Michelli’s DNA Surprise

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Season 12: Michelli's Unexpected Discovery

I can only speak for myself but I just don't want to hear anymore anyone else's story about it.

You know I've now heard I've gotten 3 cousins stories.

I've gotten my 2 new sisters versions.

I mean I probably have heard 15 people's stories regarding this man and and how we all came to be and I just don't feel like I can hear one more person talk about it.

I don't want to hear one more person tell me what a great guy he was.

I certainly don't want to hear anyone else tell me what a good father he was.

It's dizzying, honestly.

By the third story from the third cousin, I was dizzy with what is even the truth?

Did he love my mom?

Did he not love my mom?

Is he a predator?

Is he just a really charming guy?

Is this all a coincidence?

I just don't know what's true anymore.

And so I don't want to reach out to his widow, primarily because I don't really believe anything she's going to say is probably going to be true because the truth is so subjective.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Right.

We hold on.

We hold on to the version of the truth that serves us best.

Welcome to DNA Surprises, a podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA discoveries.

I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.

In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out that I'm an N P/E, a person who has experienced a non paternal event.

In other words, my biological father isn't who I thought he was.

Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees, and donor conceived people and their families.

Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.

This is DNA Surprises.

Welcome to season 12 of DNA Surprises.

This season marks nearly four years of sharing these stories, and while each one is unique, the threads that tie our stories together remain strong.

For example, there are many ways that people uncover their discoveries.

Sometimes people learn about their parentage through who they connect to.

A new cousin, an aunt, a parent.

Others are more shocked by who they don't connect to.

In this week's episode, Michelle reveals how she learned that the man she believed was her father was not genetically related to her at all.

She shares what she learned about her biological father and why her feelings about him are complicated, how she connected with her sisters, and why she doesn't want to hear any additional stories about what happened.

Thank you for sharing your story, Michelle.

The DNA Test That Dismantled My Reality

My name is Michelle, I'm 51 years old and I'm from San Antonio, TX.

I grew up knowing that the man I was calling my dad was not really my dad.

I grew up with a stepdad, Ruben, who I loved and adored.

I always believed that my biological dad was a man named Robert and I held to that belief until March 2024 when ADNA test showed me that he wasn't my real dad.

I actually had taken the DNA test in 2017 to get some health information.

I had had some autoimmune things come up and the man that I thought was my real dad, Robert, he never knew his dad.

So I decided to take this DNA test in 2017 thinking it would give me some health data.

It did, but I never looked at the DNA matches.

Flash forward to 2023.

I get this e-mail that says you have this close DNA match on 23andMe.

And honestly Alexis, I don't know what made me look.

I'd been getting emails from 23andMe for years, but I think it was that it said you have a close DNA match.

And so I went and looked and I had a relative that was showing up as either a cousin or a nephew.

And silly me, I thought I had stumbled upon my quote UN quote real dad's birth family.

Like I I thought I was about to be a hero.

Oh, OK, so you didn't recognize the name, but that wasn't surprising to you because you were expecting that maybe you would connect with some of his unknown.

Family.

The story was my biological dad.

Robert never knew his dad.

So I'm thinking, Oh my God, I'm the best daughter ever.

I've just discovered Robert's family.

Robert and I never really had a close relationship.

In fact, I would say most of my life it was a source of big disappointment.

So when I saw this, I thought this is an opportunity for he and I to connect.

So I reached out to him and his wife and I said, you know, hey, I've connected with this young man.

Do you recognize this name?

They said no.

And I said, do you want to take adna test?

And he said yes.

And I sent it to him for Christmas 2023.

Meanwhile, this young man and I were talking about how could you be my nephew or cousin?

So we're we're sort of like tossing back messages back and forth and I have a brother but I know he's not my brother's son because they're almost the same age.

So I send Robert the DNA test in December.

December comes and goes, January comes and goes, February comes and goes.

Finally I reach out to my stepmother and I say hey y'all.

He hasn't shown up on my profile yet and she says 0.

He's been talking to his biological family, he had gotten his DNA results, he'd connected with siblings, he'd found cousins, but he never showed up on my 23andMe profile, if that makes sense.

