My whole journey started December 25, 2017 when my dad decided to get my mom and an Ancestry DNA test for Christmas. I had no idea that my mom spitting in a cup would get me all the way to Missouri.

My mom was born in Louisiana December 2, 1969. Becky, her mother, was only 18 when she was had my mom. So Becky decided to give my mom up for adoption. She got to spend a week with my mom and she got to name her. She named her Paulita. I know right, it's a crazy name. However it was later changed to Christy when she was adopted by a married couple, Bette and Lake, who had recently had a miscarriage. They wanted a baby girl so bad, since you know, they already had 2 boys, Kern and Kevin. She grew up near the Delta in Mississippi and she always knew she was adopted and was always told she was doubly loved. She wanted to find her birth parents but life got in the way. She got married to my dad, Eric Blankenau, moved to Texas, and also had two kids, my younger brother Will and I. My dad was always wanting to help find her birth parents for years, but never knew where to start.

Eventually my dad ordered something called an Ancestry DNA. Which is a kit that you will spit in a tube and you send it back to Ancestry and they will then do tests on it. Eventually they will send you what your heritage is and will come up with both mother and father family tree. My mom took the test and it came back 6 weeks later early March 2018. Her results where that she was mainly from Great Britain and irish. They also matched her up with people who have some close dna matches. They were mainly 3rd cousins but she would send a request to look at their family trees and see if she can connect some dots and come up with her family tree. She looked through old newspaper articles and old documents. She could always find the deceased people but it’s harder to get to the living people. She also put in her one page of  non-identifying information. Which had her mother's age when my mom was born and other things like that without saying her name. Eventually she got to a spot where she got two sides of her family but she didn't know which was her mom’s side or dad’s side. So she ended up contacting a Search Angel to help her. She asked her for what the next step she had to do. However the Search Angel offered to help find my mom’s parents.

After a couple days from that phone call with the search angel, and she called my mom back saying she found her parents. We were all so excited but we were told we need to expect the worst. There have been some stories birth parents who don’t want to talk to their kids they gave up for adoption. So we tried to keep our excitement down but we were very happy.

The Search Angel made the first contact with her parents to make sure that they were ok with talking to my mom. Luckily they both did want to talk to her. However my moms birth father had never told his kids that he had a daughter before them, so it took a little longer to talk to him. On the other hand, her mother, Becky, had told her kids a few years ago. So my mom and Becky texted back and forth, I believe, and set up a time to call each other.

On the day of their first phone call, my mom was anxious the whole day. She was very scared. She didn’t know what expect.  She didn't know if her mother would want to meet her in person. I wasn't with my mom the whole time when she talked to her family. But when my mom got the call, she looked very scared. She picked up the phone and they hit it off. My mom also gave the phone to me and I told her little things about me and i gave it back to my mom. They talked for hours.

Before we found my moms birth parents, we were planning a trip to republic missouri to see my cousins, my Uncle Kevin’s kids, before they went back to school. Keep in mind that Kevin is mom’s brother from her adoptive parents. And later when we found my mom’s birth mother, we found out that she lived in Republic, Missouri as well! Also they right down the street from each other. What a small world. Our minds were blown. Never in million  years would we have thought that my mom’s birth mom would live in the same state, same town, and right down the street from our other relatives!

After a couple weeks of talking to Becky, my mom and her were getting very comfortable with each other. Some personal topics came up, Becky then had offered us a house in missouri. My mom, of course, wanted to move but she knew that i would be very upset. She talked to my dad for a couple days about it and my mom would give me hints like “what if we moved to missouri?” When she would ask that I would tell her “ no, we are not moving to missouri!” I had just made the varsity cheer team at my school and I have been waiting to cheer at the varsity football game and to wear the cute uniforms for once. I also had a bunch of really close friends that I didn’t want to leave. My best friend, Annabelle, was having some hard times in her family life and I didn’t want another person in her life to leave her. I had whole plan for what I wanted to do after high school and when my parents told me we were moving to missouri, my whole life shattered in front of me. All things I was going to have to leave behind were going off inside my head. I immediately bursted into tears. I didn’t know what to say. I was in total shock and when my parents told me we had to move in less than a week I didn't know what to do. I just sat there and cried the whole night.

