Sonya’s DNA Surprise

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Sonya's Emotional Opening and Host's Episode Overview

I'm shocked.

My husband's shocked.

My heart is racing.

It's physical.

I'm in disbelief.

I'm manic.

I can't think anymore.

I'm crazy emotional.

I'm altered.

It was, it was, it was altering.

I can hear the blood pumping through my veins.

I can hear the blood pounding in my head and nothing makes sense.

And I mean, 0 since.

And you know, to be clear, my whole life until I was 53 years old, I've never once felt out of place.

I never once felt like I did not belong.

I never once felt like I was not loved.

I never once felt like I was being lied to ever.

I mean, I just did not think anything was wrong.

I never lacked a daddy growing up.

I did wish many times that I could get along with my daddy and that he wasn't an alcoholic and that he could be happy.

But I loved him, and in his own way, he loved me.

And he did try to be a good daddy, you know, I only considered the idea of another daddy's scenario as a possibility in 2024, but I really, honestly just didn't believe that was the answer.

Speaker 2

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

I'm your host, Alexis Ourselt.

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 family is navigating these discoveries.

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

This is DNA surprises surprise, an unexpected or astonishing event, fact or thing.

Yet for many people in the DNA surprise community, there was always a sneaking suspicion, a wondering, the unthought known.

This week's episode is not one of those cases.

When Sonia first took her DNA test, she was quickly able to make it make sense.

It wasn't until years later that she found a truth she never saw coming.

Sonia shares how she found the identity of her biological father with the help of a search Angel, how she's working through her surprise without clarity from her mother, and how she frames her story in light of her upbringing.

Thank you for sharing your story, Sonya.

Sonya's Lifelong Interest in Family History

Hi, my name's Sonya.

I'm 54 years old.

I was born raised and I do still reside in Arkansas.

Curiosity is where my story starts.

For as far back as I can remember, I would ask questions and I had a real interest in my family history.

I felt tremendous pride in my family and I valued the information that I learned.

I would ask my grandparents questions about their parents.

What were their names?

Where did they live?

And I just remember going with my grandparents to like cemeteries where their parents and grandparents were buried.

I always enjoyed hearing stories about my family from my grandparents and my great aunts and uncles.

I wondered kind of what countries everyone immigrated from.

I knew that on my mom's side of the family, Scotland is where a majority of the family is from.

And on my daddy's side of the family, it was always just a kind of a general European classification, but never any definite information.

In 2011, I joined ancestry.com to create an electronic family tree and hopefully learn more about my family.

I enjoyed looking at the census records and the other documents.

I was always kind of amazed at, you know, who you could find.

And whenever you were kind of looking around on the Internet, I would always travel around to different county courthouses around where I live, and I look up records of my family.

This little hobby of mine, to me, it was interesting.

It was a fun way to spend time.

I was not very good at genealogy and I'm just learning as I went.

So when you had this interest, it only came truly from a curiosity kind of place.

It wasn't because you suspected that there was anything going on in your family.

You really just wanted to learn more about where you came from.

Speaker 1

That's right.

Yeah.

I just, I wanted to know where people lived and wanted to know their names and wanted to know what kind of jobs they had, you know, things like that.

Just curiosity.

Yeah, OK.

DNA Test Reveals No Immediate Surprises

In 2016, my husband and sons gave me ADNA testing kit as a gift because I was always talking about genealogy and building the family tree and things like that.

So I was very excited to take this test.

I followed the directions, mailed it off, and in no time I had that notification that my results were available to be viewed.

It never crossed my mind that a surprise could result from this test.

At the time I received my results, the matches weren't broken down, maternal versus paternal, so I saw lots of names.

I recognized several of the names, but there were way more names that I just didn't recognize.

I was really kind of surprised by all the long distance cousins that show up, you know, on the matches.

But I was not surprised by my results.

No particular name stood out in any strange way.

The ancestral regions were right on track with what everyone had always told me. 75% England and northwestern Europe, 25% Scotland.

So really everything matched.

There were no matches with my mom's maiden name.

I can remember, you know, being surprised that there were no maiden name matches on mom's side of the family and on my side of the family.

It wasn't really cause for alarm on my daddy's side of the family because I was an only child and he was an only child.

So I didn't have aunts and uncles and 1st cousins on that side of the family.

All the matches that showed up, they were like second cousins and further down the line distant cousins.

Everything just matched up to what people had told me all my life.

Did you know even though you were an only child and your your daddy was an only child, did you know a lot of his family like your cousins?

He had one first cousin, and that first cousin had a son, and he and I were close in age.

And he still lives around where I live now.

So I knew, you know, the people that lived close to me.

I knew my relatives, Yeah.

OK, but they didn't show up because you saw mostly second cousins, so you just.

No one close to me showed up.

And I would ask, you know, have you ever taken ADNA test?

And I'm like, no, I'm not going to take ADNA test.

Assumed no one had taken a test that I was close to at this time, that I'm not checking the results religiously.

I'm not looking at ancestry.com every day.

It's all still fun and interesting.

It's not life altering.

A Private Match Sparks Growing Curiosity

You know, I wasn't expecting new or additional matches.

I might check myancestry.com account at that time maybe once twice a year.

In September 2018 I did receive notice of a new match and when I open it I can tell their account is private.

There is a linked family tree which is also private, but I can see the name of the tree and I don't recognize the name on their private tree.

And even the account name is an abbreviation, so it's not even a full name.

So I don't really I'm not familiar with that abbreviation.

I'm not familiar with the named tree, but it's all private so I can't see any of it.

And how close were you to that match?

