Nick’s DNA Surprise

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Nick's Parents Reveal His Donor Conception Story

I can respect that.

They didn't really know when to share this news and their hand was forced and they said, all right, now's the time.

So that was that was definitely a very key piece in terms of like sitting with these emotions that I'm having.

And I'm asking like, should I be angry?

Should I be upset?

And, you know, I can look at it, at it that way and I think it would be valid if I felt that way, But I, I asked myself, can I understand why they did it this way?

Can I make sense of it?

And even though I think some of the decisions were wrong, I can understand why they chose the path they chose.

And you know, something I, I say to a lot of the guests that I talk about that I talked to on my own podcast is I don't think it's fair to judge decisions from the past with the information we have from the present.

And back then.

I mean, it, it seems like parents just followed doctor's orders and my parents were no different.

So I don't hold it against them.

Speaker 2

Welcome to DNA Surprises, a podcast that explores the life altering world of unexpected DNA discoveries.

I'm your host Alexis Oursalt.

This show centers the stories of people who've experienced NP, ES or non paternal events.

In other words, people who've learned that their biological father isn't who they thought he was.

We'll also hear from adoptees donor conceived people and the families navigating these discoveries.

Get ready to follow the incredible journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.

This is DNA surprises, my therapist once told me some of us heal out loud so others don't have to.

I think of that almost every time I get a note from a podcast listener telling me how much the stories people share each week have helped them.

In this week's episode, I'm joined by someone who is healing out loud for the donor conceived community.

Nick, host of the Inconceivably Connected podcast, shares how he discovered in his 30s that he was donor conceived.

He recounts how his parents decided to reveal the information and how Adna Test helped fill in the rest.

Since his discovery, Nick provides a platform for others to share their experiences being donor conceived and has even written a book about his experience.

Thank you for sharing your story, Nick.

Speaker 1

Hey everybody, my name is Nick.

I am 39 years old and I'm from Long Island, New York.

Where to begin?

So I think a good starting point is on the night of my 36th birthday.

So this is a little over three years ago in January of 2023.

So on this night, my wife and I, we were living in Brooklyn, NY in Greenpoint, which is north Brooklyn.

And every year for the most part on my birthday, my family gets together for just a, a, a dinner, some sort of meal to celebrate my birthday.

And my family consists of my mom, my dad, and then I have a younger brother and a younger non binary sibling.

So three siblings in total.

And we went out to an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, and everything seemed totally normal.

At the end of the meal, my wife and I, we were walking home, and I had been given a few gifts at the dinner table.

And walking back, she says, you know, I know you were supposed to get another gift tonight, but for some reason, they didn't give it to you.

And I had no idea what she was referring to.

And she wasn't gonna tell me exactly what that gift was.

But I was like huh, that's strange.

So Fast forward to the next day and I drove back to my hometown in Long Island to watch, I think it was the NFL play offs.

So the Giants were playing.

I'm a big Giants fan and I went back to my parents house to watch the game with my dad.

Before the game started.

He and I are sitting at the kitchen table just, you know, making small talk.

But I could see something was off.

He wasn't totally being his normal self.

And we got to a point in the conversation where he was like, all right, we have to have a little talk and mom needs to be here, too.

And in that moment, my first thought was, oh, shit, Like, somebody's sick and yeah, this, this can't be good.

So we're just kind of sitting there waiting for my mom to come into the room, and she comes to the table and my dad leads the conversation by saying, you know, last night at dinner for your birthday, you were supposed to get another gift from your siblings.

And we wanted to talk to you before you receive that gift because it's a 23 Andme DNA testing kit.

And if you were to take that test, there's a chance that you might receive some surprising results.

And in that moment, I just kind of froze.

Like, I, I just couldn't process what that statement meant.

But a couple seconds later, it started to click.

I was like, oh, wait a minute.

And I thought back on how my parents, you know, growing up, they had alluded to having difficulties conceiving when I was born.

There was definitely a struggle, but they never really told me anything more than that.

And in this conversation at my parents' house, they kind of divulged how they received fertility treatment to become pregnant with me.

And the way that they did that was by using a donor, but going through the process called sperm mixing.

So essentially they take the donor's sperm and mix it with the sperm of my dad's in the hopes that my dad's sperm is the one that takes.

