I Will Find You: Why Did Cheryl Use Rachel’s Name at the Fertility Clinic? The Matthew Twist Explained

Cheryl used Rachel’s name at Berg Reproductive because she did not want David to discover that she was considering donor sperm. What begins as an attempt to keep one painful decision hidden becomes the mistake that sets the entire tragedy of I Will Find You in motion.

Hayden sees Rachel Mills’ name in the clinic’s records and assumes his former girlfriend is trying to have a baby. Still obsessed with the life they might have shared, he secretly arranges for his own genetic material to be used in the procedure. The patient, however, is not Rachel. It is Cheryl.

That misunderstanding eventually convinces Hayden that Matthew is his biological son. He kidnaps the boy, raises him as Theo and helps send David to prison for a murder that never happened. The cruelest part of the reveal is that Hayden is wrong about Matthew from the beginning.

The following contains major spoilers for the ending of I Will Find You.

Why Did Cheryl Use Rachel’s Name at Berg Reproductive?

Before Matthew was born, Cheryl and David had been struggling to conceive. The disappointment had begun to place pressure on their marriage, and Cheryl privately explored the possibility of becoming pregnant through a sperm donor.

She did not tell David.

Cheryl knew that pursuing fertility treatment behind her husband’s back could damage their relationship, so she visited Berg Reproductive under Rachel’s name. The series does not turn this into an elaborate identity-fraud scheme. Cheryl’s motive is painfully ordinary: she is frightened, desperate to have a child and unwilling to face David until she knows what she wants to do.

Using Rachel’s name allows Cheryl to keep the clinic visit out of her own records. It also explains why David and Rachel initially cannot locate a Berg file belonging to Cheryl. They assume the records have been erased as part of the clinic’s earlier scandal, but they are searching for the wrong patient.

Cheryl was not trying to involve Rachel in the procedure, nor did she know that Hayden had any connection to Berg. As far as she was concerned, Rachel’s name was simply a shield between her private decision and David.

Unfortunately, Rachel’s name was the one name guaranteed to attract Hayden Payne’s attention.

Did Hayden Think Rachel Was Trying to Have His Baby?

Hayden did not initially know that Cheryl was impersonating Rachel. He believed Rachel herself had gone to Berg Reproductive.

In the finale, Hayden explains that one of his assistants had previously worked as an office manager at the clinic. She recognized Rachel’s name and passed the information to him. Hayden, who had never accepted the end of their relationship, interpreted the clinic visit as proof that Rachel was preparing to start a family without him.

Rather than respect her supposed decision, Hayden interfered.

Using the Payne family’s influence over Berg, he arranged for Dr. Heller to make him Rachel’s donor. Hayden’s plan was not merely to father a child. He believed a baby would reconnect him with Rachel and give him a permanent place in her life. It is the same warped thinking that later allows him to describe kidnapping Matthew as an act of love.

The procedure did not unfold as Hayden imagined. Rachel was never the patient. Cheryl had borrowed her identity, and Hayden apparently did not understand the switch until much later.

His certainty returned when Rachel brought him to a Fourth of July gathering at David and Cheryl’s home. Hayden met Matthew and concluded that the fertility treatment had worked. By then, he understood that Cheryl had been the woman at Berg, but he still believed the clinic had used his genetic material and that Matthew was therefore his child.

That belief becomes Hayden’s excuse for everything that follows. In his mind, David and Cheryl are raising a son who belongs to him, while Rachel remains the woman with whom he was supposed to build a family. It is less a misunderstanding than a delusion Hayden chooses to nurture because it gives him permission to take what he wants.

Is Matthew Really Hayden’s Biological Son?

No. Matthew is David’s biological son.

Cheryl reveals that she was already pregnant when she went to Berg Reproductive. She discovered the pregnancy shortly after the clinic visit, meaning the donor procedure did not result in Matthew’s conception. David had conceived Matthew naturally with Cheryl before Hayden ever interfered.

That detail changes the meaning of the entire kidnapping. Hayden did not take his biological child from another family. He abducted David and Cheryl’s son because he had convinced himself that the boy belonged to him.

Hayden could have learned the truth years earlier. Gertrude Payne arranged a paternity test after he brought Matthew into the family. The test showed that Hayden was not Matthew’s father, but Gertrude hid the real result and allowed her son to believe the opposite.

Gertrude’s decision is not maternal kindness. She knows Hayden has murdered Martin Bischoff, placed the child’s body in Matthew’s bed and framed David to conceal the abduction. Admitting that Matthew is not a Payne would force Hayden to confront the fact that every crime he committed was based on a fantasy.

Instead, Gertrude protects the family, suppresses the truth and helps Hayden raise Matthew as Theo. By the time Rachel exposes the lie at the Payne estate, Hayden has spent five years treating his imagined paternity as unquestionable fact.

Why the Fertility-Clinic Twist Matters

Cheryl’s use of Rachel’s name is the small secret beneath the show’s enormous conspiracy. It connects Hayden’s obsession with Rachel to Matthew’s disappearance and explains why he targeted this particular child.

It also makes Hayden more disturbing than a conventional kidnapper. He is not confused in any innocent sense. He manipulates a fertility clinic, violates what he believes is Rachel’s reproductive choice and later decides that his presumed biological connection gives him the right to destroy two families.

The finale asks viewers to recognize the difference between love and ownership. Hayden repeatedly calls his actions love, but every decision he makes strips someone else of a choice. Rachel is treated as the woman he should possess. Matthew becomes the son he believes he deserves. David is reduced to an obstacle who can be framed and discarded.

Cheryl’s secret clinic visit creates the misunderstanding, but it does not make her responsible for Hayden’s crimes. She had no reason to imagine that Rachel’s wealthy ex-boyfriend was monitoring the clinic or would secretly interfere with the procedure.

The real tragedy is that the truth was available all along. Matthew was David’s son. Gertrude knew it, Hayden could have verified it, and neither fact would have mattered to Cheryl’s love for the boy. Yet Hayden builds an entire family around a lie because the lie gives him the life he thinks he was denied.

That is the final sting of the Matthew twist. Hayden did not rescue his son. He stole someone else’s child and spent five years calling the theft destiny.