Lindsay Young wanted to give her fianc\u00e9 a surprise birthday party and a special gift \u2013 a missing piece from his past.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When Ray Rehkop arrived at a Tacoma restaurant last Saturday, he met family and friends to help celebrate his 37th birthday. What the Kent man didn\u2019t know was that both his biological parents would be sitting at the table. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Given up for adoption at birth, Rehkop had never met his real mother and father \u2013 until last weekend. They had talked on the phone but never shook hands or exchanged hugs. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI had seen someone struggle with their identity,\u201d Young said. \u201cI just wanted some closure for him.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Young was determined to find Rehkop\u2019s parents. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n With the help of a confidential intermediary who finds and reunites adoptees, Young requested and received Rehkop\u2019s original birth certificate from the state. It contained Rehkop\u2019s biological mother\u2019s name, Tammy Paxton, whom Young immediately found living in Southwest Washington. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Young also discovered that Rehkop\u2019s birth mother and father were Kent residents in 1979 when he was given up for adoption. Both were 15 at the time. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Seven months into her exhaustive search, Young found the birth father, Greg James, a Boeing worker who lives in nearby Orting. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Since then, the three have talked on the phone but had never met in person. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Until last Saturday\u2019s emotional birthday party. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt was probably the best birthday I\u2019ve ever had. I don\u2019t know what could top this,\u201d Rehkop said. \u201cIt was definitely a shock to me. It was really cool to finally find out where they came from and what they look like.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Paxton and James are grateful for how well Rehkop was raised by his adopted family. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody was real happy,\u201d Young said of the gathering. \u201cThey\u2019re definitely glad that he\u2019s in their lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lindsay Young wanted to give her fianc\u00e9 a surprise birthday party and a special gift \u2013 a missing piece from his past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}