Deanna’s DNA Surprise

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Intro

The way they told us was, you know, if I were in their shoes, it was horrible.

Like you as an adult and as a parent, like you can't say those things to a child.

So I think hearing that was really hard and there was some truth to it.

I mean, my mother, she is an alcoholic even to this day, I'm pretty sure.

But that doesn't mean you say she didn't want you, you know?

Speaker 2

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

I'm your host, Alexis Oursalt.

In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out that I'm an NPE, 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 the season 8 finale of DNA Surprises.

I can't believe it's been 2 1/2 years since I started this podcast.

I think it's finning that I'm recording this introduction on the three-year anniversary of my own DNA Surprise.

So much has changed since then, largely in part to this amazing community.

So before we begin, I just want to give thanks.

Thank you for being here and for listening.

Thank you to my incredible DNA surprise community on Patreon.

This podcast is currently 100% independent.

I don't have a network or advertisers and I produced, host and edit every episode with the kind of care I hope someone would give my own story.

Thank you for your support.

It's because of this community of listeners, storytellers, friends, and family that I'm so excited to continue this work.

In this episode of DNA Surprises, I'm joined by Deanna, who shares her NPE story.

Deanna has experienced unspeakable amounts of hardship in her life.

From abandonment to abuse to her DNA discovery, her story is difficult and powerful.

You'll hear how she's reckoning with the might have beens and the wise.

You'll also learn how she's moving forward, including being the person she needed when she was younger for her own children.

Thank you for sharing your story, Deanna.

Speaker 1

I am Deanna, I am 36 and I'm originally from a small town in South Central PA Pennsylvania and I currently live in Cincinnati, OH.

The hardships of childhood

So I was born to two teenage parents.

My mom was 17 when I was born my dad was 19.

My father was actually still living at home with his parents, he had just graduated high school.

My mother did not have a very stable home life.

So when I was born, I actually moved into my grandparents house with my father and my mother as well.

My mom, like I said, she didn't have a very stable home life and she was just a mess all around.

If she didn't have a job, as far as I know, she didn't have a car, She didn't have a license when I was born.

She ended up having to drop out of school, repeated her sophomore year.

She did go back but never ultimately finished.

That was kind of the theme of my early years.

My dad did save up enough money to buy us a trailer so we moved into a trailer park when I was still baby and then shortly after my younger brother was born.

So we are 22 months apart and my father also worked night shift so he was not around at night and my mother would often times leave us at home alone.

I don't know how long this went on for, but eventually it got back to my dad that she was leaving us at home and one particular night she had left went to see another guy.

On the way home she got into a car accident.

She had been drinking, didn't have a license, as I mentioned.

And so she called my dad had to tell him what she had just done.

So he called his parents, my grandparents, and you know, it was like 2:00 in the morning.

They had to come get her and ended up being the guy that she had got into an accident with, wanted to press charges.

And of course, knowing all of the trouble that she would be in, my grandparents paid him for the damages.

Nobody was, you know, hurt or severely injured or anything, but they ended up paying him to not press charges and kind of move on.

So that it's really saved my mom.

But I think that specific incident is what really shed light on to what was happening while my father was away at work when I was two years old.

My grandmother, well, my whole family, I guess, my aunts, uncles, where they had a birthday party for me and my brother's baby.

At this point, they were all at the art trailer and one of our babysitters was there as well, which was by babysitter, I mean, it was a friend of her as a high school friend.

She wasn't like calling, you know, calling in young kids to come help.

It was a high school friend and my great grandmother.

So my dad's grandmother was also there.

She was still alive at the time and, and my babysitter's name was Tammy, my mom's friend.

And she said to my grandparents, you need to watch out for her.

She's after Michael, Michael being my father.

About six months or so later, we ended up moving same trailer, moved it to a different trailer park.

And within just a matter of a couple days, my mom left.

She left me and my my baby brother with my father.

He was a single dad and his very early 20s working night shift.

So my grandparents stepped in to help out a lot.

So thankfully we had them and and that's been a pretty consistent theme throughout my life.

But sure enough, in 1993, my dad ended up marrying Tammy.

So your great grandma was right.

She was right.

Yes.

That was in May of 93.

My mother, during all of this, she was very in and out of our lives.

I don't actually have any memories of her, like physically being present with us.

I, I have memories of, oh, your mom's supposed to come see you today or your mom's going to bring you a birthday present today, like hearing things.

But never, I don't ever remember her being physically being there.

Tammy ended up adopting me and my brother.

So she now she is our stepmom and in the state of Pennsylvania, our birth certificates were changed, right?

So now my birth certificate says Tammy is our is my biological mother, even though she's not.

I would have been five or six.

Do you remember, were you close to Tammy?

Did you want her to adopt you or what that situation was like?

Looking back, I don't really remember.

Like I said, I have no memories of my mom.

I have one memory of my mother and it was after my dad got married to Tammy.

She did finally come around.

She had disappeared for like a year and a half completely.

She didn't come, she didn't call, nothing.

And I think that's probably ultimately what led to the adoption.

But after they got married, she did come back around and they had made a deal with her that she could see us, me and my brother, if she was supervised only.

So her mother, my grandmother, my maternal grandmother was with her, came and picked us up.

And we were to go to my grandmother's house with my mom and we were to stay there.

We weren't to go anywhere else.

And my grandmother wasn't to leave us with my mom alone.

Well, my grandmother did leave and then my mother took us.

I think we went to a friend's house.

I mean, I just remember being at like a party and we were in the basement with a bunch of strangers that I didn't know.

And, and, you know, cops ended up being called.

And apparently it was this whole ordeal where she had taken us and they didn't know where we were.

And my grandmother came home and we were gone.

And so that was literally the only memory I ever have of my entire childhood of my mother.

And it was.

Wow.

One day, yeah.

I'm so sorry.

That's, yeah, really hard.

And so I do remember like even in the courtroom, them saying, do you want her to be your mom?

And me thinking, but she is my mom, but she's not my mom at this time.

Like I remember being coached to say you you gotta say this to the judge and, and that sort of thing.

But it was very confusing because I was always told your mom is going to come today.

And of course she never would show up.

I, it's so hard to explain just not knowing who your mom is and this other person being there.

And she didn't live with us until my parents until they got married, but she was there far more consistently.

And, and when you're that young, I think you just latch on to whatever figure you have in your life, you know.

And so it was very confusing.

I'll just say that.

And in the beginning, she wanted to be a part of our lives, or at least it seemed that way, right?

She was very into taking care of us and wanting to be our mom and that sort of thing.

However, things were not perfect.

My father, he was put in a shitty situation, right?

And he was young and I just remember he was always so stressed out.

We were poor, we grew up poor.

So that didn't help.

If I had to describe him in one word, it would just be angry.

For as long as I can remember, he was always just an angry person.