Were you able to see that?

It says it's like first cousin and uncle, grandparent, grandchild, niece, nephew or half sibling.

It's closer than any other match I'd ever had.

So I remember thinking about this.

I'm going to make it make sense.

And so I remembered on my mom's side of the family, she did have a brother.

I knew when he was really young.

He had married early and had a daughter.

But then they quickly divorced, and that daughter was eventually adopted by a stepfather.

So I never really knew much about her.

We never saw her, but I knew she existed.

And she lived in South Arkansas, still does the name on the family tree of that account.

And the abbreviated name didn't really match up with the name I knew her to be.

But I thought, well, maybe that's it, maybe this is them and I don't know what they call her and things like that.

And so still not really focused on this match, but I'm interested and just trying to make that make sense.

I plugged it into what I knew and I did send that match a message telling them to take a look at my tree because it was public if they recognized any of the names, you know, so we could figure out and figure out how we were related.

I think they finally read that message and responded back to me in June of 2019.

So several months later, they finally respond and say, yes, I'm interested in learning more.

In one of the messages they informed me that they didn't recognize any of the names in my tree and that they don't know who I am, but they wondered if I was their grandparent.

I was only 48 years old at the time.

I replied.

I know I'm not your grandparent because I wasn't anybody's grandparent.

I asked if I could have permission to see their tree at that time, and when I checked back after sending that message after a few months they still had not read the message.

But I'm not looking at it all the time either, so I'm expecting delays and it seemed normal at the time.

The more time rocks on.

We're now into January 2020, so I get this match in 2018.

We talked a little bit in 2019, now it's January 2020 and the ancestry.com results continue to evolve.

As more and more people upload the results, the more defined my results are becoming.

It's always neat to see how the ancestral regions would update and how the matches that you have become more nuanced.

So at this point, Ancestry updates have divided my matches maternally versus paternally, and if the results indicate that this match is definitely on my father's side of the family.

So now I know it's paternal.

The Pandemic Fuels a Half-Sibling Investigation

This match is a girl and it's probably a niece or 1/2 sibling is what I'm seeing on my Ancestry account.

This is also the beginning of the pandemic, and so I'm at home all the time, and I began really thinking about this match more.

I'm on the computer all the time.

I'm working from home.

Every time I check the messages now, they're still not being read.

Now you get this, the specificity, and it's saying it's your niece or 1/2 sibling.

You're an only child.

And.

That doesn't seem possible.

So at that point, what's going through your mind when you see those results?

Well, because it's the pandemic, you know, we're getting those crazy daily updates on how many people have died from COVID.

And I'm thinking, well, maybe this person died, you know, or something like that because they're just not responding and not the messages anymore.

So I think that that's weird.

I don't really know what's going on.

But as time keeps marching on between 2022 and 2023, I am hyper focused on this match.

It's all I can think about.

I'm telling everyone I know about this match.

My friends are hearing all the details.

I'm speculating and I have convinced myself that the only thing that makes sense is this.

This match is 1/2 sister and that my daddy must have had another child.

I am checking the ancestry all the time now.

It's not once a year.

It's once a day, I'm checking it.

I'm checking it.

I'm always seeing if they've responded.

And I noticed one day in 2023 that the name, the abbreviated name on the account had been edited like they had a new last name.

So it went from one last name to the same 2 front initials in a different last name.

And I thought, well, they're alive and they're making a decision not to read those messages I'm sending anymore.

So it just makes me think about it more.

It just, I dig in then it's all I can think about.

I'm ready to figure out who this is and how we're related.

I think it's weird that they talked at 1st and now they're not responding.

So daddy passed away.

My daddy passed away in 2008.

Me and my mom divorced when I was small.

I was four or five, so that would have been like in 197576.

Daddy had remarried once in the 80's, the early 80s, but it wasn't a super long marriage and there were no children born to that marriage that I knew of.

So a majority of his life he was a single man.

So my mom is still alive and I asked my mom about daddy.

You know, I asked her did she ever remember any strange going ONS with daddy, if she ever suspected that he had another child.

She said that she didn't recall, you know, anything strange, any rumors.

She just didn't think that he would keep the child a secret.

Like it wouldn't be a secret because he didn't have any reason to keep a secret.

He was a single man most of his life.

He had a good job, he had a nice home, he had the means to care for a child.

She wondered that if he had fathered a child that maybe he was never told about the child.

And this seems possible to me.

And I say this because daddy was an alcoholic, terrible alcoholic.

As he grew older, his alcoholism grew worse.

I could see that some lady, you know, the mother of a child would think, oh, Lord, I'm not dealing with this, you know, And so maybe she just decided not to say anything.

Daddy was a difficult man to get along with, you know, sober or drunk.

And so I, you know, that that would make sense.

I'm making it make sense.

And so I'm still close to the lady that was my stepmom when my daddy remarried in the 80s.

So I asked her about the possibility of another child, and she was kind of like my mom.

She said, you know, I just don't recall being suspicious or wondering or anything weird, you know, happened.

So now we're into 2024.

I don't know exactly when or why I finally decided to snap into reality, but I guess I kind of exhausted, you know, everything that I knew to ask and to think about and to try to figure out.

And it just seriously dawns on me that if daddy didn't have another child, and the explanation is that daddy's not my daddy.

And so I go back to my mom.

Sonya Confronts Her Mother About Her Paternity

And I was like, hey, is there any way that someone else could be my daddy?

And her immediate response was, well, Sonia, you look just like your Mimi.

And my Mimi is my daddy's mom.

