babies in the same one mile radi radius. >> is that it same person? in a paper bag in an alleyway? >> reporter: just hours old, she was left by a dumpster, for a stranger to find. he was left on a front doorstep. >> as a baby this is where i was abandoned. why did you choose this house? >> reporter: she was left at a grocery store. the "happy market." >> she left me right next to the newspapers. >> reporter: who is abandoning newborns in paper bags, all in one square mile. and what do they have in common? >> have you ever seen anything like this? >> it just blew my mind. >> reporter: tonight, the news story that exploded into a national mystery and took 30 years to solve.

>> i definitely want to get my fingers into that case. >> reporter: our dogged detective connecting the dots and the secret hug. >> you guys didn't want to let go. >> reporter: "20/20" is there every step of the way as they search for answers, good news or bad. who did this? >> do you think you can handle it? i can handle it. it just breaks my heart. >> reporter: and the final twist no one sees coming. >> the three babies have grown up and are finding each other and are going to find you. welcome back as we continue this special "20/20" saturday. i'm elizabeth vargas. >> i'm david muir. you're about to me three so-called foundlings, abandoned babies, their cases completely

unconnected, or so we thought, until elizabeth spent nearly a year following them. >> prepare yourself for emotional twists and turns and an ending none of us saw coming. that mystery now ending with tears of joy. but it began years ago with the newborn baby's lonely cry. >> i think it was saturday morning. i ran around the corner to get some milk. >> a last-minute bike ride at dawn. 26-year-old mother of two, joanne hauser, runs out to grab milk for that morning's breakfast. >> i went by the same way i usually go. i thought i heard something like a cat. >> reporter: she detours from her morning eraer rands. >> there was a baby in the bag.

>> a baby, astonishingly naked with the umbilical cord still attached. no identification, no nothing. >> i picked up the bag and i rode back to my house and i dialed 911. >> reporter: the local television station, kabc, captures this video of baby jane doe, a newborn just hours old in an incubator at the hospital where the nurses hang a sign on her cradle, i know i'm somebody. the local newspaper hails the woman on the bicycle as an angel of mercy. joanne, the good samaritan, stops by the hospital every day for a week, checking up on the beautiful abandoned baby. >> she looked like a little doll, a little tiny doll. just perfect. >> reporter: the nurses nickname

the baby lady diana after the princess who got married as the world watched four days earlier. it was 1981. foreigner's "urgent" was tearing up the chart. greed was good. but there are no gilded mansions in this working class community of longdale, california where liquor stores dot the thorough fairs and hawthorne boulevard where baby doe was found held a gritty distinction back then. >> what's its reputation? >> prostitution. >> reporter: -- >> initially i thought the mother was perhaps a prostitute that was working on hawthorne boulevard and didn't really have a lot of options. >> reporter: no options because in 1981 there were no safe haven

laws which allow parents to hand over a baby to law enforcement or hospitals, no questions asked. so who abandoned that baby? one of those call girls? or was it a teenager from the local high school just down the street? no one ever claims lawndale's baby doe. fast forward 34 years. that baby is now all grown up. >> take this one. >> reporter: janet lives north of los angeles, about 100 miles from where she was found. >> this is my dad. >> reporter: after a year in foster care, janet got lucky. she was adopted. >> tell me about your adoptive parents. >> they found out they couldn't have children so they started to do the adoption process. >> reporter: janet has an idyllic childhood, boisterous birthday parties, dance lessons

and even her own pony. she started to pepper her parents with questions about her past. >> why was i adopted, why didn't they want me. >> they sat her down for a candid conversation. >> i just remember sitting at the kitchen table and they had pulled out the newspaper articles about the lady who found me riding her bike. >> reporter: janet always knew she was adopted but when she found out she was abandoned, she was shaken to the core. >> i got really mad and angry and i held onto that for quite a long time. >> mad and angry at? >> at my birth mother for, you know -- felt like she tossed me away. it was tearing me up inside and i didn't -- couldn't handle that anymore. >> janet is now mother to her five children. >> once upon a time -- >> once having my own children, you figure out what that natural true love is and i just couldn't