Telling my friends was one of the hardest things to do, especially Annabelle. She was my best friend in the whole wide world and telling her was so difficult. She came over and she could tell something was wrong. When I told her, her smile dropped. We both bursted into tears and cried on my bed.

The next day I went to cheer practice, told my coach and my team mates. That was hard as well. I had to come to realization that I was never going to wear that uniform ever on friday nights. I didn’t get to create any inside jokes on the sidelines with my best friends. We planned to do so many things together before games.

We started packing up the house and my mom was very stressed and becky could tell. Becky offered to come down to Texas to help us pack. So she ended up coming down and when she got here, I grabbed my phone and followed behind my mom and recorded their first time meeting each other. When becky got out of her car, they both walked up to each other and stated hugging. It was a very fast meeting but they both started tearing up and they were both very happy. After that was over, we got right to work. Becky walked in and started cleaning up our kitchen and packing some boxes. She helped us so much with packing because we had to be out of our house in less than a week and my mom still had to go to work. During those few days of packing, my mom let me hang out with my friends for the last couple times. My friends Mckenna and Annabelle took me out to dinner at Applebee’s. It was hard sitting there knowing that this might be my last time seeing them for a long time. When Annabelle started crying, of course I started crying. I didn’t want to leave them, but I knew I would see them again...someday.

By the time most of our house was packed up, Becky left so she could straighten up her house before we came. I had a few friends come over to say bye, there was more crying but it didn’t feel real to me. Seeing my house empty didn’t feel real to me. I didn’t feel like I was moving and leaving everything that I knew behind me. I lived in Texas my whole life and now I have to start a new one in missouri.

The day finally came...moving day. I remember thinking “I hope we made the right decision.” We got in the car and drove 6 hours all the way from Argyle Texas to Republic Missouri. The first thing I noticed was all the hills. Texas is very flat state, and driving down the roads in Missouri was like we were driving on a rollercoaster. It was really weird coming from a place where I knew where everything was, to being in place where I didn’t know where anything was.

We pulled up to Becky’s house, I noticed all the cows they had. Their house was a big white house on top of the hill, out of the billion of hills they have here in Missouri.

The next day on a sunday, we had a big family get together, so everyone could meet the long lost sister, my mom, and of course my dad, brother and I but mainly my mom. It was really weird being one of the oldest cousins there. On my dad’s side I was one of the youngest cousins, and the one cousin who was close to my age lived in Massachusetts. I felt kinda out of place. I just kinda stood around my parents as they talked to everybody and I didn’t really say much. I also got meet my great grandmother, Gigi. I’ve never have met my great grandmothers before and meeting her was really cool. We all just sat around the table and talked about a bunch of old memories we had and just get to know one another. Everyone had a great time.

The next few days we spent trying get signed up for school and get prepared for the first day of school. Sadly my mom had to go back to work in Texas because she doesn't have a job in Missouri yet. When the first day of school came around, I was very nervous. I was starting a week late and I didn’t know anyone. We arrived at the school and I was terrified by the size. I came from a small school that was easy to get around to going to a 3 story building with way more people in my class. And there was a lot orange everywhere. Our rivals in Texas were orange black and white, so I grew up hating the color. I was so overwhelmed. I may or may not have cried in the counselor's office while I was getting my schedule. Someone showed me around but I was still very lost. The whole day all I wanted to do was leave. I got to all my classes on time but I didn’t meet a lot of people. I'm a very shy person and never been good at talking to others. However, I thought everyone was really nice. But overall, I loved Republic.

I've lived in Missouri for over a month now and so far it has been pretty good. I've met a few people. The weather is getting colder, and I don’t know how I will deal with it. My mom and Becky are getting along great. My mom and Dad are still looking for jobs and we are still looking for a house as well. It’s so crazy how at the beginning of 2018 my mom took a DNA test and now we are all the way in Missouri. Never in a million years would I have thought I would end up in Missouri. But God does crazy and beautiful things in our lives and I know he made us move for a reason. I can’t wait to see what else my new adventure in Missouri has in store for my family and I. I know it will be amazing.