So you're sitting there thinking maybe he just hadn't taken the test and he was just sitting on it.

You call and it turns out no, he actually has connected with tons of his family so he didn't reach out to you to let you know.

Hey, I did find people, but you said that you weren't particularly close.

We weren't particularly close, but it was a surprise to me that he didn't reach out to tell me.

He didn't notice that he didn't connect.

With well, that remains to be seen.

OK, so you here he's connected with his family, but you've put the pieces together now or have you put the pieces together that he hasn't connected to you?

Are you wondering why I?

Call 23andMe.

I'm, I'm thinking this is a mistake, right?

And I've heard a lot of people say this, like I got on the phone with customer service.

I'm saying like, hey, my dad's not showing up on my profile.

And they said, and I'll never forget.

And they even I haven't had them e-mail me.

There's no genetic connection between you and this person, Robert and I, I mean, talk about a full scale dismantling of reality.

I was sitting at my dining room table in an instant, like my whole life was unraveling.

What does this mean?

I go straight to my husband's office and I show him the e-mail and he says let's go to your mom's.

He was like, let's go.

My husband's wonderful.

So he says let's go, let's go figure this out.

So we get in the car and we go to my mom's.

Uncovering My Biological Father's Identity: Stacy

Now remember this cousin slash nephew, he and I have been communicating this whole time through 23andMe.

So I know a little bit of his background.

I know his last name, I know his family names.

And the lady at 23andMe, the customer service representative said this cousin that you've connected is more than likely a nephew.

The percent of overlap between you and this young man is he's probably your nephew.

So all in this day I'm realizing this is not my dad.

Oh, I have this nephew, which means I also have some siblings somewhere.

Now when you connected with you later find out is probably your nephew, is he giving you tons of family information and you're thinking that this all matched your dad?

Did he think that there was some unknown person out there This.

Sweet guy was just like, he was like, I don't know how you're related to me, but I'll tell you whatever you want to know.

And so he's just like, well, here's my grandfather, here's my other grandfather, here's my mom's name.

We're trying together to piece together how are we related.

And he's thinking he's going to be a part of this magical moment where I tell my, you know, quote, UN quote, real dad that I have found his long lost family only to discover, no, I have found my long lost family.

What is going through your mind now?

You're not matching with your dad.

You find out that this young man is your nephew.

What are you thinking?

I don't even know if I was thinking I was in that dizzy investigative mode that I think so many of us go into immediately.

It's like for NP ES, it's fight, flight or investigate.

So I went in to investigate, right?

And all the drive to my mom's house, it's about a 40 minute drive.

I am scouring the Internet.

I am looking all through these 23andMe profiles and there's only two options, right?

Like this kid and I are connected.

He only has two grandfathers.

So one of his grandfathers is related to me or his mom or dad.

So I go to my mom's house and I say to my mom, Mom, did you ever know a man named Stacy?

And she says, why?

That Stacy was one of the names I got from the young man I connected with.

So I said, do you, did you ever know a man named Stacy?

And I knew immediately my husband and I looked at each other and I said, is it possible that he's my dad?

And she said, yeah, you look just like him.

At this point I'm 50 years old, right?

Or I guess 49 at that time.

And she said it just like that.

How are you feeling to hear her say that so nonchalantly?

I felt like I was going to faint.

I just didn't see it coming.

I've heard a lot of people's stories, you know, people saying, like, I always thought there was something different, but I always knew, right?

I always knew my stepdad is not my real dad.

My real dad is kind of absent from my life.

I always had that story.

It never occurred to me that there was actually another absent father.

Were you close at all to who you thought was your biological father's family, or anyone from that side?

No, no, I wasn't.

My alleged biological father and his family kept their distance from me.

And in hindsight, I think that they always knew.

And I think that's why he didn't call me when he got his DNA results.

All the investigative work I've done, I think he always knew he wasn't my real dad.

Which in some ways makes him a hero, right?

Because while he didn't show up for me very much, he did show up for me a lot for someone who wasn't even actually my dad.

If you flip the perspective that.

Way.

OK, so your mom just drops this information very casually.

Did she give you any more details about your biological father and how they met or anything like that at that time?