understand how she didn't have that for me. >> reporter: because janet is a foundling, she has no identifying information, no medical records, no birth certificate. >> it's a total blank slate as far as identity. there's no history. there's no roots. >> reporter: desperate for any clues, janet turned to that 34-year-old newspaper article and comes up with a name. that good samaritan who found her in the paper bag, joanne hauser. >> she was my last connection to my birth mother. >> reporter: she uploaded a picture of herself looking for that woman on the bike. >> i'm so excited. hi! >> reporter: and that led to this emotional, heartfelt reunion with her guardian angel in 2013. all captured on video by a friend.

>> she told me that i wasn't crying, more of like a wimper. >> i imagine you must have thanked her that day. >> oh, i did, yes. she could have just kept going and i wouldn't be sitting here today. >> reporter: they became facebook friends and agreed to stay in touch. but in terms of janet's family tree, joanne is a dead end, offering no clues about janet's mysterious abandonment. >> the only other way that they can learn about their heritage and their birth families is dna. >> reporter: she sends a saliva sample to ancestry.com and almost immediately baby doe hits pay dirt, a notification she has a match. >> i was like, what? wait a minute. >> reporter: but not just any match, a match on her maternal side. it's a brother sharing the same mother. his name, dean hundorf. janet looks him up on facebook

and staring back at her is a mirror image of herself. >> i was like oh, my goodness. it's a boy version of me. >> that must have been a thunder bolt. i mean, to think all your life i will never know anything about my biological family, now boom. >> it was amazing. it was so great. >> reporter: when we come back, what's the bombshell about that brother's past that could be the biggest clue yet? >> it's an extraordinary thing for a mother to abandon one baby, but to abandon two? >> reporter: stay with us. at t.j. maxx, marshalls and homegoods, we've imagined the holidays this way for decades. it's why we never have crazy sales. never make you clip coupons. and always have amazing prices on popular brands and thoughtful gifts. it's time to bring back the holidays with t.j.maxx, marshalls and homegoods.

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you. ♪ >> reporter: it's christmas time 1986 in lawndale, california. the town doesn't know it yet, but someone is abandoning newborn babies. here on 149th street, a completely different nativity scene, no manger just a doorstep. no swaddling clothes for this baby. in fact, in this 47-degree weather, no clothes at all, just a brown paper bag. >> i brought the dog out -- >> reporter: when danny heurta takes his dog for a late night walk and stumbles on a package left on his doorstep. >> my foot hit something right here and i reached down and there was a bag. i picked it up and it felt heavy, "something's in here." i picked it up with both hands and i says, took it around the back and went in the house and opened it up and it was a baby. >> reporter: just like janet barnicot, this baby boy is just hours old, also the umbilical cord still attached. also left in a paper bag.

heurta's house is just over a mile from the alley where janet barnicot was found as a baby five years earlier. once again, a local news crew cap tours the footage of deputy timothy cain arriving on the scene, carrying the little bundle to a local hospital. 29 years later he remembers it like it was yesterday. >> it was extremely dark that night. it was cold. he appeared to be 2 or 3 hours old. you know it is just a young baby and nobody there to take care of it. you wonder how somebody can leave a baby in a bag. >> reporter: flash forward 29 years. that baby is a grown father with his own baby boy. dean hundorf lives with his wife adrian in wisconsin. he's the long-lost brother janet has found through dna. like his sister, dean was also adopted by a loving family. >> lots of kids who are adopted grow up with lots of questions.

what were yours? >> i can remember one major thing that sticks out in my mind. what my ethnicity was. i was a big kid growing up. my friends thought maybe i was samoan or something like that. >> reporter: trips to the beach, happy christmas mornings, little league games, dean had a childhood to be envied. but nevertheless, he felt incomplete. >> i always was wondering where i came from, who my parents were. i maybe tried to push it aside just to forget about it. but you know, it was always there. >> reporter: when janet and dean begin to compare notes, they realize, not only are they both adoptees, but unbelievably they discover they were both abandoned by the same mother. >> i said, i was abandoned as -- at birth, and i don't have any information about any of my family. and then that's when she said, well, you know, the same thing had happened to her. i imagined she did the same thing i did, which was whoa, what's going on.