Now, I don't know how I don't think this is rooted in science so much, but it wasn't an uncommon practice back then where recipient parents would basically go through this this process.

Yeah, I'm definitely not a donor conception expert, but it almost seemed like it it was almost to reduce some of the stigma or shame around infertility.

And it's kind of this like, well, it's plausible that, you know, it could be the the father sperm that created the child or it could be the donor.

Like, you know, you don't, You don't really know.

Taking the DNA Test and Discovering Half-Siblings

So they explained to me that this is how they became pregnant and that by taking this test, there's a chance that I might get surprising results.

Now the interesting layer to this this part of the story is that my younger brother, he's a little a little over 2 years younger than me.

He actually was conceived in the same fashion by sperm mixing.

And I don't want to go too much into what his experience with basically having the same conversation that I had with my parents.

He was informed that he potentially was not connected to our dad biologically before my birthday dinner.

They were all holding on to this at the dinner and not telling me what my brother had already found out.

So he was he was now aware of this possibility at this family gathering and couldn't say anything about it.

So it was like torturous for him to be there and not be able to spill the beans.

So anyway, he and I end up going through this this process together in a lot of ways where after I discovered that like, whoa, am I really potentially not biologically connected to my dad?

And like, wondering, OK, am I taking this DNA test?

Is there a reason why maybe I shouldn't?

And I slept on it.

And the very next morning, I was like, I'm taking the test.

Like, there's no way I'm not getting this information.

And my brother had already settled on that as well.

So for anyone who's taken these DNA tests, you probably know that it takes about a month for the results to come back.

And over the course of that month, my brother and I were on the phone with each other.

It, it felt like multiple times a day just talking about like how insane this all is and how, you know, we were really trying to speculate how our parents were feeling because we could visibly see that my dad was struggling with the idea that, you know, the full truth was, was about to come to light and really just navigating these highly unusual emotions alongside each other.

So my brother and I really supported each other before those results came back.

Now when we get the results, my brother eventually, it was inconclusive at first, but ultimately found out that he and my dad are biologically connected.

So I think that means like he defied the odds of sperm mixing.

I actually have never heard of it actually working in favor of the the child and the parent being biologically connected, but in his case it did.

So in a lot of ways his story stopped there, whereas my story, I get my results back and the first thing I saw was my, and I did 23 in May.

I saw the ancestry composition and right at the top it said like 48.6% Ashkenazi Jewish, which was a huge surprise to me because I had always grown up believing that I was half Irish, 1/4 Italian, quarter German.

So never thought that, you know, Jewish was part of my make up.

Now when I look in the mirror, I'm like, of course, like it, it seems so obvious, but in that moment it was, it was quite shocking.

And then of course, you flip over to the family tree and that's really where the juicy info presented itself.

So I think on the family tree I could see that I was connected to seven or eight other half siblings.

I would come to find out in total right now there are 14 of us.

But seeing that, and I guess the first thing I saw was my own brother who I was raised with being on there and it his name had the designation as half brother.

And that was really hard for me to read because I never viewed him that way.

I will never view him that way.

But biologically speaking, that's the truth.

And I just, yeah, to see that in writing was like, I, I didn't know what to make of that.

It it just made it all like fully real in that moment.

Finding Peace with the Donor's Medical Information

Were there any feelings around the fact that he is biologically your dad's and you are not?

It's a good question.

I, I remember speaking with my mom about this and part of our process even prior to the results coming through were that it just opened up all of these new kinds of conversations that we were having as a family that, you know, prior to any of this being on our radar, probably wouldn't have happened.

So we're really being vulnerable in a way that was new to us.

And I remember saying to my mom, if if one of us is going to be not connected to dad, I hope it's me.

And I said that because I felt like I was equipped to handle this kind of news for a number of reasons, but I felt like it.

It almost made more sense.

Like you know how donor conceived people.

A lot of the times things just seem to click where like that feeling of maybe being a little bit out of place growing up and wondering like, wait, why am I this way?

Why am IA little bit different than everybody else?

You know, I didn't feel that in in any sort of like hugely notable way, but there were things I could point to and say like, yeah, I am a little bit different.

And if this is true, it would explain that and I'm OK with that.

So, yeah, as far as feelings related to like my brother being biologically connected, I, it was almost a relief in in some ways for both of us because I don't know how he would have handled it.

