A woman from Indianapolis has found the son her mother never knew existed two-and-a-half decades after giving up her eggs.
Kristin Schoonveld (52 years old) was adopted as a child and used DNA testing to find her biological parents.
In the fall 2019, her DNA was submitted to 23andMe. She was surprised to see that the company had named her son.
Although at first she thought she was making a mistake as she has never been pregnant, she later recalled that in 1994, when she was 25 years old, she anonymously donated her eggs to the hospital.
Parker Erickson (26 years old) was in vitro fertilized with one egg. He was looking for his biological mom and has had several opportunities to get to know her.
A woman from Indianapolis has reached out to her biological son, who she didn’t know existed two decades ago when she donated her eggs.
Kristin Schoonveld, 52, and Parker Erickson, 26, found each other on 23andMe long after Kristin donated her eggs to a couple she didn’t know in 1994
Kristin told the Indianapolis Star that she came upon the idea of egg donation upon reading an article about it in 1994.
After being adopted as a child in 1969, she became intrigued by the idea of becoming a donor.
A couple soon selected her, and after months of hormone injections, she flew to California for the egg retrieval.
They wrote a thank-you note to their grateful partner, thanking them for trying to get a baby.
They wrote, “You sound like a wonderful and wonderful person to us.” We hope that this experience was not too difficult …. You can take good care of your body and be assured that our gift is priceless. We are hopeful parents.
Kristin mentioned that, in all the years that followed, she had ‘occasionally marveled at my possibility of having biological children out there’, but it was rarely something she thought about.
We’re now in June 2012. Kristin was at the Special Olympics, where she ran into a young man named Nick Schoonveld whom she’d known decades before when he was a child.
Kristin adopted Kristin as a little girl. The couple gave Kristin her eggs many years ago and wrote her this note of gratitude. She then moved on with her own life.
In college, she met Nick, a boy with Down syndrome, who became her friend. But they lost touch.
Many years later they were able to reconnect. However, Nick’s mom succumbed to cancer shortly after. Kristin eventually fell in love Nick’s father, Brian. They were married.
Kristin had still been in college when she took a semester off to work in a second grade special education classroom where Nick, who has Down syndrome, was a nine-year-old student.
They were They were ‘drawn together from the beginning’, and Kristin even nannied him during the summer.
Kristin explained that life eventually led her in other directions and she lost touch.
The Special Olympics was the first time they met.he pair reconnected — and grew closer after Nick’s mother, Grace, was diagnosed with cancer.
Kristin would visit often, and continued to visit after Grace died at age 60 in January 2015.
Her relationship with Nick’s father Brian was also close and she eventually found love. They married in January 2018, and Kristin legally adopted Nick months later.
The adoption process — which was completed in the same courthouse where Kristin had been adopted as a child — spurred her interest in learning more about her biological family.
She found her biological father on 23andMe, and she was able to find her way onto the site in late 2019. (She had found her biological father on MyHeritage.
Kristin adopted Nick. She began thinking about adoption. Kristin decided to use DNA testing to find her biological parents.
Kristin with Nick, her adoptive son. Kristin, Nick, Brian, and their three children were already a family when Kristin found out she was pregnant by Nick.
Kristin found her father while she searched for him, and instead, Kristin discovered her son. He was a young man who was raised in Santa Cruz (California) and didn’t care about his family history.
Kristin said to People at first that Kristin thought the mistake was an error.
She stated that she was staring at “son” as the first result in her results. ‘And I couldn’t even register what was going on.’
Parker, however, ‘looked like me,’ she said, and his profile said he was conceived via IVF using an egg donor — and Kristin remembered her egg donation all those years ago.
Parker was not looking for his biological mom, but to learn if any of his long-lost siblings were also on this site.
He said, “There was always some sort of that question in the air of similar,” which meant: “Could there possibly be another?” He said. ‘Both my parents said no. Yet, they are hopeful. [my girlfriend]Kaylee, I and she were as hopeful as me, but there may have been somebody.
Kristin and Parker Kristin started messaging and Nick flew to Indiana to visit Parker and his parents in November 2019.
Parker (center), she met her and they have kept in touch. Parker shared his desire to have a brother with Nick after meeting him.
She described feeling ‘instant love’, gushing that it was like she’d known him for a lifetime.
Parker stated that it was similar to hanging out with friends and family. It was easy for us to instantly love one another.
Kristin recalled the moment Parker met Nick. She said that he had ‘always desired a brother’.
A coincidence was also found: Parker’s mother is Kristin. Both Kristin and Parker’s biological mom were also named Kristin in the book Kristin Lavransdatter.
Parker and Kristin have kept in touch and Parker has applied to be a volunteer for the Special Olympics.
Kristin stated, “We have a strong relationship which will last our entire lives.”