So there was a lot of yelling, screaming, chaos.

Even when he was married, it that didn't change, right?

He was still angry abuse.

I mean, he was abusive to both my brother and me, and she didn't help that in any way.

Like she kind of stood back and let it happen.

I never felt close to her.

I do think that when I was that young, it was someone that I admired maybe for a brief period of time, but I never felt close.

To her, after she adopted you, was your mom, your biological mother still kind of in and out of your life?

The relationship with her mother and grandmother

Or would did she completely stop contact at that point?

Right.

So she gave up her rights completely as a parent.

So she wasn't legally, wasn't allowed to contact us, wasn't allowed.

To be in our lives.

OK, I wasn't sure if it was one of those things where like the stepparent adopted, but maybe she still wanted to be in your life in some capacity.

OK.

So no contact after that?

No contact at all?

Yeah, Did you?

Still have a relationship with her parents, your maternal grandparents?

Or did that stop as well?

It did eventually stop.

They were around for a while.

I remember my grandmother used to take me to Kmart and buy me Barbies.

She did come around and visit and I think birthdays for a time being.

And my my mom also had a sister who would take us.

She had two boys as well, so two cousins that we would go to this local campsite.

I have some vague memories of them because they were in our lives more frequently.

I wouldn't say they were super consistent, but at least more frequently than my mother.

And so I had those kinds of memories as well.

But again, because of the situation, it was just so confusing to me that I think at one point in time I thought maybe that was those words like dreams or, you know, maybe I made that up in my head.

Maybe it was a figment of my imagination.

Because once we were adopted, we never talked about it again.

We didn't talk about Aunt Grandma, We didn't talk about my cousins.

We didn't talk about any of that.

So life goes on.

My dad and stepmom, who effectively is not my mother since she's adopted me and my brother.

They proceed to have a child.

Our worlds were just turned completely upside down at that point.

I mean things weren't great, my dad was already abusive to us, but it got so much worse once they had their own child.

We were just there basically to clean and take care of the baby and do things around the house.

I mean, we didn't have a childhood.

We can really play.

My dad was so strict.

It was not a good home situation at all.

And then they had another child.

Life was just ultimately pure hell at that point.

But between my two sisters being born, my brother and I were on the bus and I just remember this one kid out of nowhere just started picking on us.

And he kept saying weird things like, you don't know who I am, but I know who you are and your mother's going to come take you and all of these weird things.

And so I finally went home and I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade at this point in time.

And I, I told them like I, I don't know who this kid is, but he won't leave us alone.

And Long story short, that's how we essentially found out that we were adopted.

Because at this point, all of those memories were distant memories, never discussed, never brought up.

She was our mom.

So that was kind of like having to really relive that bombshell all over again.

So you'd completely forgotten what happened and and your mom taking it, that's something that came back later in your memory.

So you were.

So this is how you find out that your your mom is not your biological mother.

Yes, yeah.

And I don't know if I had forgotten or if it was more of like, it's just such a confusing time when you're that little and you don't understand what's going on around you and the parental figures aren't consistent in your life.

And I don't know if I forgot or I suppressed it or I just.

And it's not talked about.

And it wasn't talked about, right, Right.

So it's just super confusing.

But that then it all made a lot more sense because then I was like, OK, I wasn't crazy.

I do remember those people from when I was younger that I couldn't connect the dots to, you know, and all of that was real.

Yeah, and I'm really curious what little little baby Deanna was thinking when you were treated so differently than your two youngest siblings without knowing that you were adopted at the forefront of your mind.

That must have been very confusing.

Did you wonder like, why am I treated this way and they're not?

Absolutely.

It was awful because when I still remember the day that they told us that they were expecting and I was excited, was gonna have another little sibling and they were excited.

And and I should say too, that my stepmom was not the happiest person.

I think she had her own things going on.

She was depressed.

She ended up not working.

She worked for like the first year that my parents were married.

I just think she had her own things.

And so this was suddenly like she was somewhat happy again and maybe had something to look forward to and I couldn't figure out.

I mean, I knew that that was a happy thing in life, right?

But like, it seemed to be this big deal.

And I'm thinking like, well, you have two kids.

It's, you know, like, of course life is precious no matter how many children you have.

And so of course then it all made sense once, once this all came back around.

And do you remember the conversation of going home and saying this, kids picking on us, talking about my mom and he knows who I am?

What did they say?

How did that conversation go?

They actually asked me first, well, do you know what he's talking about?

And I was like, no, I, I don't, that's why I'm telling you I don't know what he's talking about.

They said, well, do you remember anything from your early childhood?

And of course, I did have some memories, but I was too afraid to say anything because I, I didn't know if they were real or not.

So they tried to get me to speak first and try to like, pry it out of me almost.

And I just kind of sat there like, no, I, I don't know.

They did eventually say, well, Tammy's not your biological mother, you know, and this is what happened.

And, and the story that I was given was that your mother was an alcoholic.

She didn't love you.

She didn't want you.

You're better off without her.

You don't need her.

Your life would be so much worse if she were involved.

Those types of things.

That was the story that my brother and I were both told.

What was your reaction to all of that information?

So that was hard and I carried that with me throughout life.

I think after that conversation, I really just didn't want to go back there again.

They said if you have questions, you can ask us, but we didn't have that kind of relationship.

So even though they did say that, I never felt comfortable enough to ask them questions about her or nor did I want to bring it up because I just didn't want to be told those things that I was told, you know.

So life goes on now.

The Impact of the Abuse on the Family

I have two younger sisters and they were about four years apart.

My brother and I were very much the adults in the house.

I mean, we, we did the cleaning, we did laundry, we took care of the babies, we changed diapers, we fed them, you know, and of course, you know, there's nothing wrong with siblings helping out.

But neither of my parents were mentally stable or physically stable.

There was a lot of chaos all the time.

And so we grew up really fast.

And then on top of that, the abuse only got worse once they were born because once they were around, it was just like, we were shunned.

We were treated so differently and everyone noticed.

I mean, my entire family noticed to the point where they would stick up for us.

And it actually caused a huge divide in the family for a long time.

My dad didn't speak to his parents for many, many years because they stood up for us and it we weren't even telling anyone that we felt, you know, a certain way.

They observed it and witnessed it themselves first hand.

But you couldn't tell my dad anything.

You know, he it was his way or the highway.

And so the second anyone stood up for us, then we were disrespecting his wife and he was not going to have that.

Things proceeded to get worse because my brother is back to our childhood and and being left at home alone as an infant and a toddler.

I'm not a doctor obviously, but I think my brother had some sort of.

I don't know if it was a connection issue or an attachment.

I guess is what I'm.

Trying to get an attachment.

Yes, we could tell at a young age that he was struggling.

I still to this day don't know that he's ever been like properly diagnosed.