And I knew that I, I knew that I could make sense of it for myself.

So yeah, we get these results and it's a Monday morning, I think, and I had to go to work.

I was working a remote sales job, so thankfully I didn't have to go to into any office.

But I remember sitting in a Greenpoint coffee shop and just kind of digging through the information that I now had in my hands.

And maybe an hour after getting the results, a message came through on 23 and May from one of my donor half sisters.

And that message, I forget exactly what it said, but essentially it was, hey, like, I'm not sure if you know, you have all the information that you might be looking for, but if and when you'd like some of this information, we have it available and I'm happy to share it with you.

So, you know, during the time of waiting for my results to come back, I had very clearly decided like, whatever information I can get and however I can pursue all there is that I could possibly know, like I'm game, like bring it on.

So right away I, I wrote back to her and I was like, please, like, send me anything and everything that you have.

And within minutes, she sent me an e-mail that I think the first one was, it was like a photo collage of the half siblings.

And I remember distinctly when I looked at that, First off, I'm catching flashes and glimpses of myself and these people who at the time were strangers.

And I also had this feeling of like, whoa, like I am forever connected to these people.

I don't know who they are yet and I don't know if I will get to know who they are.

But there's a permanent bond now that this collage is a symbol of.

So that was pretty trippy to look at that.

And then after that, I received another e-mail that was from the donor.

And this really put me at ease in a lot of ways because though he expressed that he was not interested in fostering any relationships with us, he did in a very kind way outlined he bits of medical information and a little bit of his family, family's history, which was all I needed.

I I think ultimately having that acknowledgement from him that like, yeah, I am the biological father, You have successfully identified me.

And here's what I'm willing to share that.

Yeah.

It just because I think about that hour, right, of having all of these results, not knowing who the donor was in that hour and feeling lost, just feeling like, whoa, there's this huge cloud of mystery that's that's hanging over me now and am I ever gonna get answers?

And thankfully I got them really quickly.

Yeah, it's kind of amazing that it's like there was a framework already in place where, OK, when someone takes a test and they match, I don't know if you could actually expect or or hope for a better outcome, except for maybe if you were interested in having a relationship.

They did all the early detective work because, you know, from the information we had on on 23 and May, it wasn't obvious who the donor was.

There were enough clues that were given for them to put the pieces together.

But yeah, like if it were up to me to figure it out, I'm sure I could have, but it it would have taken a bit of time for me to get to the answers that they got to.

So I'm very grateful that I was able to get that upfront.

It definitely kept me from experiencing some some real confusion.

And yeah, I don't even know what would have happened.

Uncanny Similarities and Shared Experiences with Half-Siblings

Do you connect more with your siblings from that point?

Is that is that something that you want to do at that stage?

I think I always knew from the earliest moments that that was part of what I wanted and what I was curious to explore.

It did take some time for me to get comfortable with actually pursuing that, but not, not not that long.

It took me maybe a month, a month and a half.

And of the 14 of us, so there are two sons who were raised by the donor and we actually don't even know if they are aware of our existence.

That is still unclear.

Of the remaining 12, I think it's six of us who have now met in person.

And the first meet up was with two of the half brothers we met at a bar on the Upper Upper East Side of in Manhattan.

And yeah, it was like psychedelic, honestly, to see someone who was a total stranger.

But no, right from the moment I laid my eyes on them that like, we are connected.

It's just a feeling that like, I don't think, I don't think anyone else can really understand what that feels like other than people in the DCP community.

The first brother shows up at the bar.

I was the first one to arrive, he shows up second, and then the third brother shows up afterwards and we're sitting down.

It's a pretty lively bar, but I just remember looking at them and like catching glimpses of myself in their faces.

One of them had the same exact facial hair as.

I did the other actually the same 1 was literally wearing like the same kind of outfit that I had on.

We had like a Plaid button down on same, same facial hair, same haircut, same interests.

Like our Instagram feed was kind of the same like not the feed, but like our accounts.

It's like all the concerts we've gone to and all of the the travels that we've been on, so it was just so bizarre.

Do you all live in the New York area or are you from all over the country or?

Almost all of us do live in the the New York area, so we were all born in the same hospital in Long Island and it happens to be the hospital that the donor did his medical practice at or he was a a a Med student at the time of his donating.

So we all come from the same hospital.