I called her in my grandfather Mimi and Papa and that's what I heard all my life is that I favored my Mimi.

We do share some similar characteristics.

We both had real high arched eyebrows, we both had big plump cheeks.

We're both the same height and just.

Not to mention, she was my person growing up.

If I hadn't had her, I don't think that I would have made it through my adolescent years.

I just love my grandparents so much, had such a great relationship.

I did on both sides of my family with my grandparents, but my Mimi is the person who really did for me growing up.

I would stay with my Mimi and Papa, you know, weeks at a time during the summer and during the school year I would stay on the weekends.

I was with my Mimi and Papa more than I was with any other family members besides my mom.

You know, my daddy was an alcoholic and so that was kind of my go to is I just would go over there and the way my mom answered me, it was just kind of end of subject and I didn't push back on any other questions.

Or anything.

Did you accept that or were you still questioning then at that?

Point.

I thought it was a real strange way to answer a question if my kids have thought about it.

And if my kids would have asked, come up and seriously ask me that because I was real serious when I asked her, I would have been pissed off, honestly.

Like, what in the hell are you talking about?

Yes, your daddy is your daddy, you know?

I mean, it would have made me mad to be questioned about it.

So I thought that that was a real strange way to answer that question.

Yeah, that is a curious.

It was like she's trying to placate you right away with like, oh, no, you look, you look like your your grandmother on your father's side.

So that's not really possible.

I'm curious, like how you described it as snapping into reality after a period of time of trying to make things make sense.

How did you feel like you had really ruled out the possibility that your father may have had another child because to your point, he was a single guy.

He didn't have, you know, it wasn't like he was having an affair or anything.

So many things could have happened.

How did you really land on?

I don't think that that's what happened.

Well, I would whenever I would look at my matches on ancestry.com and I just did not when it when they finally divided and I knew the maternal versus the paternal and there just wasn't a single person on that paternal side that I recognized.

And I thought, how can not one person that I know of or have the same last name, at least of people on that side of the family not have tested to have this many results?

I mean, there's thousands upon thousands of results.

And just how come none of them or even an inkling of like, Oh yeah, you know, that makes that's it.

And so when I that's, you know, I had told my husband I was like, you know what, I don't recognize anybody from my daddy's side of the family.

I do on mom's, you know, but not daddy's.

And so that's kind of in when I was just like, you know, growing up with Alcoholics, children of Alcoholics are naive.

I didn't question my parents.

You know, it's kind of a a southern thing, but no back talk.

And that is how I was raised.

And so I tell you something, that's the truth, and that's how you March forward.

I was an adult before I ever pushed back on anybody and the family at work.

I had to get out and be on my own a little bit before I finally started seeing things.

So your mom tells you basically drop it.

A Group Text Reveals a Crucial Vasectomy Detail

It's so many words, Yeah.

What happens next?

So now it is.

It's October 2024, I feel like I'm at a dead end with ancestry.com so I decide I'll take a 23 in me DNA test to see if that provides additional information.

So I think, you know, maybe someone else will show up or pop up.

I'm still thinking about my mom's weird answer.

I decide that I'll ask my mom again, but I want to ask her differently than the way I did it first.

So I decide I'll send her and my stepmom a text message, A group text message.

And so side note, this is a whole other podcast story, but my stepmom and my mom are best friends and have been for almost 40 years.

So anyway, so back to this group.

It is, yeah.

So the group text message, I approach it like, hey, ladies, you know, we got to figure out this whole DNA match possible sister mystery.

And I give them two options.

Either daddy had another child or Daddy isn't my daddy, ha ha.

And my stepmom responds back first and she says she believes that I'm the only child of my daddy.

And I respond right back.

And it's like the DNA evidence proves otherwise.

My mom responds back and she says, well, nothing's ringing a bell.

And, you know, he probably had another child he never knew about.

And my stepmom responds right back and says, well, you know, he had a vasectomy before I married him.

And my mom responds back, oh, I forgot about that.

So I still have no answers.

But in hindsight, that's some pretty good Intel.

Because I.

Didn't recognize at the time that he couldn't have other children and it was probably shortly after he divorced my mom because it wasn't that long a period before he had remarried my stepmom.

Early on he decided to go get a vasectomy.

A Search Angel Uncovers Sonya's Biological Father

I get my 23andMe results in late November 2024 and it's no help.

I don't see anything that's different than what Ancestry says.

Doesn't answer any questions.

At the beginning of December 2024, so a year ago at the time we're recording this, I'm scratching around on the Internet and I Google ways to solve Adna mystery and that's when I first learn about the Facebook page DNA Detectives and how to request a search Angel.

I create a post on their page on December the 6th, 2024 and within 24 hours I have a search Angel that is offered to help me.

I began providing her the information that she's asked for, allow her access to my ancestry account.

She asked me to upload my results to like Jed Match and what are the odds you know I've never heard of any of that.

On December the 10th she sends me a message while I'm at work and she asked me when my parents were married and my birthday, if my parents attended college, some things like that.

So I explained daddy did attend college, Mama went to beauty school when they married, she opened a beauty shop.

When I get home from work that evening I see that my search Angel has messaged me a list of names and asked me if I recognize any of the names.

Take a look.

I tell her I don't know any of the people on the list but that I did recognize one of the names.

And I tell her the name of the man that I recognize the name.

And she sends me a breakdown of that name with his parents and each of his parents parents names.

And she proceeds to tell me that she can find no DNA connection to the man I'm telling her is my daddy, my biological father, but the name of the man that I recognized, his parents and both sets of his grandparents.