>> reporter: a dna detective for 16 years said the story of janet and dean may be a first. >> at that point i had never seen it before. >> it's an extraordinary thing for a mother to abandon one baby, but to abandon two? >> yeah, it's hard to imagine what her circumstances must have been. >> reporter: dean flies 2,000 miles to los angeles to meet janet for the first time. >> it is so extraordinary for two foundlings to be related and then find each other the local news is there to cover it! >> reporter: what was that like to put your arms around your sister for the first time in your life? >> it was like we had known each other forever and there was never-- like we never skipped a beat. >> it was a brother hug. >> reporter: once again, janet is on facebook celebrating the new bond forged by blood. but that vexing question remains, what kind of mother abandons not one but two babies

just five years apart and a mile away from each other. >> in a case like this that's unique i want to get my fingers into that case and do some detective work to see what i can find. >> reporter: dean is doing detective work of his own. like janet, dean feels the need to go back to the people who found him. he lands on that doorstep once again where he was orphaned. and there, another lucky break. >> i'm danny. >> danny, hi. i'm dean. >> the same family still lives there. >> come on in. >> it's good to see you. >> reporter: as he did 29 years ago on this stoop, danny takes dean into his arms. danny also spent the last three decades wondering what happened to that baby. >> this is the baby you and dad found. >> inside dean is introduced to danny's family. >> thank you so much.

>> i always wondered where's that baby. i said can't we keep him. they said, no. >> i had a good life but recently i wanted to get some answers. >> reporter: in his honor, they have a warm surprise. >> we thought about you all your birthdays. we didn't forget. >> reporter: but as meaningful as it is to reconnect with the people from his past, none of them can provide any clues to dean to how or why or who abandoned him at birth. once again, janet and dean have hit a brick wall. >> the hunt for the biological mother became the priority. how did you help them make their first breakthrough? >> when i work with people of unknown parentage, one of the most important things is that they utilize all the resources. >> reporter: she knows finding their birth mother is a long shot. she believes the only way they might do it is to widen the dna net. so in addition to ancestrancest

she adds their dna to databases 23 and me and family tree dna. >> that widens our pool from about 1 million people to about 2.5 million. we call it fishing in three ponds. >> reporter: sure enough, they get a bite. >> wow. >> reporter: only not the bite they were expecting. >> i saw that they had another really close match. >> reporter: it's yet another sibling, a sister neither of them knew they had. >> and i was like, holy cow, are you serious? >> reporter: surely this sister has answers. she must know who their mother is. no one abandons three babies, or do they? >> when i saw that in the middle of the night, i just was knocked off my chair. i mean literally. >> the wheels instantly started turning, what's going on here. >> reporter: stay with us.

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>> reporter: dna detective cece moore has been up all night. she can't get out of her head the notion that someone has been abandoning babies. she's determined to help those two now-grown up half siblings, janet and dean, find their mystery birth mother. and at 2:00 a.m., she strikes gold -- a dna match to yet a third sibling. but all she's got to go on is the woman's date of birth. >> so i went into the california birth index, put her date of birth and someone came up. her name was julie christine doe. that's what they use for a foundling. >> what went through your head? >> i could not believe it. we had two foundlings, now we have three foundlings. >> reporter: two is shocking enough. three is unprecedented.