On that day she told me that she was married to my alleged biological father Robert and her and Stacey had an affair.

My mom was 19 years old and Stacey was in his late 20s and they had an affair.

She got pregnant with me and Stacey knew that I was his and according to her they were in love and he saw me until I was about 3 years old when she then met my stepdad and married him and then that was my dad.

And you have, do you have any memory of Stacy?

None.

Stacy's Multiple Affairs and Unanswered Questions

So of course I did another DNA test, right?

Even though my mom told me I still needed to confirm.

So I did an ancestry test, which opened the door actually to a lot more relatives, which has been just an absolute whirlwind.

I mean, what I found out is that this man, Stacy, actually had multiple relationships with multiple young women.

And I have that.

I know of five other siblings.

Was Stacy married when he had the affair with your mother?

Yes, he was married throughout all the relationships.

He was married until he died in 2006.

So you find out through Ancestry which for if people don't know who who are listening, Ancestry has the deeper well of testers right?

More people have taken Ancestry then 23andMe or some of the others.

So people are more likely to find matches when they take an ancestry test, right?

So he had three kids with his wife.

The other three of us are from extramarital affairs.

He impregnated my mom in 1974.

He impregnated my sister's mom in 1977.

And then I have another sister that was born in 1997.

What are you feeling as you're uncovering these additional people?

Well, there's so many stories emerging.

So there's my story of, Oh my God, my dad is not who I thought he was.

And the man who is actually my biological dad is deceased.

So I'm, I'm grieving on more than one level, right?

My stepdad, who I love and who I know would have had the answers to all of this, is also deceased.

The man who I thought was my biological dad, I'm grieving him too.

Even though we didn't have a great relationship, I'm grieving him and I'm grieving for him.

There's so much grief.

I'm finding out that I have all these siblings that I didn't know about, and I'm finding out that many of us were born as a result of affairs.

And three of us, our mothers, were very young when they were in relationship with him and they all worked for him.

I don't know how to feel about that.

Like, how do I feel about this man who has affairs with these young women, impregnates them, and then essentially leads them on?

You know, what's interesting is that all of our moms were in love with him.

That's the language that's been used.

They were in love with him.

So you have this whole story initially from your mom that it was like this love affair.

Does that change for you at all?

Yes because the other sisters moms also were in love with him and also were teenagers and also pined for him.

My mom remarried my stepdad but the other girls moms did not remarry.

They loved him until he died.

And it's interesting because when I tell this story, people often say, oh, he must have been so charismatic.

He must have been such a, you know, charming guy.

To which I answer, no, I think he must have been a predator.

He was 10 years older than my mom and she was 19 years old.

And then, as he continued to get older, the women remained in.

Teens and early 20s.

So they were all young.

He was their boss.

So there's two sisters that I've connected closely with.

One of them is Dana and the other is Stacy.

Not to be confused with the now biological father, Stacy, but I also have a sister, Stacy.

Dana and Stacy and I have done a lot of investigating.

We've now, you know, and talked to cousins and investigated more ancestry.

And I think the more we learn, the more our origin stories become more confusing to us.

What I do know, what is clear to me, is that our mothers were young women who worked for him.

And that is a power differential that cannot be ignored.

A lot of the people that we've spoken to or the people that could give us answers won't.

My mother, for example, will not talk about it any further.

The last thing she said to me, the last time I tried to talk to her about this, she said, I really can't believe you're going to let this affect you this way.

I gave you a good dad.

Meaning my stepdad.

She doesn't want to answer any other questions.

My sister Dana's mom is deceased.

She can't answer any questions.

My sister Stacey's mom, I think it's it's painful.

I think she's not wanting to talk about it or not ready to talk about it.

And so we're relying on these stories from cousins and other relatives.

There's this other layer, too, of the amount of secrets that are being kept.

Even still, you know, we talked about how Roberts didn't call me when he got his DNA results.

And come to find out, my alleged biological father, Robert, also had worked with Stacy.

And so we got another version of the story that actually Robert had told Stacy that he was my real father.

So there's just all these secrets being kept by all these different adults.

Even now, right Even now, secrets are still being kept.