But he definitely had a hard time.

He got the brunt of the physical abuse.

I mean I got it too, but they were way harder on him and had way less patience with him.

They sent him to multiple institutions like mental health institutions, group home type settings.

He bounced around starting when he was about 12 and with him out of the house and that means things were put even more on me.

Then things got worse for me.

So when I was 15, where I was a freshman, there was an opportunity to go to boarding school.

A local businessman had started a scholarship foundation, So I saw that as a chance for me to get out of the house.

And so I applied.

I ended up getting a scholarship to go to boarding school.

So I left the house, which was probably the best decision I've ever made because that was the first time that I really realized how bad our situation was because that was the norm for us.

And we weren't allowed to see friends outside of, you know, we never could have friends over.

We never went to friends houses.

We were just, we went to school, we were allowed to play sports, but we that was it.

We came home and we did all of these chores and did our homework and like that was our life.

Wow, so you really saved yourself when you saw that opportunity.

And what was that experience like of being in boarding school?

It was a wild experience, but I I wouldn't change it for the world.

Like I said it, you said it best.

It saved me.

And during that time, my relationship with them was, it was already strained, right?

But now I'm, I have this like newfound freedom.

I'm away from their grips.

I would call them once in a blue moon and I always got the devil for that because I I wasn't calling enough.

Anytime I talk to them, it was just, I would just hear all the things that I wasn't doing right or all the things that my brother wasn't doing right.

It was never like, hey, how are you?

We miss you, can't wait to see you.

It was nothing like that.

I never wanted to call them.

I I did it just enough to say that I did it.

I really started to distance myself as much as I could and I had to go home for the major holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break and summertime, and that was pretty much it.

During this time as well, my brother had been bouncing around also from home to home.

They decided that they couldn't handle him anymore.

They didn't want to deal with him.

And so they turned him over to the state and he went into foster care when he was, I believe 15.

So I'm away at boarding school.

They give him up to foster care.

So now it's just their, you know, 4 core and their family.

Wow, were you in contact with your brother at this time?

No, once he got put into foster care I did not have any contact with him.

I know my grandparents did from time to time and it was very limited I think.

I don't know if there were rules around it or if they just wanted to be more respectful to his foster family.

I'm not honestly not sure but I would get updates through them and I I think they got to see him a couple of times as well.

But as far as I know I think they were the only ones who got to see him while he was in foster care.

I end up graduating from boarding school in 2006.

I moved back home that summer when I had turned 16.

Even though I was away, when I would come home, I had a job.

There was actually a mini Mart across the street from our neighborhood.

I wasn't allowed to have a car, so I but I had to work when I was 16 because that was the rule.

And so I was able to walk across the street to this good old country store where it was a gas station, butcher shop, a convenience store.

So I started working there when I was 16 and I saw it as another opportunity to like not be in the house.

So I worked as much as I could.

So every break I was like sign me up I will work all you need.

When I moved back home was still working there.

I lasted about 3 weeks at home after I graduated.

I don't even know at this point what caused it.

But there was an argument.

Not uncommon but my dad said you're a teen, if you don't respect me and your mother then you're not welcome to live here anymore.

And so he told me to pack my bags and leave.

The ironic thing is that when I moved back home, my sisters had taken the two bedrooms so I didn't have a bedroom.

All my boxes from school were still packed up.

I was on the floor with.

I didn't even have a bed so I'm sleeping on the floor on a bunch of blankets and all my stuff was already packed up.

So it wasn't really that hard for me to like prepare to leave.

Now I'm home with.

Thankfully, I had a friend who was willing to help me out and I mostly stayed at her house.

I put all my stuff in storage and she helped me load up all my boxes while my dad was at work.

That was that.

So I left at some point, my grandparents said, well, you need to go back because you need to make sure you get like your birth certificate, your Social Security card, like these documents that you're going to need as an adult on your own.

Things that I didn't think about.

And so I did go back.

It was a weird conversation.

My dad was very calm and he never was, but he knew I was coming and he knew what for.

So we we didn't really talk.

It was kind of a get your stuff and go.

But he made a comment.

He said, I just want you to know that when I found out your mother was pregnant, I left.

But I thought about it and I came back and you just need to know that.

And at the time, I mean, I, I really thought like, what an asshole.

Like, how dare he put himself up on a pedestal for doing the right thing, you know?

Yeah.

I was pissed because I thought that he was saying like he saved me and and he gets all the credit in the world and I'm thinking, well, you're my father.

That's what you're supposed to do.

You weren't supposed to leave.

Right, right.

So that comment, you know, I've never forgotten that.

But like everything else I I buried it pretty deep.

So the summer goes on and now I'm couch surfing mostly, staying with one friend, working and going to friends houses and whatever.

And I had enrolled in college for the fall, so I knew it was going to be going off to college.

I go off to college and that's when it really hit me.

Like the gravity of what happened that summer, because I just thought it was invincible.

I think, you know, I thought I don't.

I don't need my parents.

I was never close with them anyways.

They didn't do much for me.

But then I'm moving into College in Allentown, PA.

I see all of these kids with their parents helping them move in and moms are crying and they're giving hugs and here I am like carrying everything in by myself.

I have no parents with me.

I'm nobody.

That started like my downward spiral for me.

I still didn't address any of my issues really, but I started to drink a lot, partying.

I had started dating a guy actually in high school and we dated all through college, on and off.

But he was a drug addict, just making poor choices left and right and not in good relationships.

I didn't have the self worth, the self respect.

I just didn't care about myself.

I heard a lot of people along the way managed to graduate college, but those were not my best years, that is for sure.

But the summer before I went to college, I was working at this mini Mart and it was right off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

And so we were actually pretty busy.

We're off the beaten path, but pretty busy little store.

The way it worked is when you would come in, you would that we have these like little slips.

You would just kind of check off what you want, like made to order.

And this is before there were like kiosks and things, you know.

And so you fill it out, put your name at the top, hand it over to us in the window and we would make your food.

I was behind the counter and I get a slip and I happened to notice the name on the slip one day.

The last name was my mother's maiden name.

So I make his food and I'm, I'm like, what do I do?

And I'm just contemplating to myself, should I say something?

Should I not?

And I thought, well, what do I have to lose?

I just got kicked out of my house.

I have no family, you know, And so I mean, I had family, but no, I, my parents, my grandparents were very much so big part of my life and my aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone as well.

Just to clarify, but.

But those were not people that you could go stay with, for example.

And my, my grandmother, I was very close with my whole life.

I still am to this day.

But she had just had quadruple bypass surgery right after I graduated.

And so I knew that they would have, let me say with him in a heartbeat.

I have no doubt about that.

But I did not want to put that on them knowing what she had just been through.

I didn't even tell them right away.

I think probably at least a month had gone by before I even told them what happened.