We all grew up in scattered towns around Long Island, and most of us are still either in Long Island or in New York City.

Wow.

OK.

So that right, I feel like we have to talk about that because that's something that comes up for a lot of DCP is this, you're around people that are related to you that you don't know.

There's worries about dating somebody that you're related to that you don't know.

Did any of that come up for you?

Like once you realized how like literally being born in the same hospital is pretty.

Wise so there haven't been too many moments of potentially like crossing paths.

I know one of the brothers and one of the sisters.

They used to go to the same public swimming pool as children.

However, one of the brothers, so my hometown is broken into like little villages.

There's like four or five different ones.

And one of the brothers lives in the village that my parents live in right now.

He's like 4 streets away.

So yeah, like pretty close proximity there.

And I remember when I saw his name, I was like, that looks like a familiar name.

Like did I play baseball with him when I was a kid?

I I don't know for sure, but yeah, I mean, there's definitely a chance that some of us were brushing shoulders as kids.

And yeah, who knows?

I mean, there could be others out there that don't even know they're part of our group that I could be walking past at the pizza place or, you know, getting bagels in the morning, whatever it might be.

Is that something that you think about often?

Like, I mean, you're, you're a little bit out from it now, but you know, sometimes when people first have these discoveries, it's something that's top of mind, right?

They're thinking about it often when you see people that maybe you think look like you or does it cross your mind?

Are they related to me?

I personally don't, but maybe that's because I haven't really come across anyone I thought was like whoa, they could be connected.

However, I will say, and my wife laughs when I tell the story because we were watching, I'm not going to name the show, but we were watching a really trashy reality show before any of this donor conceived stuff was on my radar.

And I remember there was this one person, this one guy who was on the show that any time he was on the screen, I like, I, I almost cringed.

I, like, I couldn't watch him because it felt like I was watching myself in a way that it's hard for.

Like, I couldn't understand it.

His mannerisms were the same.

His inflections and his voice were the same.

He apparently lives in a Long Island, and there was like an element of his story where, like his his dad wasn't really in the picture.

So I'm watching this and like, again, didn't know I was donor conceived as I'm seeing all this stuff, but just getting this weird gut feeling that like, there's something about this guy and, you know, a few years past and I find out I'm donor conceived.

And now I think back on that and I'm like, that guy's probably part of our group.

And I like, I wrestled with the question of like, do I do I reach out to this guy and randomly just ask these, these questions about DNA testing 'cause I don't want to be the one to potentially blow up his world, you know?

But that, that feeling I had watching him on that show was, was something different.

I had never felt it before and I haven't felt it since.

So yeah, I don't really, I don't really look for people out and about in the way that some others might.

But that's that's my version of of feeling like there's other connections.

So you've connected with some of your siblings, You're learning a lot more about them it sounds like.

How Nick's Parents Embraced His Public Story

Do any others join the the pod after you take your test?

So that initial meet up with the two brothers then expanded to two additional brothers and two additional sisters.

So if my math is correct, I think that's 66 of us, maybe seven of us.

We haven't all gotten together as an entire group.

I think we've had one where everybody but one person was there and it's, yeah, it's pretty mind boggling to see some of the commonalities that we have.

Like I mentioned before, like there's there's an interest in music across the board.

I think a lot of us tend to be pretty introspective where we we really like to analyze things just internally and be a little bit thoughtful about how we express feelings and emotions and whatever it might be.

One of the things that I noticed as I was able to social media stock the donor is that I'm pretty fanatical about basketball and specifically the New York Knicks.

You can see I'm wearing a Knicks hat right now.

The donor, as I'm examining some of the photos that I had had access to, I can see he's a huge basketball fan.

And the reason I note that is because in my own family, I'm the only one whoever had a passion for sports and was really excited about basketball and playing basketball.

And I can see that that clearly comes from the donor.

I can also see that he's an adventurer in some ways and has some pretty interesting travel experience.

I'm the only person in my family who prioritizes seeing the world and really getting out of my comfort zone and going to places that are sort of off the beaten path for a lot of people.

So there are things that I now have access to information wise where I can say, you know, with the nature versus nurture debate in mind, like, oh, there's a lot on this nature side that I didn't know of before.

I didn't know it was in that bucket.

So that's been pretty fascinating to to see.