although they had different fathers, all three shared the same mother. who is she? did she do this by herself? why would she abandon them? ce cece's research reveals a familiar refrain, a baby hours old, umbilical cord still attached, wrapped in a towel. >> julie was left at the happy market. >> reporter: it was in the wee hours of a january morning in 1985. this time a delivery man dropping off the morning newspapers discovers a baby wearing a blue jumpsuit. but the mystery remains. who during the '80s would get pregnant three times, give birth three times and then put the baby in a sack and drop it for someone to find? >> i've always known i was adopted. >> reporter: julie hutcherson like the others would be adopted into a loving home. birthday cakes, kittens and petting zoos punctuated her

childhood. fast forward, she's now 31, working as an artist, living in baltimore. >> how old were you when your parents got you? >> i was a newborn, just a couple days. >> amazing parents? >> i don't think i would have come as far in life as i have without parents like them to guide me, push me. >> reporter: "20/20" brings julie 2600 miles from baltimore to los angeles to meet her biological brother and sister. >> this is a big thing. >> i hope she has our laugh. >> i want to know how was their life growing up adopted. >> okay. >> i'm nervous. >> this is it. >> i might cry. oh, give me a hug. >> reporter: it is an embrace that none of them ever dreamed they would share. the connection is immediate. >> we have the same laugh, yes. >> three peas in a pod.

they had the same sense of humor. they were cracking each other up. there is something about biological and genetic bonds that survives any sort of separation. >> reporter: with "20/20" in toe, they hop in the car retracing the locations where they were left. would there be a pattern that could give them any clues? >> you're thinking why out of all places. >> reporter: for dean, a random house on a residential street. >> i guess it seems kind of busy so i guess she thought people would see me right away. >> reporter: just a short walk down the block to where julie was found. >> she must have cared a little bit because she left me where the delivery guy would find me. >> reporter: finally janet sees the alley where she was left next to a dumpster. >> kind of creepy. >> yeah, it is. >> reporter: as they travel, something does become crystal clear. with each of these locations only within a mile of each other, the mother most likely lives here. could she be one of the neighbors? is she peering out from behind

the curtains in one of these houses? >> lots of questions. we'll get the answers to. i'm not going to let this dumpster define who i am. >> reporter: but for all the brick walls they're hitting cece moore's dna analysis is about to knock one down. there is another close dna match to all three kids. >> we got very lucky. we found a first cousin. >> reporter: a first cousin on their mother's side. his name is adrian, and here's where it gets interesting because cece looks adrian up on facebook and there she is stunned. as she scrolls down adrian's list of friends, a name this patch work family already knows well, joanne hauser. remember her? >> there was a baby in the bag. >> reporter: that good samaritan who found janet while riding her bike. >> it is an extraordinary coincidence that the woman who

discovered janet as a baby is friends with janet's biological cousin. >> right. so when i first looked at it i thought why are they friends. >> reporter: but if you do family searches as long as cece moore has, you will know that there are far fewer coincidences than deeply buried secrets. she immediately begins to build up adrian's family tree and finds that adrian's mother has two sisters, and joanne is one of them, making joanne either the sibling's aunt or more shocking, their mother. it's the conversation cece never thought she would have with these three. for an already fractured family, this news may shatter them. >> all three of you have a first cousin named adrian. adrian's mom and your mom are sisters. now, his mother has two full sibling sisters, and so joanne

is one of them. >> wow. >> so the woman that found you is either your mother or your aunt. >> reporter: it takes a moment for the reality to sink in, especially for janet. then, an enormous sense of betrayal. joanne either gave birth to them or her sister did and she helped her cover it up. either way she was withholding vital information when she met janet in 2013. >> i've met her, sat in her house. >> hi. >> hugged her. it breaks my heart. >> i'm so sorry. >> that we all had to go through, you know, all this. just the fact i sat in her house is eating me alive. >> reporter: janet is furious and wants too confront joanne. >> she has agreed to see us today. >> wow. >> yeah. >> are you guys ready for this? >> yeah, i want some answers.

>> reporter: a doorstep, a grocery store, a dumpster. who left them there? their aunt or their mother. after a long arduous journey, the truth is now just one step away. >> not six degrees of separation, we're down to one. >> reporter: stay with us. we're in 8th grade. technology is the only thing that really entertains us. i'm gonna use this picture on sketchbook, and i'm going to draw mustaches on you all. using the pen instead of fingers, it just feels more comfortable for me. be like, boop! it's gone. i like that only i can get into it and that it recognizes my fingerprint. our old tablet couldn't do that. it kind of makes you feel like you're your own person, which is a rare opportunity in my family. (laughter) that goes beyond assuming beingredients are safe...ood to knowing they are. going beyond expectations... because our pets deserve it. beyond. natural pet food.

