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Woman reunites with father, 25 years after mother abandoned her as baby

PALMER, Mass. — It was a needle-in-a-haystack search, but a Palmer woman abandoned as a baby finally tracked down the family she never knew.

The investigation began a year ago and has wound its way to a happy ending, despite twists and turns.

Kathleen O’Shea is walking on air.

“I haven’t slept in like four days. I’ve just been floating,” she told Boston 25. “I feel like I’m going to wake up.  Honestly, this is all I ever wanted and it’s more than I wanted.”

What O’Shea wanted was to know something about her biological parents. It was almost too much to hope to have a relationship with either one of them.

“It feels indescribable,” she said.

That longing has been a consistent presence her entire life.

At just 10 days old, O’Shea was left at Bay State Medical center in Springfield, wrapped in a blanket with a bottle of milk.

Since that day in 1991 she’s been left with mystery surrounding who that woman was and who she was.

So last year, she posted a Facebook message asking her biological mother to contact her.

The post went viral and eventually O’Shea began working with a DNA investigative service, before hitting a setback.

The agency found her mother — who asked that they never contact her again about the situation.

“You know, I got very discouraged obviously, I didn’t know why,” she said.

But O’Shea continued her search, eventually locating her biological father, who never even knew he had a daughter. He had just lost a son, and saw O’Shea as a gift when they finally met just a few days ago.

“We kind of just looked at each other like ‘is this real?’ and we just hugged and he said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and I said, ‘don’t be sorry.’ He had no idea; so my birth mother never told him,” O’Shea explained.

She said she's not angry at her mother. She's just focused on making up for lost time with her father and her new extended family.

O’Shea said she's learned that she had siblings and she's also planning to build her children into these new relationships, now making her father a grandfather many times over.

MORE: Woman seeks mother 25 years after being left at hospital