She can directly connect me to every one of those family lines and that that man is most likely my biological father and he too is an only child so there's no other brothers to try to figure out which one is which.

And she says she still has not figured out the ancestry sister match that got all of this started, but that her best guess is that she's a sister 1/2 sister of mine.

What is your reaction to this information?

Sonya's Overwhelming Emotional and Physical Reaction

I can hear the blood pounding in my head.

And nothing makes sense.

And I mean zero sense, you know, to be clear, my whole life until I was 53 years old, I've never once felt out of place.

And he did try to be a good daddy, you know, I only considered the idea of another daddy's scenario as a possibility in 2024, but I really honestly just didn't believe that was the answer.

The search Angel, she sent a picture of my biological father and I'm just dumbfounded by how much I look like him.

We have the same lips, the same eyes, the same shaped face.

For like 3 days after seeing this picture I could not look at myself in a mirror.

I don't know how to explain that but it was just such a weird sensation to see another person in my reflection.

Like I would I would physically jerk away if I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and that was so strange to me.

And yeah, it's, it's such a common phenomenon, as I'm sure you've heard on the podcast that so many of us experienced that where we just, you can't, there's like a disconnect between who you've known yourself to be, to be who you're seeing after this revelation.

Yeah, it was.

It was the strangest since I just like, I can't explain it, but it was a definite thing.

The search Angel tells me that my biological father passed away in 2023, so I really think about it and I just don't ever recall meeting him.

I knew the name because I grew up in a small town where everybody knows everyone.

And I do know the man's first wife, who is still alive.

And this man, my biological father and his first wife had a son and and they share the same name.

So I instantly know I have 1/2 brother who's about six years younger than me at the time I'm finding all of this out.

It's been like 20 years probably since I've seen my brother in person.

But we do know each other having, you know, grown up in the same town.

A picture of my half brother is sent to me now and I immediately recognize that he and my youngest son favor and looks and stature and I've never had, you know, put that together before.

A picture of my paternal grandfather is sent to me and he and my oldest son, it is crazy how much they look alike.

And I was just, you know, and I did tell my children as soon as I found all this out, both my boys about this and my oldest son, he said, you know, I have always looked at pictures on Peppa's side of the family and I never could find myself in any of those pictures.

So like, he had noticed that he didn't think he favored anyone on that side of the family, but he did on my mom's side of the, you know, he could recognize features on mom's side of the family.

So I thought that was interesting, but it's not something he had ever mentioned to me before.

But I just, I don't know.

I just never thought about it.

Yeah, you know, I believed what everyone told me.

Why wouldn't you?

Why would I'm?

Sorry.

And I think it's it's easy to to dismiss, right?

Like, oh, I don't, I don't look like anyone on this side of the family, but I do look like so many on this side of the family.

That just must be where I get my looks from.

Like it's kind of easy to dismiss it.

I'm very curious on if you go to your mom with this information.

Seeking Answers from Her Mother and Biological Father's Ex-Wife

I do, yeah.

And so I'm learning all this at like 10:00 at night and I'm just in full on freak out mode, wondering about all the different scenarios, you know, that can explain this, You know, was my mom raped?

You know, was it an affair?

Has she been keeping a secret as a rule a whole life?

My mom has not been a liar.

And so this information, it just, it's hard for me to make sense of it.

I can't settle down.

I can't sleep.

In hindsight, I should have stayed home from work the next day, but I get up and I get ready and I go to work.

I tell my Co workers what I've discovered because they know I have a search Angel and they know this story because we're figuring out who this sister is.

You know what got all this started?

They're floored.

They could not believe the pictures and the way we looked alike.

And just, you know, I'm looking for the identity of a sister.

I wasn't looking for a father or a brother.

And that's what I got.

I left, did leave work at noon that day and drove to my mom's house.

And so she lives about an hour and a half from where I live and work.

And so, on her way to the house, I decide I'm going to call my biological father's first wife.

And because I know her, and just to see what she knows, I'm wondering if this has been a small town scandal.

I'm wondering if everyone in town knew that this man was my father.

I'm wondering if me and my mom are fixing to just have an epic fight.

I need information and so I'm hoping to gain any additional Intel before I arrive at her house.

Again.

In hindsight, I wish I would have just stayed home that day, but at the time it just wasn't possible.

You know when you learn this is I was just in OverDrive and on a mission I was fixing to.

I didn't care whose ass was getting kicked.

I'm fixing to figure this out.

And so I hadn't talked to this, my biological father's first wife in like 20 years.

So with everyone having cell phones now, I didn't have a current number and she does live in a different town now.

So I googled her.

Her now husbands name popped up with a phone number.

I called it immediately recognize her now husbands voice.

I say, hey, you know, it's Sonia from where we all grew up.

He recognized me immediately, handed her the phone.

She was so pleased to hear from me and just asking me how I was doing, how my husband and the boys are doing and on and on.

She was genuinely happy to hear from me.

She was always kind when I had talked to her, you know, any interactions we had had over the years.

And so she was talking and asking and real animated.

And after a few minutes, she just kind of got quiet.

And she said, now, why are you calling?

And I told her that I'd just been told some surprising news and I've proceeded to tell her you know what the search Angel had told me.

I really do believe she was surprised when I told her.

She said that she couldn't believe it, but that knowing her ex-husband like she did, she could believe it.

So I was born in 1971.

She didn't marry my biological father until 1973.

They didn't have their son until 77.

So all this happened before she was in the picture.

My mom was married, but my biological father at that time was not.

She said she did remember hearing from her girlfriends.

The kind of gossip was that he had been dating my biological father, a hairdresser, in the same small town.