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date with destiny. >> you must have been nervous as heck. >> i was scared, i was nervous. i was still i think a little angry, but i knew that we've come this far, we might as well just keep going until the wheels fall off. >> reporter: tense, nervous, janet decides she should go in first. >> as you walked up to her doorstep that day, what's going on in your head? >> all i kept telling myself was just please let her tell the truth. >> reporter: cece moore goes with her. janet is finally sitting at the table with the woman who may have the answers to a lifetime of questions. cece is thankfully there to break the ice. >> i've been working with janet. there was a man named adrian, your sister's son. >> yeah. >> and he came out as janet and dean and julie's first cousin. >> oh, yeah. >> so that leads us back to you.

>> yeah. >> reporter: after more than three decades of harboring a dark secret, joanne can hold it in no longer. >> i have something to say. today i decided i better come clean. i've been living with the guilt for so long. it's a secret i've been carrying all these years, you know. and it's probably mind boggling, but yeah, i did give birth to you. >> i knew it. i just want you to know i'm not mad at you. >> i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry. >> i'm not mad at you. >> this is a monumental thing. >> give me a hug. >> reporter: finally, the truth. a 34-year-old mystery is solved. joanne wasn't her guardian angel. joanne is her birth mother. >> and i know this has impacted your life and the life -- >> it has but i forgive you, i really do. i forgive you. >> how can you forgive me though? i mean, it's killing me because i abandoned you guys. >> you know what, foundlings,

people that were abandoned are the most forgiving, loving people i've ever known. >> i would suppose you would have to be. >> we want you to know we're not mad at you, we love you. when she finally came clean, i could feel her burden, i could feel it and i could see it and i just couldn't be mad at her. >> all that anger just disappeared? >> it did. >> i hated you. i hated you. >> yeah, i know. >> and i can't -- i can't anymore. >> reporter: janet asks about that story that's come to define her whole life. >> please tell me i wasn't in an alley. >> no, you weren't. >> thank god. >> no, no. i just made the call and they came and i just meade up a story. >> reporter: so janet was never abandoned in an alley. it was all a ruse. but what about julie and dean? they're about to come face-to-face with their histories as well.

>> they're here and they want to meet you. >> where are they? >> outside. >> reporter: moments later dean and julie appear at the door. >> so this is julie. >> hey. >> julie, hi. >> reporter: the two children joanne has not seen since they were born are reunited with their birth mother. >> as soon as i walked in there my heart broke for her. >> why? >> this is a woman who's been through so much. i can't hate her. >> i just want you to know that i do love her. yep, yep. >> we all do. >> he's the quiet one. >> reporter: for dean, forgiveness comes hard. >> she just looked like a stranger to me. she didn't look -- >> there was no flicker of recognition? >> no. >> not like you had with your sisters? >> no. >> i can't imagine you've ever forgotten about us? >> never, never. >> reporter: harboring a secret has clearly taken a toll. they're about to learn just how big. >> it's been killing me all this time and it's killing me now.

>> no. >> reporter: it is not a figure of speech. joanne recently suffered both a heart attack and a stroke. the timing was significant. it happened just as janet, dean and julie's odyssey was playing out on facebook, and joanne, a facebook friend, was watching it all. >> joanne watched janet find dean and then watched her find julie. can you imagine if you were joanne how you must have been feeling? >> i would think terrified might be one of the things because at this point the three babies you abandoned have grown up and are finding each other and are going to find you. >> it's like all over facebook and everything. it's really killing me. i have to have open heart surgery within a few weeks. >> oh, no. >> yeah. >> the whole process from her meeting me to us finding julie, i think it just -- it really did a toll on her. >> reporter: miraculously they met their birth mother after

endless searching, only to realize their time with her may be limited. >> what were the most important questions you needed her to answer? >> does she love us? >> you loved us. >> yes. >> i still do. >> she said, oh, goddess. >> i still do. i'm so sorry. >> come here. >> reporter: when we come back, for the first time the woman with the lifetime of secrets opens up to "20/20". why did she do this? how did she do this? did she have help? >> tell me what you were thinking. >> you're asking me these questions and i would like to know the answer myself. >> reporter: stay with us.