They had no idea.

I see the last name and I decide I'm going to say something.

So I'm checking this man out and I say, by any chance do you know Dia?

And he goes, yeah, that's my aunt.

And I said, I think that makes his cousins then.

And he looks at me and he goes, Deanna, is that you?

And I just started to cry.

And he's like, holy shit, I haven't seen you since you were, you know, this big.

And he's, like, pointing down at the ground.

So it turns out that that was, in fact, my cousin.

And we exchanged phone numbers and he said, you know, call me when you get off of work.

I'm going to call your mom and we can arrange to meet her.

And so I got off of work.

I called him.

He picked me up and took me out to meet my mom and my aunt, his mom.

It was a lot of tears, a lot of tears.

I was crying.

My aunt was crying, my mom was crying.

Just a lot of crying.

It went OK, It wasn't bad.

It was, I, I think it was just shocked, you know, more than anything, I was so young to really understand the gravity of all of it.

You know, I spent, I don't know, probably a few hours at her house and just talking and we didn't get into anything really deep that night.

It was more like, oh, we have the same toes, just kind of very surface level things.

And I kind of told her about me going away to school and, and just catching up, you know, on surface level things, I feel like.

But we did exchange numbers and we did keep in touch for a little while.

Probably about halfway through my freshman year, we stopped talking.

That wasn't fully her fault.

I think it was both of us.

It was, it was a lot.

It was just a lot.

And I, I personally was not prepared for that.

It all happened so fast and I think just with everything else that was already going on, I just couldn't handle it to be completely honest.

So we kind of lost touch.

And then about a year, year and a half later she called my grandparents house and let them know that she was thinking about me.

And she said, will you let her know that I called?

If she wants to get in touch again, let her know that she can call me.

We got back in touch again.

And I do want to mention too, that it was very evident very quickly that she was an alcoholic still.

So that that was one thing that I was like, OK, that is confirmed.

But we got back in touch and we did eventually talk about some more deeper things.

I told her a lot of the stuff that I had gone through.

I learned some things about her and about her and my dad and, you know, things that I didn't know before.

Did not think to ask about medical history that never once crossed my mind at 1819 years old.

But right, well, we're healthy.

Like you said, we're invincible right at that age.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It lasted for probably another, I don't know, maybe a year on and off.

But we weren't like calling each other every single day.

It was, you know, every month or two months we would call, check in.

I visit her a couple times.

My brother ended up coming as well one of the time.

So he eventually he didn't right away.

He didn't want to jump into that.

But eventually he ended up meeting her.

Also.

She had wanted to have us over for Thanksgiving and I don't know what was going on in her life, but I could just tell by her voice when she was telling us that she was going to have us over for Thanksgiving.

I just had this feeling that it wasn't going to happen.

So she knew I was coming home from school for Thanksgiving.

This is probably a couple months in advance.

We had talked about having dinner together.

She knew when I was coming home, she was to call and and make those arrangements.

Well, Thanksgiving came and went and I had never heard from her again.

But that point I was like, OK, she's had multiple chances.

I know the first time around we weren't prepared, both of us, but we talked about that before we kind of dove in again.

We both address like, hey, that was just a lot.

We weren't prepared for that.

It kind of sprung on us.

But we're ready, like we'll try this again.

So I thought, OK, we'll give it another go.

And you know, having put that out there, I thought it felt safe to try again.

But when that happened, I was like, OK, I'm, I'm not going to put myself through this another time.

I just can't.

So I let it go.

So that was pretty much how my reunion with my biological mother went was.

Very much like my childhood.

How long from that point did it go before you spoke to her again, or did you?

I didn't.

Yeah, that was.

That was.

The last time you talked to your mom?

Yes, through all of this, you know I've gotten kicked out of my house.

The Last Time You Talked To Your Mother

I've reunited with my mother, which to me felt like the first time ever meeting her because I had that one single memory of her.

This was all happening through college and I'm off at college by myself away from home.

I have a drug addict boyfriend, so many things happening all at once.

And I transferred, started out College in Allentown, PA in my freshman year and then I transferred to Cincinnati and I I went to Xavier.

So that's where I graduated from.

I managed to graduate, had decent grades.

Somehow after I graduated, I ended up staying in Cincinnati.

When I graduated, it was during the the.

Great Recession.

Yes, thank you.

Do you have during the recession?

I graduated and so I couldn't find a job right away.

So I ended up bartending for a couple of years and that's where I'm at my now husband.

Life went on, I guess, and and during this all of this, I'm thinking that I'm fine.

I'm just trying to find a job, but you know, I'm off of my own.

I'm.

Are you speaking to your father or adopted or your stepmother at all during this time?

No, I mean once I got kicked out, I went back that one time to get my documents and I think he called me one time.

We had no relationship at all.

We didn't talk for years and years, probably a decade or more.

But I did maintain contact with the rest of my family, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins.

My brother and I aren't super close, but when I go home I would usually see him and my family and stuff and my grandparents just not not either of them.

So I'm you know what, my early 20s just life, my husband and I get married right before I turn 30.

So, you know, six years ago and then in 2018, I got pregnant for the first time with my daughter.

It never really occurred to me.

Like I said, I'd never thought to ask my mom about medical history and on my anytime I went to the doctor, which I never, I didn't really go to the doctor that much one, I was pretty healthy, but also like it didn't really have insurance and stuff before until I entered the corporate world.

But when I did, I would never put any medical information on my mother's side.

I just put what I knew and that was it.

But I never brought it up.

I never told any doctors.

You know, I don't I'm missing half of my medical history.

I just never, I think I had a lot of shame and embarrassment, honestly.

I didn't talk about my childhood situation like my friends growing up, they didn't know that I had been adopted by my stepmother.

They just thought that that was my mom.

I never talked about it to anyone.

So it wasn't until I was pregnant and my doctor was asking, you know, just normal questions.

I think like, well, how did your mother give, you know, did you have C-section?

Was it a natural birth?

But and I was like, oh, I don't know.

I have no idea.

I never thought about that aspect of it either.

And so I saw an ad or something for Ancestry DNA, for the health traits.

That is what piqued my interest was the health traits.

And I think I was just naive to even know what that meant.

I knew it wouldn't be able to diagnose me with anything, but I thought, Oh well, maybe this will give me some sort of insight that I, I don't know.

So that's what prompted me to take ADNA test.

And this was in 2019.

And at the time one of my cousins, Jenny, was living with me.

She's an occupational therapist and she was in her master's program and she had to do like a clinical.

So she got assigned to a hospital out here in Cincinnati.

So she lived with us for a few months while I was pregnant.

And I had mentioned to her like, hey, I ordered some DNA tests because I ordered one for me and I actually ordered 2 for my grandparents that I was going to gifts to them.

Never ended up doing that, thank God.