Robert won't talk to me about it.

My mom won't talk to me.

You can't talk to Dana's mom.

Stacy's mom is not ready to talk about it.

There's so many question marks.

Immediate Connection with My Newly Found Sisters

I want to, I want to back up to when you found your sisters, did you match directly with those two sisters on Ancestry?

No, I found them in a roundabout way.

So I matched with a cousin and I reached out to this cousin and she was so gracious and we jumped on the phone and I had to say to her, I think your Uncle Stacy is my dad.

And she was not surprised at all.

And she said, actually, I know of at least two others of you.

And so that's how I found my sisters, Dana and Stacy Marie.

So Dana and Stacy already knew that that Stacy, your biological father, was their father.

They already knew they didn't know about me and they didn't know about each other.

Well I get their names from a cousin and I immediately probably that same day emailed both of them and said something like hey, is your dad a man named Stacy?

If so, I might be your sister.

I emailed them and they emailed me right back and it's probably been.

The miracle of this whole nightmare has been these two sisters.

My sister Dana, who is 3 years younger than me.

She grew up knowing that Stacy was her dad, but she grew up not with him.

Her mom took her away to a whole different state because Stacy wasn't going to leave his wife.

He wasn't going to let Dana be a part of his life.

So she and her mom moved.

And so she grew up feeling fatherless.

And so when I reached out to her and told her, I think I'm your sister, we just had this immediate connection.

I think her e-mail back to me was, I'm so sorry you've had to go through this.

You don't have to go through it alone.

And I mean, from that day, we've just been basically like drinking from a fire hydrant, Like we've just been just taking it all in together and trying to figure it out together.

She did then also do an ancestry test.

And so now we have our genetic match in black and white.

Do you find that you are similar to your sisters?

Have you gotten any of that genetic mirroring component that a lot of people feel like they're missing?

When I saw their photos, I knew they were my sisters.

When I looked them up, when I stalked them, I remember, you know, in particular, Dana looking at her photos online, thinking, Oh my God, we have the same smile.

It was so weird to see that.

And then my little sister, Stacy Marie, I messaged her.

She got right back to me also, but into show.

She's 20 years younger than me, so her reaction, while she's been wonderful, I think she's still really like processing all of this.

She grew up believing that he was a good guy who just didn't have room for her in his life, I think.

And so here I come to to her with like, actually, actually he's this guy who had multiple affairs and now has all these unclaimed children.

From Anger to Purpose: Claiming My Sisters

Were you able to connect or build a relationship with the siblings from Stacy's marriage?

No, we have not attempted that.

Do they know about you?

I don't know.

I know that his widow knows about us.

Actually, turns out she has always known about US.

One of the cousins told us that she knew about us.

And then his widow actually reached out to my sister Dana to see if she could talk to her.

And about a month ago, we decided to put our story on social media.

And I guess that got back to her.

And so she reached out to Dana and said, you know, I'm available to answer any questions you want.

I think Dana's still thinking about whether she's going to do that.

But in that, she did tell Dana that she knew about all of us.

What is the hesitation?

Do you think about reaching out to her with any questions or to try to get more of the story?

You know, I can only speak for myself, but I just don't want to hear anymore anyone else's story about it.

You know, I've now heard I've gotten 3 cousins stories, I've gotten my 2 new sisters versions.

I mean, I probably have heard 15 people's stories regarding this man and and how we all came to be and I just don't feel like I can hear one more person talk about it.

I I just don't know what's true anymore.

And from what she has said to my sister Dana, she is holding on to the story that he was a good man and a good father who made some mistakes.

I can accept that that is her version of the truth.

We've actually heard that version from a couple of cousins, so I can accept that that's their version of events.

But for me and my new little sisters, that doesn't feel true.

So I don't want to hear it, and frankly, I don't want to make her tell it either out of respect for her.

I don't want to call her up and ask her to talk about the multiple affairs that her husband had.

How painful.

Do you feel like you want to talk to your other siblings?

That's a great question.

You know, they grew up with him as their dad.

I mean, I guess I certainly would be open to it, but I'm not sending any more emails, if that makes sense.