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>> reporter: three children have come home to a house they never grew up in and to a mom they've never met. it was so tense that when the meeting was over, they are giddy with relief. but for joanne hauser, there is no relief, just shame, weighed down by the secret she alone knew about and never spoke about until now. >> there are people who hear this and can sort of wrap their heads around -- >> well yeah and that's why i just -- >> doing it once. >> yeah. >> but three times. >> right. i didn't want to do this because

i would be here with you and i would be on tv and everybody's going to know. >> reporter: joanne came of age in the '60s. she dropped out of college and embraced the l.a. party scene. >> we were partying all the time, smoking pot and drinking. >> reporter: at 22, joanne marries and has two boys, but the marriage quickly crumbles. joanne divorces and falls back into her partying ways, and it was at one of those parties fueled by drugs and alcohol, that janet is conceived. joanne, broke, single, unemployed, keeps the pregnancy a secret. >> how did you hide it, joanne? >> i'm big. look at me. >> nobody ever said, hey, you're looking a little -- >> you're looking a little heavy there, no, no. >> reporter: joanne would not tell a soul. nine months later in the early hours of an august morning she goes into labor alone in her house with her two older boys sleeping in the next room.

>> so what happened when you went into labor? were you afraid? >> i was terrified. i remember it was around 4:00 in the morning and i did it by myself. i laid there and went through the labor and then went into the bathroom, in the tub, and drew the warm water and laid in the warm water. and that helped. >> reporter: the reality joanne never wanted to face is now staring back at her in the form of a new baby girl. four pounds, one ounce. >> i'm like, what am i going to do, what am i going to do. >> reporter: feeling ill equipped to care for more children, a desperate joanne hashs that outlandish scheme, pretending she's found a baby by a dumpster, playing good samaritan to the police. >> i remember this young guy would call me and call me a hero. >> not a hero, if they only knew the real story. >> yeah, i'm not a hero. >> you went to visit janet every day for that first week of her life in the hospital.

>> yes. >> why did you do that? >> because i wanted to see her. i was totally amazed. yeah, she was perfect. just tiny little thing. just almost didn't want to give her up, you you know. i felt if someone else had her she could give her a better life than i could. >> reporter: four years later, still single, she finds herself pregnant yet again. >> why weren't you using birth control? >> stupid, crazy, not thinking. >> reporter: julie, like janet, would be born at home. the mother, no medication, no help, cuts the umbilical cord herself. >> julie was born on one of your son's birthdays? >> yeah, january 19th, yeah. my oldest son. >> after you left her at the happy mart you came back and through a birthday party. >> yeah, i did. >> how did you do that? >> that was tough because i was

not feeling too great after i had her. >> photos from that day capture a pale joanne smiling through the pain of just giving birth and then abandoning her second child. >> what was going through your mind as you're celebrating the birthday of one child, having just given birth to another child and left it behind a store? >> you know, i felt like i was the biggest hypocrite in the world, you know. >> reporter: and shockingly, it wouldn't be the last time. the next year joanne is pregnant again with dean. for the third time she endures labor alone, delivers a son alone, and cleans up alone. >> i remember driving around with him in the car, like what can i do, what am i going to do. so the first time he cried they would probably open their door and find him right there, you know. >> reporter: an unconceivable act to do once, let alone three times. >> how much did you think about