But I mentioned to her, maybe you should take one too and we can kind of start this like whole family thing.

And she kind of laughed and was like, I would never willingly give my DNA to the government.

And I was like, oh, OK.

You know, I thought it was kind of a weird thing to say, but I.

But there's a lot of that, Yeah.

There's a lot of that kind of anxiety around uploading our information and some somewhat justified, right?

But yeah, it's not necessarily something that we're thinking about.

But you know, I, I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

And even though I at the time genuinely was like, that's so weird.

Why wouldn't she do that?

I'm so thankful that she didn't do it because I know now that I would not have been able to handle, you know, all of the things that are about to unfold if if that had happened then.

So.

I took the DNA test in 2019, also gave birth to my daughter in 2019.

I got the results back and I remember thinking, wow, that's, that's really weird.

I glanced at my matches, but I didn't really care about the matches a whole lot.

That's not why I took it.

But I did look at them and I, I didn't know any names on there.

But again, I wasn't super surprised because when I reconnected with my mother, I had met my aunt and uncle, a few of my cousins, but I really only knew like her mom's name her.

She had a brother and a sister and I knew their kids names and that was about it.

So I was like, you know, these are all probably distant relatives.

I'm not surprised that I don't know any names.

Not a big deal.

But there was one match.

I had one first cousin and that bothered me because I, I didn't know who it was.

And I was thinking like, well, my mom told me she had one brother and one sister and I know their kids names, my cousins.

And it's not, it was not any of those names.

So I did think it was weird, but I was like, you know, her father passed away when she was young.

Who knows what could have happened.

Maybe she has a, a sibling out there that she doesn't know about.

I just chalked it up to like being something on her side of the family because I didn't know a lot of a lot of their history and names and things.

So I didn't really think a whole lot of it.

But the whole first cousin thing, I think was just on the back of my mind and it it was always there.

After I had my first daughter, five months later, I was pregnant again.

And then the pandemic hit.

So like I said, it was always in the back of my mind, but not something that I really had the time or energy to even think about.

So I kind of shut it off.

You know, occasionally I would go back in and look at my results.

And then in 2021, I was diagnosed with PCOS, and that prompted me to look at the health.

I started reading into the stuff again and started getting a little more into it, but again, just kind of let the whole matches go.

But I realized when I first taken the test, it had said that I was about 33% Greek and I did not know that I had any Greek in me.

I knew that my grandparents, my paternal grandparents were German, mostly German and a little bit of Irish.

I did ask my mother this.

That is one thing that I did ask was, you know, what is our lineage, What is our background?

And she told me Indian and Italian.

And I was like, I don't think she knew what she was talking about.

And I will say this, she didn't because she's not any of those either.

But I thought, OK, maybe that has to be where this Greek comes from.

But as you probably know, 20/19 was still pretty early on, right?

And so my percentage kept increasing.

So I, you know, I would go back and look every five or 6-7 months and suddenly I'm now like 50% Greek.

So I, I was like, OK, something's not, something's not right.

So I started asking my grandparents questions and I was like, you know, just just checking like, is there any Greek anywhere in our family line?

You know, they're like, no, no, we're definitely very German.

And they both my grandmother's maiden name and my grandfather, both very German.

So I was like, OK, well, I didn't think so, but just checking.

And then I was asking about this first cousin.

I said, well, I have this first cousin match.

I'm pretty sure it's on my mom's side of the family.

That would make sense.

But do you know this last name?

Because that her last name popped up many like I have many matches with the same last name and they're like, no, we we don't know anyone, anyone without last name in our family or extended family.

I'm like, OK, but I'm starting to piece together that, you know, this first cousin is not Greek.

So, you know, to me I'm like, I can only be, you know, something's off.

This is end of 2021 and 2022.

The Importance of Conversations

I lost a friend to suicide.

Something about that just made me think about life in a whole different way.

And I, I spent many nights, late nights up with friends talking about life and getting into these really deep conversations because of, you know, what had happened to our friend.

And I remember one particular night before the funeral, we were up and talking and just talking about life.

And I said out of nowhere to one of my friends, I was like, I think my dad isn't actually my dad.

And she was like, what?

This was the first time.

Like I surprised myself when I said it.

OK, so this I was going to say, was this something that had been in the back of your mind or it just came to you?

I think I knew that something wasn't right between, you know, I've got this first cousin who nobody knows who this is, but she's also not Greek and I'm half Greek.

How does that match up?

But I had never said it out loud.

I think I had.

I would like the unthought known.

I think it was one of those like, and I kind of shocked myself when I said it.

And I, I shared my results with her.

Like we, I got my phone out and, and she was like, Oh my gosh, like, you're right.

I don't know.

We end up, you know, a few weeks past, we go to the funeral and then on the way home from the funeral, again, I'm, I'm with a different friend now.

We were just kind of talking about how heavy that whole situation was.

And again, getting to these really deep conversations about life and my friend proceeds to tell me a secret of hers that she had been keeping Alexis.

It blew my mind.

I was bawling my eyes out just again, I one of those moments where I'm like, life is just so crazy.

And we're talking and she says I listen to this podcast because it makes me feel better about my secret.

And so she mentions Danny's podcast Family Secrets and I promise this is relevant.

So she mentions this podcast and I'm like wow for.

For anyone who's listening who doesn't know, it's Danny Shapiro who's like kind of at the forefront of a lot of these conversations.

She has a podcast called Family Secrets.

Yes, and this is the first time that I had ever heard about it.

And so we get back and I start listening to her podcast, something about, you know, I just lost a friend.

I said something out loud that I shocked myself when those words came out of my mouth.

And now I'm listening to this podcast where I'm hearing stories like I've never heard before.

And I think that just kind of lit a fire in me to get to the bottom of this.

It was a mystery to me at this point, right?

My my results didn't make any sense.

I decide, well, a couple things.

One, I'm like, OK, I I need to take another test.

So I take an ancestry.

So I decided that I was going to take 23andMe because I still was like, maybe this isn't right.

Like I literally didn't know a single match.

I didn't know a single name.

And the more I thought about that, I was like that, that is kind of weird.

You would think you would know second cousin maybe or you know something.

And I knew some names of my mother's family, right?

Like, and I knew their last name and that last name didn't appear anywhere.

So I'm just like, maybe these results aren't right.

Maybe this isn't really mine.

And I think a lot of people have that same thought, right.

So I decide, OK, well, I'm going to take 23andMe, but I'm going to do a little more research.

So I subscribe to Ancestry, like the I joined Ancestry and you have access to like the newspapers and yadda yadda.

So I start researching this cousin.

I couldn't find anything but in my head I'm like well maybe my aunt or uncle has a child out there that like they gave up for adoption and they didn't tell anyone.

Or maybe I am coming up with all these scenarios just to try to explain this away.