I reached out to Dana and Stacy Marie because I knew they were like me.

I knew that they were unclaimed.

And so I felt a kinship with them immediate already before I even talked to them, right?

I don't know if I'll reach out to the other three, but I certainly will be open to any outreach that they do in my direction.

We have a, an uncle, one of Stacy's brothers has offered to also meet with us and talk with us.

And I don't think I'm going to do it.

I support my new little sisters if they want to do that.

You know, if you'd asked me before Christmas, I was trying to talk to anyone who would talk to me about this.

And at some point I just got dizzy and I got angry.

What are you angry about?

I mean, here are all these adults, right?

Y'all are all in like in your 70s, like grow up, get your lives together, tell the truth, right?

And I mean this with no disrespect to my little sister's moms, but also to them.

Like, come on, y'all.

Like we're Dana and Stacey, Marie and I are trying to put our lives together.

We're trying to put our stories together, not just for ourselves, but we have children who are going to hang their hat on our life stories.

And you grown-ups cannot grow up and tell an objective story or talk for real about what happened.

I mean, some of them won't even talk to us at all about what happened.

So I'm angry about that.

And I've just decided I'm going to stay angry about that for as long as I need to, and I'm not going to hear one more person's story if I don't have to.

Anger's a part.

Of it, it has to be right.

For such a long time, I was in shock.

I just.

I mean, for months, Alexis, I would just drive around in my car, going from one thing to the next, and I didn't even recognize the sound of my own voice anymore.

Who am I?

What do you mean?

That's not really my last name.

What do you what?

That's not my oh, my ethnicity changed a little bit.

I just drove around in a daze.

Then I found the sisters and I started to wake up.

But I also started to get a lot more information because of that.

I think for the next couple years, I just want to bask in the fact that I have little sisters.

I always had a little brother.

My mom and stepdad had a son.

And so I've always had a little brother and I adore him and he's been wonderfully supportive through all this.

But now I have little sisters and I just want to enjoy that.

Here's something that's also a part of the grief is if, if I'm being honest, I'll never know.

I'll never know who this man was or why he created these unclaimed children.

I'll never know his motive.

I'll never know if he loved us.

I'll never know if he really knew about us.

It's all just.

It's all just story now.

Yeah, I've heard you say a few times that you and your sisters are unclaimed children, and then you just talked about that initial identity unraveling where you don't even recognize your own voice and you feel very detached from yourself.

Is the unclaimed child piece a part of your identity now?

Or how has your identity changed since you had your DNA surprise?

Yeah, I definitely own that unclaimed piece.

It came to me last year when one of the first cousins I ever talked to, when I was trying to get information about Stacy and she referred to us as illegitimate children.

And I thought to myself, hell no.

I am absolute.

I am 100% legitimate.

And so it occurred to me that what we are is unclaimed.

And I, I own that and I I love that.

I love saying that.

And to my little sisters, Dana and Stacy Marie, I claim you.

I claim you.

And that's kind of been like, I think the last couple of months, what I have really felt is, you know, all the dismantling of reality, all these bullshit stories, all this confusion around all these daddy issues, right?

What it all has done is it's left me with these two beautiful women who I get to claim as my sisters.

And I really kind of feel like it can be my purpose now to fill the gaps that he left and not that I'm trying to make up for.

I'm not trying to be a parent to them or solve their solve their hurt but I don't know.

I just get to I feel like I get to claim them.

It feels good to say that, and it feels good to be mad about it, and it's interesting to like how grief and anger and love can all be wrapped up in in these stories.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Embracing New Identity and Future with Sisters

I know you said that you are tired of hearing all of the additional stories, but are there any questions that you would like answered?

Like from your mom, for instance.

If I was able to ask her anything, maybe I would want to know, like, how did you cope with that mom?

Like, how did you look at me every day and be OK with that grief that you must have had about him?

What was that like?

Like that must have been so hard.

You mentioned that you had a slight ethnicity shift.

What was that?

So I grew up identifying as Mexican.

I always knew and my mom is white.

I always knew I was half Mexican or I just thought I was half Mexican, half white.

But as I've taken this deeper dive into my DNA, I'm like 75% Irish English and very little Mexican.

