Memphis Mom Reunites with Daughter She Placed for Adoption More Than 50 Years Ago (Exclusive)

Vicki Streb of St. Louis tracked down her mom through a DNA search on MyHeritage

The decision to place her only child for adoption did not come easily for single mom Debi Sutherland.

“I wanted her to grow up in a good family with a lot of love, and my family was kind of a mess,” Sutherland, 74, tells PEOPLE. “My mother didn’t want me to keep her. I tried.”

Sutherland was only 20, and her daughter was almost 2, when she made the gut-wrenching decision to take her to a children’s home, where she was later adopted by a St. Louis family with two boys.

“My parents kept my birth name because they thought it was pretty, and they didn’t want to confuse me anymore,” Vicki Streb tells PEOPLE. “They knew my dad was a musician and when they went to pick me up, my dad saw my birth mom’s name on a piece of paper and jotted it down. But he had very bad handwriting, so we were just guessing what that name could be.”

Streb, now 53, finally decided to track down her birth parents using DNA kits, though she was only able to discover four paternal half-siblings from three different women.

“I thought, 'Who is this guy? Mick Jagger? So many kids,' " she says with a laugh. “But nothing came back from my mom’s side.”

Her half-sister suggested she contact DNAngels, a non-profit group that helps identify biological parents at no cost.

DNAngels took Streb’s case and started digging, but because Sutherland, her brother and her sisters never married, and the only child born among the siblings was Streb, it made the DNA trackdown extremely difficult.

Streb, who says she submitted her DNA to other websites, was asked by the group if she would feel comfortable putting her DNA on one more site called MyHeritage.

“And sure enough there was one person on that whole site that was connected to Debi’s genealogy and that was all they needed,” Streb says.

Eventually, the reality of contacting her birth mother set in, and Streb says, “I didn’t want to blow up her life, so I struggled with that. So I sent a letter."

“I just kept thinking this is a mother who loved me for two years and made the ultimate sacrifice because she wanted a better life for me," she continues.

Sutherland tells PEOPLE that she could not have been happier when she read the letter thanking her for her selflessness, which allowed Streb to have a wonderful childhood and eventually build a great life with her husband Mark and two daughters, Madeline and Alexis.

“I always said if she tries to find me, I’ll be here. So I called and left a message saying, 'I think you have found who you are looking for,' " Sutherland says.

The two quickly planned a meet-up in St. Louis. On that day, Sutherland and her friend Steve jumped in the car and drove from their Memphis home, calling Streb as soon as they got to town.

“She called about 9 a.m. to see when she could come over. I said about lunch time, and she said she was in the car,” Streb says. “So I told her to come over.”

It proved to be a perfect reunion of her adopted family and birth family, says Streb. Although one brother had died, her other brother and his family came. Meanwhile, Streb’s adoptive dad died at an early age, and she decided it wasn’t quite the right environment for her birth mom and adoptive mom to meet.

However, her adoptive mom had been very supportive of Streb’s efforts to find her birth mom.

“I was nervous going in, wondering what these people must think of me, but they were super nice and not judging me at all,” Sutherland says. “Her husband Mark gave me a big hug, and I met my two granddaughters. It was so exciting.”

Streb says that Sutherland had her letter in her purse and “it looked like it had been read a million times.”

She also tells PEOPLE that she and her daughters made a scrapbook of her life and asked Sutherland if she remembered what time she was born. Streb says she began to tear up as Sutherland said she would look at the hospital bracelet she kept with Streb’s birth information on it.

Sutherland says she never forgot about her daughter in the half-century they were apart. She adds that her own mom was a hard woman who made life miserable for her and her siblings, which would not have been good for Streb.

“I just wanted her to have a good childhood and grow up to be a good person,” Sutherland explains.

Now she is happy she gets to have a relationship with Streb and says she has no regrets about her decision. “They did great with her, and she’s very, very special," she tells PEOPLE.

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