And one of the other things that I really enjoy, and it's, it's one of the main motivators behind wanting to get as much experience spending time with these new connections of mine, is that the more I get to know them, these new brothers and sisters, the more I feel like I understand myself.

That's really awesome.

I think hearing you learn about the donor and some commonalities that you have and maybe how it was different than the family that you grew up in takes me back to your parents.

I'm, I'm curious, you said that they were struggling kind of when they first gave you that information.

Did they share if it was something that they intended to reveal to you at any point?

Was it something that they planned to keep secret?

They did, yeah.

They shared what their thoughts behind all of this were and essentially they informed me that it was the doctor's advice to them to not say anything, which they followed.

However, there were basically 2 scenarios that they they deemed worthy of sharing the information.

The first was if either my brother or I ever had any sort of medical issues that would require them to say, you know what, they don't have the same medical history as my dad does, knock on wood.

Thankfully, I never had any anything growing up or even as an adult that required, at least it never required divulging that information, or at least they didn't think they needed to.

The other would have been if some sort of technology came out that would identify all of this.

And sure enough, it did.

And yeah, they expressed to me that like in the early days of 23andMe and Ancestry coming out to the public, they'd see some of these commercials or it would be in the news and they'd kind of look at each other and be like the time, like the clock is ticking, like this is going to happen at some point.

And yeah, in my case, my, my siblings randomly decided to get me that DNA testing kit.

And that was that was the moment my parents said, yeah, we, we have to address this now.

And that's something as I think about like all of the different parts of my story, them having that conversation with me and sitting down with me to say, hey, if you take this test, you know, you might be shocked.

I I can't stress how valuable and how important it was for them to to do that with me and to get ahead of it because if I had found out through 23andMe when they had opportunities to tell it to me themselves, that would have been difficult for me to accept.

They didn't really know when to share this news and their hand was forced.

And they said, all right, now's the time.

So that that was definitely a very key piece in terms of like sitting with these emotions that I'm having.

And, you know, I can look at it at it that way.

And I think it would be valid if I felt that way, but I, I asked myself, can I understand why they did it this way?

And you know, something I I say to a lot of the guests that I talk about that I talked to on my own podcast is I don't think it's fair to judge decisions from the past with the information we have in from the present And back then.

But yeah, I guess another element here is as these facts were coming to light, there was definitely a a little bit of friction, Not friction so much as just a struggle, particularly with my dad, in the fact that like, I was going to be open about this.

I was very clear up front, like this doesn't change anything.

Our relationship is not affected in any sort of negative way by this.

But I'm not going to keep this under wraps.

This is my story and I feel the need to tell it.

I almost felt like I had to reintroduce myself.

And while my parents were accepting of that, it definitely made my dad in particular a bit uncomfortable knowing that they held on to this for 30 plus years and now it's going to be exposed.

And I think part of the beauty of how I view the situation now is that we we got through sharing the story openly as one collective unit.

It's not like I was out telling, you know, my people and my parents were forced to tell their own people.

We, we all did it together and it ended up strengthening our bond, especially with me and my dad knowing that he was definitely out of his comfort zone putting this out there.

But, you know, faced his fear and now he talks about it as openly as I do.

So it's really been cool.

It's been cool to watch, particularly my dad's evolution around all of this, where before we took the tests, he was like, I don't want to know the results.

Like I don't need to know them.

And I was like, if I know the results, there's no way I'm keeping that from you.

Just to see like where he was at the beginning of the story to where he is now is really cool and I'm really proud of how he has handled this whole part of his life because it's part of his story too.

From Personal Journal to a Platform for Donor Stories

That's incredible.

Really do identify with what you were saying about.

Once you had it, the information, you had to tell it, you had to tell your story, you had to reintroduce yourself.

It's a whole new way of thinking about yourself and and your identity.

I guess on that note, like you learned that you are Jewish, is that a part of your identity that you have been interested in exploring or not?

I think the short answer there is, it is.

The longer answer is it's not something that is at the top of my priority list of things to explore with this.

I will say in hindsight, like looking back on my friends as I was growing up and who I'm still close with now, most of them are Jewish.

And I think that is telling of something because, you know, I never knew I was Jewish when I was a kid, but I seem to have gravitated to that crowd.

So I, I, I find that to be pretty fascinating.

But outside of exploring what that means for me and understanding Jewish history and culture, I'm interested in it.