And so my mom was a hairdresser.

So I don't know if that was the connection, but she said, you know, I've never interpreted that as your mom.

And she goes certainly I never heard of a baby, you know, so she was surprised, but you know, she didn't really have a whole lot of detail.

I tell her that what got all this started was a match to a sister on ancestry.com.

And she thought about that.

And she said, well, I have a name that you need to tell the search Angel to look into, thinking she might know the name of a mom, you know, for this sister, this half sister.

And I did tell the search Angel that and she couldn't find anything to support, you know that.

So that was kind of a dead end.

But I thought that was kind of funny, that.

She.

Instantly had an idea about who that might be.

And I just told her that, you know, I appreciated her talking to me.

She did want to know if I was going to tell her son, my half brother, the news.

And, you know, I mean, I just found all this out and I was like, you know, I don't know what I'm fixing to do.

If I do decide to tell him, I'll let you know before I do it.

And she said, well, just don't do anything before Christmas because it was the month of December.

So I agreed I won't say anything and I'll let you know if I do.

So I arrive at my mom's house.

Sonya's Profound Grief and Unexpected Half-Brother Meeting

I go in, get her upstairs away from her now husband, she's remarried.

And I sit her on the couch and I just start the conversation with, you know, mom, I know you have always done what you thought was best for me.

I have no doubt that you love me.

Not angry, but I want to know the truth.

And then I showed her the picture that I had been sent.

And I asked her if she recognizes the man in the picture.

She has no obvious reaction to the picture.

She just looks at it.

And she looks back at me and she says no.

Am I supposed to know him?

And I say the name, and she's still, you know, perplexed.

I finally spell it out.

And I'm like, hey, you know, this is my biological father.

My daddy's not my daddy.

And she doesn't say any much.

She gets quiet.

And after a couple minutes, she was just like, well, Sonia, it was the 70s.

It was wild.

And I was wild, too.

And she really has zero emotion about the whole thing.

I leave her house after 1520 minutes.

I mean, she wasn't saying anything.

Were you shocked by her sort of lack of emotion with this information?

Because it sounds like you had a pretty good relationship with your mom.

Was that normal for her to kind of be emotionless about things, or was this unusual?

It's unusual for her.

She's not going to get real emotional about anything, but it is unusual that she doesn't have a story to tell.

She doesn't have something to say.

But it was just crickets, you know, nothing.

And so that was a Wednesday that I was at her house.

I go home and I'm getting the car, start driving back home.

And that's where in the manic just drive I'd had since the search, Angel told me just turn to just uncontrollable sobbing.

So now I'm driving back home.

I'm just bawling in the car.

I get back home that Wednesday.

I wait all day Thursday for her to call me.

Nothing.

You know, I'm fully expecting her to call me.

And I didn't hear from her on Friday.

Text her the picture, you know.

Let me know if you have any recollections that you would like to share.

I get no response.

She's not calling the following week.

It's her birthday.

I asked her if she wants to eat lunch or if she wants to visit.

She says she doesn't feel up to it.

She doesn't mention anything.

Still on December the 21st I call my former stepmom and I tell her what I've learned and she is in complete shock.

And you got to remember she and my mom, they truly are best friends and know everything about each other and she has no idea about any of this.

My mother hasn't said a word about it.

Mom still has not reached out to me.

On December the 25th, Christmas Day, my husband and I were invited to a Christmas party.

Christmas night, my lady we attend church with.

We arrived to the party and not 20 minutes into this visiting with friends and everything, I realize I'm standing 5 feet from my brother.

I haven't seen him in 20 years.

And there he is with his wife and I just almost faint, you know, because I'm not expecting this at all.

I turn around, look at my husband and I'm like, we've got to go.

And so we get in the car and I'm driving back home.

It was in the next town over and I'm a mess and I'm crying and I tell him I was like, oh, I'm going to have to send my brother a message and tell him, you know, the information that I've learned because I cannot walk around town on edge and fearful of running into him and then acted like a damn idiot.

You know, if I did, you know, run into him.

In all honesty, I just had not stopped crying since I spoke to my mom that day at her house.

The information, it's intensely emotional, the pain that I'm feeling, it is physical.

I would just burst into tears several times a day.

I felt wounded and raw.

My heart hurt and it just I would describe the pain as like I had a shotgun wound to the middle of my chest.

I absolutely, this is the most painful, an emotional, intense period I have ever gone through in my life.

And I couldn't pinpoint why, you know, I couldn't find the language to explain what was happening, why I was so sad.

Navigating the Uncharted Territory of an NPE Discovery

The one thing I've continuously said through all of this is that there is no rule book.

There's no set of instructions to follow for this type of event.

I mean, I had never heard the term NPE.

I had never considered that my daddy and my Mimi and Papa and all the other relatives on what I believed to be the paternal side of my family was biologically a lie.

I had never considered the possibility of being rejected by someone that I am blood related to.

And that was scary, you know?

And so it was just so many things that I had never thought about, never even realized that I was fixing to meet head on.

I would have thoughts like I'll never meet or get to know the man that essentially provided life to my being.

I felt unusually vulnerable and I still do.

You know, I'm typically not a fearful person, but I am about all of this.

You know, it's it's hard to be confident when you.

Constantly feel like you might be rejected and you constantly feel like you just don't know the truth.

You know, growing up with the belief that family is everything, to suddenly be so altered, for that to be so altered, it was so confusing, you know, to my identity.

The uncertainty of it all was just overwhelming.

It was hard to wrap my mind around this emotional boulder that had just landed in my lap.

