerts told Fox News Digital.
"It’s a story with a good ending," Geerts told Fox News Digital.
For Bazella, it appeared the search for her birth parents would not be an ordinary one — but rather an epic journey with numerous twists and turns.
TEXAS SIBLINGS REUNITE IN EMOTIONAL VIDEO AFTER BROTHER SAVES 2-YEAR-OLD SISTER FROM DROWNING
The process took grit and determination, research and genealogical skills and most of all, a deep-rooted desire to find out where she belonged, Bazella said.
Bazella first found Geerts, her birth mother, in May 2021, and they met in person in 2022.
But it was only recently that she actually found the courage to share the story of her decades-long search, she said.
"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."
HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR IS FINALLY REUNITED WITH THE FAMILY THAT SAVED HIS LIFE
When Bazella was five years old, her parents, Walter and Ila Peterson, told her she was adopted.
That was the start of her quest to locate her birth parents, and in the 1980s she did just that.
Bazella spent the next 39 years trying to bond with the woman whose name appeared on her birth certificate as well as those she thought were her biological family.
"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."
PARENTS WELCOME 14-POUND BABY, THE LARGEST ON RECORD SINCE 2010: 'EVERYBODY WAS MAKING BETS'
Adopted at nine months old, Bazella had been raised by kind and loving parents, the Petersons, in Edina, Minnesota.
When she was a child, Bazella learned through her adoptive parents that she was adopted in 1961, nearly one year after being born at Booth Memorial Hospital — now known as the Booth Brown House Youth Shelter — in St. Paul, Minnesota, to 18-year-old parents who were unmarried.
TRENDIEST BABY NAMES OF 2023 REVEALED AS LIAM IS KNOCKED OFF NO. 1 SPOT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS
"The Booth Brown House, which now serves as a safe place for youth to turn, began as a safe haven for unwed mothers," The Salvation Army Central Territory, which owns the Booth Brown House, states on its website.
"Started in the early 1900s as The Salvation Army Women’s Home and Hospital, the facility moved to its current location – 1471 Como Ave. W. in St. Paul – and became The Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital in 1913."
Fox News Digital reached out to The Salvation Army Central Territory for comment by email.
Bazell said that when she was 23, she looked through public birth records and was able to track down the woman she thought was her birth mother.
The woman welcomed Bazella into her fold. Bazella was able to learn intimate details about her birth, including that she was originally named Kelly Jean.
SISTERS IN SYNC: 4 ARE PREGNANT AT THE SAME TIME WITH THEIR BABIES, IN 'COMPLETE SHOCK'
Bazella said that looking back, however, she never had a strong bond with the woman she thought was her biological mother, according to those birth records she had found.
The woman then died in 2000.
"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 see if maybe her birth father had other children.
So, Bazella took a home DNA test — a technology that was newer on the market — and the results brought more confusion: She didn't match with any of her known relatives.
"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 people who were listed on her genealogy report, trying to figure out how they could be related, but with no success.
Finally, one woman she contacted, who showed up as a close DNA match, emailed her back.
"She reached out and said, ‘I want to figure this out with you,’" Bazella said.
It took the two women more than a year to unravel the story.
"We were thinking [that] maybe I had a different birth father … and that maybe it was one of her relatives," Bazella said.
"She went and confronted her dad and came back with the name Sherri Nordlie."
The woman's father admitted to having fathered a baby girl with Sherri Nordlie — now Geerts — in 1960.
That's when Bazella said she had the revelation that her birth certificate — and everything she had thought for the past 40 years, including the identity of her birth mother was — was wrong.
BABY NAMES THAT ARE REPORTEDLY BANNED IN AMERICA: WHAT TO KNOW
"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 had been born within hours of each other on Sept. 29 at the hospital for unwed mothers.
One of the babies was named Kelly Jean — and the other was named Dawn Marie.
Bazella, it turns out, was Dawn Marie — not Kelly Jean, as she originally thought. And Sherri Nordlie Geerts was her mother.
Bazella emailed Geerts and they started corresponding regularly.
"We were slowly getting to know each other through email," Bazella said. "She had a lot on her plate as a caregiver to her husband, so we were slowly establishing our mother-daughter relationship."
A LIFE IN PICTURES: FROM BIRTH INTO ADULTHOOD, A FATHER TAKES HIS SON’S PHOTO EVERY DAY FOR DECADES
Finally, on Christmas Day 2021, Bazella and Geerts heard each other’s voices over the phone for the first time.
They met in person in July 2022.
Since then, they have been talking on the phone frequently, sometimes for hours at a time.
During their conversations, Geerts opened up about having a baby when she was just 18 years old.
"I do remember the day I had to give her up," Geerts told Fox News Digital.
"I got to name her and I got to dress her. There was a lady there to take her away, and she was kind of shaky and it scared me because I didn’t want her to pick her up."
Geerts said she thought about her daughter every single year on her birthday.
Now that the two have met, they've been getting together several times a year, either in California or Minnesota.
And from the first time they met in person, they began discovering things they have in common.
"We both keep things in order," Bazella said. "We have our lists and we like to get things done."
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER
"I also remember the first time we met — ee were getting ready to go out and she dug in her purse and pulled out all these tubes of lipstick. I said, ‘Oh my God. You've surpassed me.’ We both constantly put on lipstick. It's so funny."
Bazella continued, "We both like [garden] gnomes and we’re kind of collecting them now. Our mannerisms are similar. We have the same sense of humor."
Bazella said she has met all four of her siblings — and also has formed a relationship with her birth father, Victor Rebeck, 84.
While she has found a place with her birth parents, Bazella knows she may never solve the mystery of how she was switched at birth.
"I lost 39 years," Bazella said. "There’s a lot of grieving with that."
Still, Bazella said she believes she's found unconditional love with her mother.
"It's overwhelming for me coming from where I have been," she added.
"I always felt like I was kind of in survival mode and alone. I finally feel at peace with everything, which is really nice."
As for Geerts, she said she hopes to make up for lost time.
"One of the main dreams is that we stay healthy and I live long enough, like a hundred years at least — so we can make up some of this time," Geerts said.
For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle.