You Are Not My Son?

This is the heart-wrenching story of a father and son who thought they had found each other after years of separation, only to find out that fate had played a cruel trick on both of them.

Ron Ryba was a high school football star when he met his high school sweetheart, 16-year-old Kathy Butler, in 1975. They were in love and she became pregnant and bore him a son. It was a hard decision but they decided to give the baby up for adoption through the Catholic Charities of Trenton, N.J.

A few weeks later, Phil Bloete was adopted by a New Jersey couple through the same organization.

Ron and Kathy eventually broke up and ended up marrying other people. Ron stayed in touch with the Catholic Charities and through the years they provided him with baby pictures and assured him that the boy was doing well.

About five years ago the two men - Phil Bloete was now a high school English teacher - began writing to each other through the charity organization. They eventually decided to meet each other.

"I wanted him to know that he was born out of love and I had given him up as a gift," Ryba said, who explained that he and the baby's 16-year-old mother decided their son deserved a better upbringing than they could provide.

The meeting went well and they bonded in what they thought was a long-awaited father-and-son reunion. If fact everything went so well and the two grew so close that Ron decided to add Phil to his will last year. That was when things took a strange turn.

The results of the DNA tests that Ron's lawyer required they take, shocked everyone....the two sets of tests showed there was "zero percent chance" that Phil was related to Ron or his ex-girlfriend, Kathy....he was NOT their son.

Both men feel let down by Catholic Charities, which has been unable to come up with any information to untangle the mess.

Ron Ryba and Phil Bloete are not father and son, but they are friends bound together by a heart-wrenching mystery. Where is Ron's son? Who are Phil's birth parents? They remain determined to find out.

"We'll just take this journey together; we'll do it together," Ryba said.

Their story was told on Good Morning America in the video clip below:

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[Craig Matheson]

Great information as per usual. I really like this happy. Off to google to do more research.