And I ended up finding their marriage record and their divorce record.

I researched his ex wife's name and you know, ruled all of that out.

Like I'm doing all of these things and I'm like, I'm still like this, this isn't making sense.

I get the guts to call my cousin who this will be my father's brother's son.

I call him up and I say, look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I really need your help.

And I explained to him, I said, look, I, you know, I had taken ADNA test a few years ago and I've been trying to figure out these results and I can't.

And I, I just need someone in our immediate family to take the test so I have a connection so I can see like where these other connections belong.

And, and he was cool about it.

I mean, he was so laid back.

And I should mention too, this is Jenny's brother, so and one how I said you should take this test and she was like no.

And he was like, sure, I'll do it, I don't care.

He'll put that DNA out there, yeah.

Put it out there.

So I didn't ask her because I, you know, already went down that road.

I didn't ask my brother because I not super close with him.

So John says sure.

So I sent him a kit.

I had already sent in my thing to 23 me.

My cousin had already sent in his while we're waiting, Ancestry was coming out with all of these new features and things to where suddenly they could tell you what side your matches are on and what's, what inheritance you got from which side of the family that all came out.

Like I, I want to say it was like a week after I got my results, which was so madding to me, Alexis, because I'd gone through all of this and then it was like, oh, here you go.

Here's the answers you've been looking for.

My cousin called me.

It's Friday, August 19th of 2022.

And he said, hey, I just got my results and he's like, I'm looking at him right now.

He's like, I think everything looks fine.

Like I, I see my mom's side of the family on here.

I've got and he starts rattling off my dad and his dad's last name.

And he's saying like I see some matches there and I'm like, oh, do you see my name?

And he is like, where would I find that?

And I was like, if you're seeing other matches, you would you would see me like under your first cousin.

He's like, no, I did not get a notification.

So I didn't know until he called me to tell me he got his results.

I didn't get an e-mail or you know, anything like that.

So I'm not looking at my results in in real time while he's looking at his, but I'm trying to pull him up as I'm talking to him.

And that's when I realized like, OK, so it's true.

Everything that I went through, all of this, and he wasn't even my biological father this entire time.

I'm so sorry, was that the first thought that you had about it?

That was my first thought, John said.

To me.

He was like, you will always be my cousin no matter what he said.

And it was in the most genuine way.

It wasn't like, oh, your dad's always your dad.

He, he was very meaningful when he said to me, like he actually said, you're stuck with me for life.

He was very sweet about the whole situation.

But we hung up the phone and I, I literally fell to the ground.

I had a very, very physical reaction, of course, bawling my eyes out and shaking even though I I kind of knew it's still.

It was so shocking.

What did you do next?

Did you did you call your husband?

I completely like lost all track of time.

He called me in the morning.

I did eventually call my husband.

He was the first person that the only person that I called.

I remember dropping to the ground on the dining room floor and when my husband came home from work, I was in the dining room.

I hadn't moved all day.

I mean, I just, I, I stayed there and cried like all day.

I have no idea how long.

I don't know exactly what time he called me, but it was like time stopped.

And you know, all of the things that I had been through, I never had a reaction like that.

What do you think it was?

I think it was a combination of and everything like it was like my life was flashing before me and all of these horrible memories were flooding back.

And I'm like, why?

Why did I have to go through all of that?

Because there's I could talk for days about all of the horrible things we went through.

I mean, I, I just touched the surface and then the comment when he said I left her and I came back, that suddenly was like, is this what he was trying to tell me?

Was it right in front of me the entire time?

So then I, I felt, I almost felt dumb.

I was angry, I was sad, I was shocked.

I was, you know, I just felt everything.

All of the times where me and my brother were treated so horribly, but yet the two girls were not.

You know, suddenly everything made so much sense, but it was just so wrong.

Do you think that your dad knew?

I thought for sure, Alexis, that he did.

I was convinced that that comment was almost him trying to tell me without telling me directly.

And then I thought, well, they put my brother in foster care.

I was pretty much out of the house when I was 15.

And then he had no problem telling me to get out when I was 18 and never talking to me again.

So, you know, I was like, well, he just wanted to get rid of me because he knew I wasn't his.

Like he had to have known.

And I will tell you that I did end up calling him.

It wasn't that day, wasn't even that month.

It took me probably 6 or more weeks before I got the courage up to call him.

Because mind you, this is the first time that I've called him in 15 plus years.

But I thought, I don't have a relationship with him, but I think he deserves to know.

Even if he already knows, he deserves to know that I know.

So I did.

And I fully expected him to one of two things, say, yeah, I knew it, leave us alone.

Or I thought he might be angry that I like, blew his cover.

I thought for sure he'd be angry.

But that wasn't the case.

I shouldn't say he wasn't angry.

He didn't show any anger, but he wasn't angry at me.

If he was angry, he was probably angry at my mother.

But he didn't show any anger.

He actually, when I called, he got dead silent.

And Tammy was on the phone as well and she said, Deanna, just give him a minute.

He doesn't know what to say right now.

And I could hear him getting choked up.

And he actually was crying.

And this is a man who the only emotion I've ever seen from him was anger.

We had been through so much, but now he's crying.

And it didn't make any sense to me.

I was so confused by his reaction.

But he swears he didn't know.

He says he had no idea.

I mean, it's, it's like you can see both sides of it, right?

Because he was so young that if he really suspected that you weren't his, it would have been a very easy out at that age.

And you know, to take two kids and and move in.

But at the same time, his treatment of you, it must just be so confusing to try to rationalize like what he was thinking.

So confusing.

I do think, I genuinely believe that he didn't know.

I don't think it would be worth his energy at this point to try to, you know, cover it up or so I, I do genuinely believe that he didn't know.

And I think it was his reaction, right?

Like his, I mean, the silence went on for minutes.

He was just completely shocked.

So it was it, it was very confusing because I did not expect that at all.

And Tammy was very, I don't want to say nonchalant that kind of like it was almost like, oh, this is great news.

The Conversation After the ADNA Test

You know, that's that was her demeanor was like, Oh, well, it's OK.

Does he say anything else?

Like how does that conversation end?

I think the biggest question was, well, how?

Like how did you find this out?

So I explained to them me taking ADNA test and what prompted me to do that.

And then their next question was, well, do you know who it is?

And at this point in time, it did not know.

So I, I told them that like, no, I, I don't know who it is.

I, I hope I can figure it out, but that's pretty much where we left it.

What?

Hey, I just wanted you to know, sorry, I don't have any other information to give you at this point in time, but this is what I do know.

And that was pretty much where we left it.

Have you talked to them since?

I went home for Easter last year.

My entire family, like his side of the family, who I'm, you know, they're still my family to me and vice versa.

The entire family went out for Easter dinner together.