I just felt like I didn't know who I was.

The people that I did talk to and I was asking, you know, questions.

They were all nice to me, but they would say things that they didn't realize.

You know what?

Your daddy's still your daddy and you're maybe I love you so much and you know, and all this and I know they meant well, but they just couldn't understand the, or relate to the identity crisis that I was having and the doubt and the uncertainty, all that.

Sonya Sends a Message to Her Newly Discovered Half-Brother

So the day after Christmas, I did write that message to my half brother.

He and I weren't friends on Facebook, but I knew he was on Facebook so I could send the message that way.

So I didn't know when he would get it.

You know, when you're not friends, you don't see all that.

And so I just explained that I was unsure of how to relay this message, didn't know exactly the right thing to say, but I just told him the truth and just kind of spelled it out.

I also, I kind of gave him an out, you know, so to speak, saying that I understood if he didn't want to talk to me and all that, but I felt like that I should let him know the information I was given because this news wasn't a secret.

You know, before I realized all this was going to happen, I had told everyone about my DNA mystery, you know, so now I had this DNA surprise that I didn't want to get back to him in the rumor mill.

So I felt like I should be the one to tell him and for him to hear it from just like I started my story today, you know, I just kind of gave a timeline of events and explained that it started with the suspected sister and that what the search Angel had told me.

I sent the pictures and I just gave a little information about me and my husband and my children and I just waited.

So that was the day after Christmas.

On December the 29th, I did talk to my stepmom again and she asked me if my mom had reached out, told him no, that I haven't heard from her, and that whenever I had tried to interact with her that she just wasn't feeling up to it.

My stepmom said she still hadn't told her anything.

On December the 31st, I do finally see my mom to celebrate her birthday and Christmas.

I managed to get her alone.

I asked her if she's had any memories of my biological father and she says no.

She mentions all the being wild again and you know, but there's no explanation.

There was no, you know, I always wondered, you know, or none of that.

And she never asked me how I am, how I'm doing.

She, you know, none of that.

I feel like I'm just kind of in a vacuum, you know, no information.

The Podcast and a Hairdresser's Secret Provide Validation

I'm struggling emotionally.

I'm looking for information online and that's when I find the DNA Surprises podcast and I'm begin listening to all the episodes.

Based on what I'm hearing, I realized I probably need to find a therapist because the situation calls for professional help because I just wasn't equipped to deal with it.

Since learning of the DNA Surprise, I'm really trying to dig back into my own memories.

I'm trying to remember anything that might help explain it.

When my mom owned the hair salon, she worked with a man who was also a hairdresser.

They were super close, really good friends.

They both were married to other people at the time.

She was married to my birth certificate father.

He was married, but this is the 70s and I'm certain that her friend, that man, he was a closeted gay man who was married out of cover convenience, you know, but they would go everywhere together.

They attended hair shows together and you could tell they knew everything about each other.

They would attend hair shows and all that together.

So I told my husband the night that I found out that I really wished that he was still alive.

He had passed away several years previous, but I knew that if anyone knew this, it was him.

And since I couldn't talk to him, I'm trying to think of who else might have been around.

You know a lot of people have passed away since I was born and so on the 1st of January I remembered one of the men that my birth certificate daddy went to high school with.

His wife and my mom were friends and they have a daughter that's my age and they all lived in the same town so I knew that they were around.

I reach out to him, he was surprised when I explained what was going on.

He said he had no idea but agreed with my mom that they were all wild and crazy, but he just didn't remember hearing anything about it.

But he did recommend the name of the lady that I should reach out to.

And he said it's because her husband and my biological father were roommates in college, and so this is the time that I would have been conceived and born.

And so I sent her a message explaining, you know, what was going on.

And she immediately writes back and says that her husband never mentioned anything, that my biological father never mentioned anything.

But that her hairdresser, that man that was such good friends with my mom, it was at the my mom's beauty shop that he had confided in her years ago that he suspected my biological father was my really father.

So that was a little bit of validation.

And I never mentioned, you know, any of that to her in the initial thing that I had written.

And for her to respond right back to me and tell me that story.

So I knew then I was like, OK, yeah, it's true.

And it makes, you know, that makes something.

I mean, I know.

Obviously you have the DNA right and that is the the strongest confirmation.

But.

I'm sure that hearing it from somebody else, yeah, who knew the people somewhat, you know, in this situation was, was so validating.

It was that was as soon because I had told Bill, you know, like my God, I wish that man was still alive.

I can remember seeing him later on in life as I was older, when I was 16 and driving around and I, you know, I would run into him in town.

And every time I would see him, his parting shot to me would be, how's your Mama doing?

And I would say, well, you know, Mama, you know, like that because it was wild when I was growing up.

And he would just kind of smile.

He goes, yeah, I know your Mama like that.

And so I knew he knew things about me.

And especially after all this happened, I was like, that's what the hell he was talking about.

Every time that was his parting shot to me, you know?

And so I knew he knew.

And so anyway, yes, that was validation.

Sonya Seeks Therapy and Meets Her Half-Brother

After finding out the news, I really did kind of quit talking to friends and family about it.

You know, like I had been whenever it was a mystery.

And now, you know, it was just so painful and I was crying all the time.

One of my Co workers did ask me one day how I was doing and I knew his wife was a counselor and I told him I was like, you know, I'm not doing well and but I don't know why I can't explain, you know, how much this hurts and why it hurts like this.

And he came back in the next day and he said, my wife says you're grieving that this is just like the death of a family member.

And she recommended that I talk to someone and that she would talk to me if I wanted.