But I I don't know that I've been ready to really do the deep dive into all of that just yet.

You mentioned you know the importance of telling your story and you also mentioned that you have a podcast.

So I imagine telling your story and telling other stories is more at the top of your your priority list.

Can you talk a little bit more about your podcast and and why you started it and what your goal is?

After I had been expressing this new part of my life to the people that mattered to me and telling the story over and over to family and friends, I felt like the more I talked about it, the healthier it felt.

And from there, because I was experiencing such new feelings and emotions, especially in those early days of like just getting the results and not really knowing what to do with it, the only thing I did know to do was to write and to just jot down everything that was coming to mind because I wanted to have a record of what this most unusual time in my life was like and how I was thinking.

And so I ended up writing regularly in my journal and I'd say a month or two had passed and I realized that, oh crap, like I have 30,000 words here.

This is a lot of content that I'm committing to this.

And in that moment, I was like, wait a minute.

Like I think there's something bigger at play here.

Like, am I?

Am I writing a book right now?

So from there I tried to kind of connect what my donor conceived discovery was like to other areas of my life that felt significant and ultimately wrote a book, much to my surprise.

I never thought I was capable of doing that, but before I knew it, I had a full book of, you know, 5560 thousand words.

So a little over a year ago is when I published that also called Inconceivably Connected, which is the name of the podcast as well.

But by putting my story out in that sort of format beyond just to my close friends and family and acquaintances, really putting it out to the entire world, it just felt freeing and it felt healthy.

It felt therapeutic.

And I I thought, OK, how can I extend this feeling to other people who are experiencing the same sort of situation that I am?

And that's where the podcast came in, where I thought, all right, if I can create a platform for others to vocally express what they're going through, I think that could be really useful.

And it almost felt like my duty to to create that and to make that space, even though I, you know, like we were saying before recording, I am not tech savvy.

I had never done anything like this before.

I just felt like it was too important to not give it a fair shot.

And that's how the podcast was born.

I made a post on Reddit, on the Facebook forums and was just curious to see, all right, how many other people out there are interested in sharing their story?

And I was kind of joking with my wife.

I was like, how many people you think are going to respond to this?

And in my head, I'm like, maybe I'll get four or five.

And within the first like, 24 hours, I had over 30 responses.

And that's when it really hit me when I was like, OK, people are eager to talk about this and maybe some of these people don't have the outlet to do so in their own lives, and this could be the area where they're able to do that.

So that was really the thinking behind creating the podcast, which again, the Inconceivably Connected podcast, It's very similar to DNA surprises, one-on-one conversations, and it's turned into some of the most fulfilling work that I have found myself doing.

And I, it was never on my radar that this would be the position that I'm in, but it's beautiful, it's enlightening, it's in some cases entertaining to hear the uniqueness of each and every person's story because No2 donor conceived people's stories are the same.

We could hear an infinite amount of them.

And there will always be something in each person's story that stands out as their own.

And I think even more than that, just seeing almost like the before and the after of each guest that comes on, I can see that a lot of them are sometimes nervous in the beginning and by the end they're like, whoa, I think I had a lot to get off my chest and I think I just did like this feels good.

So when I see that in people, it just.

It encourages me to keep going, and I suspect you feel a similar way.

Absolutely.

I mean, I always say I started the podcast just as much for myself as I did for others because there's something so incredible about getting the opportunity to connect to people that have this shared experience, which is fairly common, but it's not one that everybody can relate to.

And so to, for myself to feel less alone and then to also realize the impact that it has on people who are listening and find something to identify with.

And then also, yeah, the the actual people that I'm speaking to every week to see that weight come off and and see kind of the power and strength that comes from telling your story is unlike anything I think I've ever done before.

I'd like to ask DCP who come on the podcast kind of for their their take on the state of the industry in terms of things that you would like to see changed based off of your own experience or, or not changed.

Guidance for Parents and Donor-Conceived Individuals

Like do you have any thoughts in terms of the fertility industry at large?

Yeah, and I think a lot of my thoughts are going to be rooted in what I've heard from other people that I've I've spoken to because feel like I got pretty lucky in this experience that I don't have medical known medical issues.

But I think most, most DCPS would probably agree that getting rid of donor anonymity is a good place to start.

I think it's vital for so many people to know their accurate medical history and really their ancestral composition as well.

