It all began for a couple in their 50s when the son they had as teenagers reached out to reconnect.
It was a big family reunion nearly 40 years in the making.
Barely two years ago, Michele Newman, 53, was single and living in Hawaii.
Today, she’s rekindled her romance with her high school sweetheart, Dave Lindgren, 55, and reconnected with their biological son, whom she gave up for adoption when she got pregnant as a teen.
“It was just stringing together three different families and bringing them all together as one,” their biological son Martin Schmidt, 36, told InsideEdition.com. “Just celebrating their rekindled love.”
Newman explained she and Lindgren first dated while students at a Loyal, Wisconsin, high school. At the time, she was a sophomore and he was a senior.
“We were high school sweethearts when we were kids,” Newman told InsideEdition.com. “We ended up breaking up, and shortly after that, I found out I was pregnant.”
In fact, she was seven months along in her pregnancy, and Lindgren had already been in another relationship by then.
Newman put their baby up for adoption, and both of them continued on with their lives — Lindgren working in a dairy and cheese plant and Newman specializing in psychology for those affected by sexual assault and addiction.
Schmidt grew up knowing he was adopted, and was given the information necessary to find his birth parents when he was 18 years old. But it wasn’t until he was 34 and expecting his first child with his wife, Carin, that he decided to reach out.
“I thought about going through the process a couple times before that but it just didn’t end up happening,” he explained. “The reason I ended up reaching out is that my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our little boy and it really felt like it was time to find out more about my birth parents.”
With a little coordinating from the Wisconsin Department of Family and Children, Schmidt and Newman finally got to speaking.
“I thought about him all this time,” Newman said. “To hear his voice and to be talking to him really was a dream come true.”
A few days later, Newman thought to reach out to Lindgren, whom she had not spoken with since she was a teen.
Lindgren, at the time, was going through a divorce. While Newman never had other biological children, Lindgren has three other biological kids and four stepchildren.
"All these years, I’ve always thought about this," Lindgren told InsideEdition.com. "Everybody has known [I had another son], it hadn’t been a secret, even to my biological children."
As Lindgren got to know Schmidt, Newman and Lindgren quickly began making up for lost time, and Lindgren even thought to visit Newman in Hawaii months later.
Soon, their romance rekindled.
“We kind of knew there was something there,” Newman said. “And at that point I was already thinking about moving back to the mainland because I was too far from family and this helped me make that choice.”
A few months later, Newman moved back to Wisconsin and a year after they got back into contact, she and Lindgren moved in together.
Last month, Lindgren and Newman got married in a ceremony officiated by the son they had when they were teenagers.
“It was very heartwarming,” Lindgren said. “I had always wanted this to happen.”
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