So I've had really good friends, a really good support system and all this and every my husband is a St. and so been super supportive.

So I'm thankful for all that on January the 9th.

So I had sent that message to my brother the day after Christmas on January the 9th, he texts me and just says, hey, I've only read your message 2 days before.

I've been thinking about it.

I'm trying to put myself in your shoes.

And I decided I would reach out.

And so I immediately began crying.

You could tell all this was news to him.

He said he was happy to answer any questions the best he could.

But he, you know, he didn't know anything.

And I told him, you know, I just didn't even know what I wanted to ask, but that if he were up to it, if we could just meet and just talk a little bit.

And he agreed to that.

I asked him if he could share any additional pictures, you know, when we were texting back and forth of our father as an older adult, because the only picture I had been given was this sepia toned like high school senior picture or like first year of college.

So he did.

He sent me a couple of pictures, you know, and just with those few text messages back and forth, you know, after almost 30 days of just continuous turmoil, calm down just a little bit.

So that helped.

On January the 19th, we did meet in person.

We talked for a couple hours and it was a good visit.

One of the first things he said is he was just kind of uncertain about telling his daughter because he didn't want to taint her memory of her grandfather or confuse her.

She's a little girl.

So I thought that was interesting.

And he was like, and I don't know that I want to find this other sister.

You know, I got all that.

I get that.

That's fine because I'm still processing this, too.

He's just learned all this and he's processing it, you know.

And so he did give a little bit of a family medical history and we just talked.

And so I felt better after that visit, like maybe I wasn't so alone.

And all of this did.

You learn a lot about your biological father like through your conversation.

Well, yes and no.

He I mean, we know each other.

He knows my husband.

And so my husband is a master mechanic and he's really into vehicles and stuff.

So they've talked a lot about that, but it was more just being in the room and just talking and acknowledging that this has happened, you know, So really the medical history and stuff, you know, was maybe the most that I learned, the main thing that I learned, but not a whole lot about him.

Sonya's Ongoing Emotional Battle and Mother's Limited Response

On January the 23rd, I talked to my stepmom again.

My mom still hadn't mentioned any of this to her.

On January the 26th, I can just remember that was like a Sunday.

I cried all day that day.

I couldn't stop crying.

It's just a emotional day.

So when I go to work the next day, I call my EAP, the Employee assistance program, and I go through the process of determining a fit for a therapist.

I do begin therapy on February the 4th and a couple weeks later I can remember not wanting to get up, just laying in bed.

Around lunchtime.

I get up and I start working on that homework that the therapist assigns to you, you know, working on that and trying to get through these emotions.

It's a letter of forgiveness to my mom that I'm never going to send.

But anyway, so I'll work on that, go back to bed, sleep all day, I watch more TV, go back to sleep and I can remember just waking myself up like at 1:30 AM the next morning sobbing and I just continued to cry.

I mean, this is just, it's like I almost can't function.

It's so overwhelming me.

I desperately want to feel better.

I desperately want my mom to acknowledge these details, the truth, my emotions, something.

On March 1st my stepmom sent me a message and says my mom finally told her about my quote UN quote DNA secret.

My stepmom didn't let on like she already knew.

My mom did tell my stepmom that she does remember going to my biological father's apartment but honestly didn't remember much about him.

At this point.

My mom's still not openly discussing this with me.

She still is not asking me how I'm doing.

In June I finally send my mom a message asking her to discuss it.

Then the message I sent her, I said, you know, I've just, I need to hear from you about this.

I've never experienced anything like this emotional toll that this news is taking on me, that I'm have been patiently waiting on her to come around and to provide some information and, and just asked me if everything, you know, was OK.

Then I finally told her I was like, hey, this isn't your story anymore, You know, this is my story and my history, my genetics.

Everyone deserves to know where they came from.

And I just want the truth and that I am not treating this as a secret.

I assured her that I didn't want to embarrass her.

I didn't want to humiliate her.

I know she loves me.

I know she did the best for me, you know, but we had to talk about it.

She did reply back and she just said apparently it's a one time happening that she truly didn't remember much about.

She said that she did know him and knew that he was going to college and lived in a little rent house kind of off campus, but as far as she remembers, she never saw him again.

She never thought about him again.

She supposes he never thought of her again.

She said that she never doubted that I was my birth certificates father's child.

She said she wished she had more to tell me, but the truth was she is just not remembering anything much about the encounter and they didn't date, it wasn't a long term affair.

And that she was sorry she didn't have more to tell me, and she was sorry that I'm consumed by it.

And that's it.

Sonya Finds Acceptance Amidst Biological Family's Caution

How did that land with you?

Well, you know, I just, I've had two children and if I would have been in a situation like that, I would have had doubt.

It didn't make sense the way I would think about it making sense.

But you know, but that was it.

That was the explanation.

In July, I saw my brother again, briefly.

So far, it doesn't seem like the rest of the biological family is super interested in getting to know me.

No one has reached out or responded to me or any of my messages in a proactive way.

No one's ugly to me.

But it seems like a lot of caution is being exercised, which I get.

You know, I'm kind of the same way.

I am excited to learn about all of them.

I would love to hear family stories and to see the pictures, you know?

I'm hoping in time that all of that will come.

I am totally open to it.

I have calmed down emotionally.

I feel a lot more at ease with all this information.

I feel like working with the therapist did me a lot of good.

I do still have moments of sadness and uncertainty, but it's no longer the constant feeling that it was.

It's not consuming my every thought like it was.

I'm a year into this discovery and this is where my head is around this information.

I think in the big scheme of DNA surprises and NP events, my story's pretty mild.