So we did briefly talk but it was so awkward and, and it always has been the the couple of times that I've seen him at family holidays over the years, which they were very few and far between.

What happens next?

Finding My Father

I assume that you were on a path to find who your biological father was, but did you wait or did you immediately jump into it?

I immediately jumped in and I will say I had no idea what I was doing.

So in fact, I started like through this subscription.

I knew just from Googling other names and stuff in this cousin search, I realized that there were like yearbooks out there.

And so I had typed in, I think my mom's name.

And I went through the yearbook, the year where, where she was a sophomore, the year that I was born essentially.

And I, I managed to find one of her yearbooks and I went through the entire sophomore, junior and senior classes.

And I, I, this was my strategy.

I was like, I'm just going to go through and I'm going to look for Greek names, which to be honest, Alexis, I didn't even really know what a Greek name looked like.

I had one name and it was, I had a match to a second cousin.

That was the only name I had to go off of and then a couple other like very distant cousins.

So I was like, OK, well, I'll, I'll look for like this one name that I know.

Of course that name was not in there at all.

But that was my strategy.

I'm like, I'm going through this yearbook, anyone that my mom could have had relations with, and I'm just writing down names that are like.

Different, I guess, you know, not Smith or something that I don't know.

I, I really didn't know what I was doing.

And I go through the whole entire yearbook and I have a total of five names and I'm looking at these names.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this.

Like I, I don't know what I'm thinking.

This isn't going to get me anywhere.

And then I ended up crossing off like two of the names anyways because I realized like they're definitely, I think like one was Italian.

I don't even know what the other one was, but I have, I have three names.

I'm like, well, what am I going to do with this?

So this strategy is not going to work.

And you know, I had mentioned Danny's podcast.

So I had been listening to that all, you know, over these couple, couple of months.

And one of her episodes was actually about an NPE.

And that was the first time that I had heard that term.

So it was a month or so after this happened to me.

I didn't know this community existed.

I didn't know this was a thing.

I had no clue until that podcast episode, which is why I brought that up.

And so once I heard the term NPE, then I got on Facebook and started like looking for support groups and things.

And that's how I came across the DNA Angels.

So I did reach out to the DNA Angels.

Unfortunately, they weren't able to track him down, but they did give me some good pointers.

They were very helpful.

And just with the process in general, but they had suggested, well, you have this second cousin, why don't you reach out to them and see if they will get their parents to test?

And that's like target testing so that you can kind of narrow some things down.

I didn't feel comfortable doing that.

I'm just intimidated by stuff like that.

And I don't know who these people are.

I didn't want to, I just was very uncomfortable with it.

But a family member of mine, my new family, they own a restaurant in my hometown.

One of my uncles frequently went there.

They had had like high school breakfast reunion type things there.

They would like have class breakfast.

And so he said to me like, Hey, if you want I I would be more than happy to talk to the owners and just let them know the situation, let them know what happened and maybe they'll get in contact with you.

So the DNA angels had at least given you enough information that you were able to determine that the family owned a restaurant in in your hometown.

You just were not able to get specific information about who your biological father was.

But that's a big that's a big clue.

Yes, yes, OK.

That was a big clue.

And I ended up coming across a an obituary that was very telling.

And so this is all, all of these things are kind of happening like simultaneously.

And so I do find this obituary and it lists everyone's names, their spouses, their children's names and their locations.

So it turns out that the majority of my family is actually still in Greece.

And I think that's why we were having such a hard time in the DNA Angels, because a lot of my family is actually still in Greece.

My grandmother and her sister, she comes from a family of seven siblings, and only one brother and one sibling ever migrated here.

Everyone else is still in Greece.

And it happens to be that her sister is the one who owns the restaurant and she has three boys.

Two of them have children and their boys are who I matched with on Ancestry.

OK, as first as second cousins, 2nd cousins.

OK, wow.

And and we sit, we hear it all the time.

Obituaries are the key.

Published obituaries really get you where you're going.

OK, All right.

So, so your your uncle offers to go and talk to the owner of the restaurant.

What happens then?

Well, he offered.

I did not take him up on his offer right away.

I think I was still trying to process everything.

I was like, I want to try to figure out more.

And through this obituary, I was able to map out.

I mean, I was like a crazy woman, Alexis.

I had poster boards in my room with sticky notes and I was like moving them all around.

And I mean, I was a mad woman for weeks and weeks and weeks on end.

I would stay up until 3/4 in the morning some days just reading through stuff online and writing down all of these names and trying to match things.

And somehow I this obituary, like I said, was really telling.

But I had come across it a couple of times before I fully dissected it.

So I finally get to a name and I did it through process of elimination because my grandmother, who I don't know at the time that this she's my grandmother, but her and her sister were the only two with ties to my hometown.

Their other sibling did migrate to Pennsylvania, but a different town a couple hours away.

And so process of elimination told me that it couldn't be those three brothers that I just referenced because their children were my second cousin.

So I knew it wasn't any of them that could be my father.

So that left one person, my grandmother, and sure enough, she had one son.

So that made it pretty easy.

So I narrowed it down that way.

And during all of this, my birth certificate, father and his wife, more so his wife Tammy, she was reaching out to me pretty often.

I mean, there was definitely an uptick in how much she was contacting me because she wanted to know what was going on.

And I had said to her, I texted her and I said I think I may have figured something out.

And she had responded, well, I'm at dinner.

It was her father's birthday.

So they were at a birthday dinner.

And she said, I'll text you when we get home.

But I had sent the name.

And so she gets home later that evening and get a text message from her.

And she was like, how did you land on that name?

So I kind of explained it.

And she said, well, I let your dad know my birth certificate father.

And now that you say that name, he recalls being told by a female friend of his that your mother was messing around with this person while she was dating your father, my birth certificate father.

So I was like, interesting.

And then she proceeds to send me a yearbook photo of him.

And this is the first time I had seen any pictures.

And Alexis, as soon as I saw the picture, I I knew immediately that I was right.

I look just like it.

Wow, how did that feel to to have that validated in that moment?

It was a huge relief because I had spent weeks and weeks and weeks and, you know, I'm in this fog and I am so just clueless about everything that's going on.

And I'm so confused.

And to see someone that looked like me because as someone who's half Greek, growing up with a German family of, you know, fair skin, freckles, blue eyes, green eyes, red, you know, red hair, like I looked nothing like my family.

And that was the first time I'd seen anyone that I look like.

I don't look like my mom either.

Did you suspect at all?

I mean, I know it was a complete surprise to you, but growing up, did you ever have any thoughts of am I related to these people or anything like that?

So it's funny because I always thought I always looked different.

I, I felt different.

I never once thought there's no way I'm not related to them.

That never crossed my mind.

And to be honest with you, I think a lot of my doubt, we'll call it, stemmed more so from just how controlling my father was.

You know, I didn't have any confidence in myself.