So I just kind of, and that blew my mind.

I mean, I'm still, I still have some Mexican American DNA, but I always just identified so strongly as a Mexican American woman and I still do, right.

But it just.

Being in, in San Antonio, right, like there's a relatively large, you know, Mexican population, so.

Totally.

I mean, you said you still do.

Did it shake you a little bit, though, to feel that it wasn't as much as you that's so strongly identified with it?

Did to go from thinking I was to thinking I was at least 50% Mexican to finding out I'm only like 17%.

And that may not seem significant to some people, but like you said, I live in South Texas.

I remember telling my husband and my daughter like, let's not tell anyone.

Like let's, let's never tell anyone that I'm only 17% Mexican.

Do people perceive you as Mexicans still?

Yeah, I mean, I think in South Texas, if you have brown hair and brown skin, you're probably Mexican, right?

So I think people, people do perceive me as Mexican and I think assume that I am.

And I love that.

You know, my stepdad was Mexican.

So I grew up very much steeped in the Mexican American culture and and I am so great, you know, to my mom's, you know, argument of why I gave you a good dad.

She did.

My stepdad, Ruben, was he was amazing.

And this has kicked up a lot of grief.

He died 10 years ago.

I wish he was here, Alexis, because I feel like he would handle this.

He was just that kind of guy and that kind of dad.

Like, I know he would just like he would just get on the phone with people.

I know he would and just say, listen, right.

She needs the truth.

Tell her the truth.

So it's it's definitely made me miss him a lot.

It's wild.

How's your relation?

How was your relationship with your brother?

Besides my husband, he was the second person I told and he's been so supportive, but I think also sad.

And the first thing he said when I told him was, oh, God, you could have other siblings.

And so I think it's been sad for him.

I think he's sad for me or, you know, he's feeling feelings for me.

I'm guessing for him it's that realization of like, oh, I'm not your only sibling anymore.

But I told, and I've told him time and again, like you are my brother, you are my #1 nothing will come between us.

You have all the history, right?

We have all the history, we grew up together, we know all the things.

So you said you are kind of at a place of maybe not, I don't know if peace is the right word, but you're kind of ready to stop digging for the what happens in the history and trying to get a picture of your biological father.

So what is next for you?

I just want to get to know these new sisters and if there are any other unclaimed children, I want to know them.

I want to claim them.

Advice for DNA Surprises and Final Thoughts

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

You've got to tell the truth.

You don't have to tell the truth today, but at some point in that child's life they deserve to know the truth.

And I think no matter how painful you think it is going to be, there is nothing more painful than being lied to by one of your parents or both of your parents.

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

Oh, take your time.

Take your time.

That's the best advice I got from listening to your podcast and from my husband and my therapist.

Is that because again, like when I think when you first get the information, it's fight flight and investigate, right?

Like you just want to.

I wanted to find out all the answers and I had so many people telling me just pause, take your time.

You're going to get answers.

It was really helpful for me to have permission to let it take time.

I took some time off from work.

You really have to make space for all this new reality.

Something that I've learned again and again from your podcast is, I think for me, in the beginning, I remember feeling like, oh, I don't want to mess up anybody's life.

I don't know if I should send these messages or ask these people questions.

I don't want to disrupt anybody's life, but this is my life, right?

And if I need to flip some tables and stir some pots, we deserve to have the information.

We deserve to have those pieces of our stories.

And if it inconveniences some people, Oh well, Oh well.

That's the thing that I would want to say over and over again to someone who just found out is this is this is your story.

Go ask the hard questions whenever you're ready.

Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story.

Just a year in, I'm sure a year of many firsts.

I hope that you continue to build beautiful relationships with your sisters and maybe eventually uncover some of the answers that you're looking for.

Oh, thank you so much, Alexis.

You just, you're so wonderful and your story is so inspiring.

And I just can't reiterate enough how much I appreciate and how much I've benefited from this podcast.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Michelle Lee for sharing her story.

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, this episode of DNA Surprises was hosted produced.

And edited.

By me Alexis Oursalt It was mixed and mastered by Josh Oursalt of Siren Recording Studios.