I'm not taking away from the intense emotional journey that this has been, but I do recognize that I had a great childhood.

I did.

I had every advantage.

You know, I was never physically or mentally abused.

I had a front row seat to adults behaving badly, but I never felt like I was intentionally being lied to and you know, things like that.

Sadly, so many of these stories carry those things, but my story just doesn't carry that weight.

Re-evaluating Her Upbringing and Hopes for Future Connections

But what I do recognize my story does carry the weight of just continuous, the continuous effects of growing up surrounded by alcoholism is what I think.

You know, looking back at my childhood, I think of my mom now as a very high functioning alcoholic.

I didn't really realize that growing up, but and I didn't realize how wild my home life was growing up.

I mean, honestly, I could light a cigarette and fix a bourbon and Coke before I went to kindergarten.

I was the ultimate party favor.

Like, you know, this wasn't alcoholism.

Like down in the dumps, everyone's depressed.

This was everything's a party alcoholism.

And mom was beautiful, Mama was beautiful.

She was flirty.

She's very artistic.

My mother is extremely smart.

She's an avid reader and she just never stops working.

You know, she's, she wants to add on 6 feet to her house and put in a tub.

She reads about it and she does it.

She wants to, you know, make jewelry.

She goes to school for it and she does it.

She's just very artistic, very much a doer, extremely smart.

She always taught me to be honest and to work hard and stress the importance of school and being independent.

There's an image that people have right when it comes to alcoholism, when it comes to the kind of home or somebody would have adna surprise even and you are really bringing to light that there is no particular way that it looks.

It sounds like you've you've kind of reached this place of acceptance, peace with where things are right now.

What are you hoping will come as you look ahead?

I hope that I am able to meet, you know, some of the family and hear these stories.

I do hope that I do make some meaningful connections there and learn more you know about the family.

This all started with curiosity about my family, so I still have that same curiosity about this new family.

So that hasn't changed.

You know, curiosity to me is what makes life worth living, you know?

It makes it fun.

Do I wish I would have lived an authentic life and always known the truth?

Yes.

Do I regret my life as it was or as it is?

No.

You know, so looking back and considering it all, I've always been where I need to be.

I have great faith and a birth certificate.

Father, he would have died alone if I hadn't have been there.

My grandmother, my Mimi, she would have been grandchildless and would have died alone.

My daddy died before she did.

I had the opportunity to take care of her in her final years.

And so I'm appreciative of that.

And so I don't regret my life and I don't have any what ifs.

I am who I am today.

Because of all these experiences that I had growing up and all that chaos, I will say this, for all the divorce and alcoholism, my mom, my daddy, my stepfather, and even my stepmom, my stepmom's the only one who's not an alcoholic.

No one ever fought in front of me or tried to put me in the middle.

Everyone on all sides of my family really did put me first.

For all their issues and their decisions, they did get that part right.

So I'm just grateful for the way I have evolved for the 1st 54 years of my life.

And I know that I'll keep evolving and keep learning more and you know, maybe I'll get more information, but I kind of doubt it.

I really think she probably didn't think about much about it the rest of her life up until now.

Right, right.

Sonya's Wisdom for Those Facing DNA Surprises

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

Well, I side with telling the truth.

You know everyone deserves to know who they are no matter what.

End of story.

You know lies only to create chaos and hurt and they waste precious time is what I think you know for anyone listening and you're keeping a secret.

You know.

I don't mean to be flipping or ugly, but get over yourself and set yourself free and tell the truth.

What advice do you have for someone who just uncovered Adna Surprise?

For me, you know, my first impulse was just Fast forward.

Like I said, I was on a mission and I was fixing to figure this out.

You know that day.

You think you need to rush through finding all the information, but allow yourself grace.

Allow yourself time to breathe.

Find support through therapy.

I had never been to a therapist before this event and I highly recommend therapy and following through with the homework that they assign.

Also, allow others around you grace.

There's no manual for this process and how we are feeling.

It's not how others are feeling is what I have learned.

And you'll not be able to force others to come around in the way you want.

And time has just not completely healed me, but it has given me the needed time to think, reflect, to calm down and just see the reality of my story.

Host's Farewell and Sonya's Gratitude for the Podcast

Sonia, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your story.

I I remember when we first spoke right after you kind of uncovered this, and I can attest, you seem to be doing so much better than the first time.

You know, I feel so much better.

Yeah, but you know, it's, I agree.

It's, it's not just that the time has healed you, but you've also put in the work and it's really amazing to see.

So I, I hope that things just continue to feel better for you, whatever that looks like, whether that's getting closer to your biological family, whether that's healing some of your relationship with your mom, or whether it's just continuing to focus on, on healing yourself.

Thank you for joining me today.

Yeah, thank you.

I did want to tell you that I'm thankful for this DNA Surprises podcast.

It really did ground me.

You know, during this whole event, I seriously had to listen to all the episodes.

I felt like I was spinning out of control when this first happened because I just didn't have the tools to deal with this.

I didn't know what it was I was dealing with.

It helped me not to feel so alone.

It did give me insight from the experiences and the wisdom of the other contributors.

So thank you, Alexis, from the bottom of my heart.

You know, I believe as the old saying goes, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

In the past, I've learned that going through tough periods in life, eventually they do give a way to helping others on down the line.

And that's exactly what you've done for me with your experience, your podcast, and now this opportunity to share my story.

So I'm thankful for you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks again to Sonia for sharing her story.

If you have Adna surprise that you'd like to share, please submit your story at dnasurprises.com.

And for early ad free access to episodes, please 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.