Like it's important to know where we come from culturally and yeah, and, and what sort of lineage we carry.

I think there's a lot of work to be done legislatively.

The fact that we hear stories sometimes of siblings dating each other or having to even worry about that, like accidental incest.

We hear all about fertility fraud where doctors are are swapping out their own sperm and swapping in their own sperm for the donors.

There's, there's so many messy and dark parts of what some of us experience.

And it's, I think until we address all of that, we need to be amplifying as many donor conceived voices as possible, which in terms of a mission behind the existence of my podcast, like my whole job is, is raising the volume and elevating the voices that need to be heard.

Because no one should have to go through some of the things that I've heard people in our community having to go through.

So yeah, I think that's a good starting place.

Wipeout, donor anonymity, fertility fraud needs to be punished in a, in a justified way.

And it's, it just feels like it should be a basic right to know who we're connected to.

These, these connections are too meaningful.

There's too much to learn by exploring them and understanding them to deprive people of the chance to do that.

So that's what I would say.

What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping adna surprise from their child?

You have to tell them.

You just have to.

And that doesn't mean you have to do it immediately, but you have to do it as soon as any viable moment arises to keep this information from your children.

It keeps them from themselves, from understanding who they are at their core in some key ways.

And you just can't deprive your child of that.

You can't.

I think a lot of parents, especially from my generation, I was born in 1987, you know, they were misguided.

Let's be real.

They were misguided by by doctors to not tell their kids about this.

But as soon as DNA test testing became a thing, that guidance kind of goes out the window and you have to readjust your game plan.

And I think even beyond giving your child the chance to know who they are on a deeper level, it's also gonna set you free.

Because whether you realize it or not, you're holding on to something.

You're suppressing really vital information for your offspring, your children, who you're raising, and you carry that with you.

And that affects you whether you think it does or not.

And I remember very distinctly when my parents first divulged this information to me and they, they saw that I didn't react in, for lack of a better word, in any sort of negative way.

I could see the weight shed from their shoulders.

I could see their spirits lifting by coming clean.

And I think that's not to say that by sharing this with your children, there's not gonna be blowback from it, but your child's gonna respect you a whole lot more if they'd hear this news from their parents rather than from someone else or from a corporation like 23 MA.

So that would be my advice.

That's really good advice.

And what advice do you have for someone who just discovered that they're donor conceived?

I think there's two pieces there.

I think the first is give yourself grace.

Move at whatever speed feels appropriate to you.

Some people like to dive right into all of this, and that's not the way that everybody handles this situation.

If you need to move nice and slow, move nice and slow.

This is serious information and a serious part of who you are, and you don't want to to rush through any of that.

I think you want to feel every emotion that that comes along with this, good and bad.

And I think it's also really important for people to recognize that they're not alone in this.

It can feel very isolating when you discover this, especially at a later stage in life.

There's support out there.

There are other people who have had the same lived experience that you can lean on.

Don't try to conquer this or sit with this by yourself.

You do not have to do that.

There's other people that have gone on this journey already that can share words of wisdom and advice and don't shy away from that except those wise Nuggets that people in our community have to offer.

You may not think that you need them in certain moments, but they'll come in handy down the line.

And I think the last thing I would say is for those who find themselves in a position to tell your story, and I phrase it that way because I, I think many of us face some obstacles and challenges that maybe prevent us from from putting the full truth out there in the ways that we want to.

But I think everybody should be working on a path towards telling the story and and owning it because it's yours.

And other people may not sit well with that, but it's not their place to tell you what you can share and what you can't.

When you're ready to tell it, tell it.

Because that's how we all come together is by sharing these stories.

Well said, Nick, thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing your story.

Host's Farewell and Where to Find More Information

It's been a pleasure to talk to you today and I'm excited to listen to the Inconceivably Connected podcast and hope that others will check it out too because it is so important to hear and share all of our stories.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Nick for sharing his story.

If you're interested in checking out Nick's book or his podcast, I've linked them in the show notes.

And if you have adna surprise that you'd like to share, submit your story at dnasurprises.com.

And for early add free access to episodes, join me over on patreon@patreon.com/DNA surprises.

Until next time, DNA Surprises is hosted, produced and edited by me, Alexis Oursalt.

It is mixed and mastered by Josh Oursalt of Siren Recording Studios.