these three children? >> all the time, every day. >> and then one day in 2013, you find out janet is looking for you. >> yeah. >> were you excited? >> yeah, i was. >> you thought i'm going to see my daughter. >> i was thrilled. it was just like, oh, my god, there she is. she's a grown woman. >> hi. >> hi! >> reporter: looking back, a closer examination of that reunion gives it a whole different meaning. >> over and over joanne pulls janet back to look at her face. >> when i look at it, i see someone who's very proud of janet. it looks like more of a motherly proudness. >> reporter: yet again, joanne keeps her secret and passes up the opportunity to tell janet the truth. >> joanne, what is it like to live with that kind of guilt, that kind of shame. >> terrible. i'm blown away at their kindness. >> their forgiveness. >> their forgiveness, right. >> have you forgiven yourself

yet? >> i don't think i have. everybody's encouraging me to, you know, forgive yourself, forgive yourself. how do you do that? is there a formula for that? is there? no? see. >> you just have to find your way there somehow because living in this doesn't work. >> it makes you sick. now i'm facing major heart surgery in a week. >> reporter: a mother filled with remorse, trying to reconcile with the very children she abandoned, now facing that dreaded operation. with the three siblings could this be the last good-bye.

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>> reporter: it is 5:00 the morning and i am here at the hospital because my biological mom is having surgery.

>> did you sleep last night? >> a little bit. >> reporter: it is time to mend a mother's broken heart. janet wonders if this hug is her last. >> i love you. >> i love you too. >> reporter: just before she goes in for surgery, joann has one last gift for her children the names of the men who fathered them. >> even if she made a lot of bad choices in the past, she's starting to make good choices now. >> this is never a phone call that someone is expecting to get. >> reporter: cece coaches janet through a phone call to the father, kent. and after leaving a message, a call back. >> oh, what do i do? >> pick up. >> hi, kent, how are you? you may be my father. i actually do know who my mother is. her name is joanne. were you with a woman named joanne in the '80s? >> reporter: kent acknowledges that he was with joanne back then but he's in shock. he's just trying to take it all in. >> i couldn't imagine what you

would be going through with a phone call from someone random, hey, i'm your daughter. aw. >> reporter: but then something unexpected. choking back tears he tells janet he always wanted a little girl. >> bye-bye. oh, that broke my heart. he's crying. >> reporter: a few days later father and daughter meet for the first time. >> so good to see you. >> you too. >> i love you like my little girl. >> reporter: little did kent know he's also a grandfather. and janet wasn't the only one who got to meet her birth father. julie meets her birth father, bobby. >> hi. >> julie? >> yes. nice to meet you. >> wow, you do look like my mom. >> he immediately takes out a photo of his mother. there's a striking similarity. >> scary how much i look like her. >> reporter: after an afternoon

of catching up on a lifetime -- >> it's nice to meet you. >> reporter: good-byes and promises to keep in touch. but dean's reunion with his father is not to be, at least not yet. even though dean has his name, he can't find him. could he be watching tonight? as for joanne, she made it through her surgery. it's now been six weeks. >> hi. group hug. >> reporter: now the really hard healing can begin. cece predicts joanne's toughest critics will be herself and the millions of viewers she confessed to tonight. >> she will be judged, unfortunately. and i just don't think that judgment helps anyone. i have learned that familioundl are the most forgiving, loving people that i've ever met. they want that connection so in order to have that you have to let go of that negativity. >> reporter: a recipe for redemption, a family that's building new memories together,

a first haircut for a grandson, a back yard barbecue and a toast. >> cheers. >> cheers to family. >> cheers. >> such an incredible story. now ending with cheers and a christmas that will be spent together. >> that's right. you just heard her searcher, cece moore talk about the judgment as the mother. if you were her child would you give her? let us know. i'm elizabeth vargas. >> i'm david muir. for all of us at "20/20," thanks for watching on a saturday night. we hope you have a great holiday ahead with family. good night. >> coming up, the snow turns to slush and the ice turns to puddles and the temperatures

rise a bit as the accuweather forecast coming up. and a would be robbery victim turns the tables. that's coming up. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> "action news," delaware valley's leading news program with meteorologist melissa magee, jeff skversky and walter perez. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> a snowy frigid morning develops into a mild