A 30-year-old woman who found her biological mother this past February — and discovered the two used to be co-workers in a Davenport salon — will be telling her story to the country tomorrow (Tuesday) on “Good Morning, America.”
Michelle Wetzell was adopted when she was four days old and a recent medical test prompted the search for her biological mother. “I had had a blood test and it showed that I had extremely high cholesterol and because of my age, they didn’t think it should be that high,” Wetzell says. That is, unless her biological parents had passed along that genetic tendency.
Wetzell found her biological mother, 55-year-old Cathy Henzen of Eldridge. Henzen had been a receptionist at the Davenport salon where Wetzell worked 10 years ago as a manicurist. Wetzell, who grew up in her adoptive family’s home in Prophetstown, Illinois, knew from records she dug up that she had two sisters. “You know when you’re adopted and you know that you have two biological sisters, you just kind of wonder,” Wetzell says.
Henzen gave Wetzell up for adoption when she was going through a messy divorce and was trying to raise two young girls on her own. While biological mother and daughter have been talking often over the past five months to try to get to know one another. “We just say that we’ll take it day-by-day, one day at a time,” Wetzell says. “I think we’ll just remain friends. We talk like once or twice a week.”
Wetzell’s biological father has not contacted his daughter but did give her his medical history. Wetzell and her biological mother told their story to the Quad City Times, the story was linked on The Drudge Report today and the invitations came pouring in for mother and daughter to tell their story to a nationwide audience.
“There’s a lot of negativity in the media and you know I just wanted something good to come out of this and it has,” Wetzell says. And by the way, Wetzell’s biological mother does have high cholesterol.