And so I always thought like, you feel like you don't fit in because it wasn't just with my family.

Like I had a hard time with friends and fitting in at school.

And I always just chalked it up to being had no confidence in myself period.

So I always felt like an outcast no matter where I was.

OK, that yeah, that makes sense.

And and also you were kind of able to explain it away because you've learned about your mom.

And it was like, there were all these little things.

So you figure out who he is.

So then I take my uncle up on his offer and he goes there and I had sent him some photos I'd picked out, you know, kind of photos at all stages.

The Message

And so I was like, OK, I gave him like a handful of photos just so they had something to look at and maybe they could see it themselves.

And also to have that, like, human touch.

I feel like reaching out over the phone or even an e-mail.

You just never know these days with like, scams and frauds.

And, you know, and I just didn't feel comfortable doing any of that.

So I thought maybe this is a better way.

He can talk to them face to face.

He can show them my text message.

He can show them photos and it actually went pretty well.

None of the brothers were there, but one of the wives who also runs a restaurant, he talked to her and she said, OK, I will reach out to my father's name is They call him Bill.

And and so she said, I'll reach out to Bill's mom and I'll let her decide how to handle this.

So this was on a Saturday and that Monday morning I got a phone call from my grandmother and the rest is history.

I mean, that was the beginning of our relationship.

That was in October of 2022.

So we've been in touch ever since.

I've, I've only had the opportunity to go back home and meet her one time, but I, I did get that and I also got to meet my aunt, her son.

So I have a cousin and I also found out in this process that I have another an older half sibling but he was not married to her mother either and got to meet them as well.

I have not been able to meet my father.

The reason that they went to my grandmother instead of directly to him is because he is dealing with some mental health issues.

He's just not in a good place and they didn't know if he would be able to handle like this kind of news because obviously it's big news.

And my grandmother actually didn't even tell him for the first month or so of us talking.

It was just me and her.

I was kind of a a secret, if you will.

Was she excited?

Like what was her reaction when you started talking to her?

She was excited.

She was a little apprehensive, but I understand that.

But she was very excited.

She was very happy.

Like most Greek people, huge family.

She comes from a huge family.

She's very family oriented and so she was just ecstatic.

That's amazing he knows about you now.

He does my SO.

My grandmother ended up telling my aunt within probably a month or so.

I would say she didn't want to tell anyone at first and not because she was embarrassed or ashamed or anything like that.

I think she just, I think she was processing it herself too.

And she was of course protective of, of my father, but she couldn't like she couldn't contain her excitement.

So she ended up telling my aunt and my aunt said, you know, mom, I understand you wanting to protect Bill, but he deserves to know.

And so she ended up telling him from what my aunt says, he took it pretty well.

Like he was shocked.

He had no idea my, my mother never said anything to him.

So it was a surprise to him.

He asked questions.

He was, you know, curious about me.

He saw the pictures of me.

And so that made me feel a little better, I think to know that he, even though he's not in a place where he has the capacity to talk to me today, I think just knowing that he had some level of curiosity, he didn't just write it off.

And he confirmed that he dated my mom.

And so that was very, I think it was good for everyone to hear that coming from him.

So it was validating for, you know, all of us.

That's really awesome.

OK, so you've met your grandmother, you've spent time with your family when you've gone home.

The emotional connection

How does it feel to have that newfound biological connection?

Yeah, it feels really, really good.

I'm just taking it one day at a time.

It it the hardest part is being so far away because I do really feel like if I were back home, I would probably have the best connection with them because you just meeting them, it felt so natural.

I didn't it didn't feel weird.

We connected right away and my grandmother and I are so much alike.

It's funny.

We get on the phone and I just have so much fun talking to her.

We literally just chat like 2 old ladies you know?

Like I really enjoy talking to her, so I'm very thankful for that and I just wish that I was closer.

I don't mean to bring it back down, but I'm curious if your mother ever learned about the truth through a roundabout way, because I know you don't have contact.

I so I do not have contact.

However, I did reach out to her because I did my whole list of names in the yearbook and I was like, this is not going to get me anywhere.

So I'm talking to my husband and he was like, Dan, I think the only person who knows the real truth is your mother.

Like, you have to ask her.

And I'm like, well, how do I even do that?

I haven't spoken to her in years.

I don't know where she's at.

I don't even know if she's alive at this point.

Like, who knows what happened to her?

And so I ended up, again, doing research on her because she had since moved.

She wasn't dating the guy that she was with.

Whenever I met her in my college years, she had been married.

So she had a different last name.

I did track her down.

I found her on Facebook.

I did message her.

And I let her know, like, hey, I got these DNA results.

Michael isn't my biological father.

Can you tell me who?

And it didn't get me anywhere.

Nothing has changed with her.

She's still her.

You know, she tried to tell me that she had no idea, which maybe she truly didn't.

I believe that she was such a mess.

And so I, I, I don't think that it was an intentional thing that she had, but she just made it seem like he was the only, it could have only been him.

Well, then eventually she said, well, OK, it could have only been one other person.

She said his name was John.

I'm like, it's not John.

I know that I didn't give her a whole lot of information upfront because I was really hoping that she would be able to tell me.

So I didn't tell her that I knew it was a Greek man.

And then eventually I did tell her that.

And she was like, I think your results are wrong.

I've never been with a Greek man.

You know, just deny, deny, deny, deny.

And the typical things, I had messaged her in August I believe she didn't respond.

I messaged her again in September, she didn't respond.

So then finally I messaged her in October once I figured all of it out and she never even read that message.

So I just that was it.

She just stopped responding to me.

I'm curious about how you've handled the what ifs because you've had such a hard life.

The What Ifs

You've had a lot of really hard things happen in your life, and then you meet this boisterous Greek family who's really welcoming to you.

On the other hand, you learned that your father has some mental health issues.

Where are you at with the what ifs that I feel like so many of us struggle with?

Yeah, I honestly still am really struggling with that, specifically with missing out on my Greek family because I at this point I've shared a little more information with my grandmother.

I'm not giving her every detail, but I've shared enough that she understands just what you said.

But I had a rough upbringing and it breaks her heart.

I almost have to stop myself from saying anymore to her because she cries and she gets so upset and she always apologizes and I tell her it's it's not your fault.

But she says if I would have known, I would have taken care of you.

You know, we would have loved you in.

And I know that they would have.

I know it would have been a totally different situation.

And I think that's the hardest part.

You know, I'm not saying the grass is always greater on the other side.

They had their struggles too, but as far as just feeling loved, I know I would have had that with them even if it wasn't through my father because he has struggled for a long time, pretty much ever since him and his ex-wife got divorced.

That was the beginning of his downward spiral and that was like I think like 17 years ago.

So it's been a long time.

So I may not have had the relationship with him, but I know I would have had that closeness with the rest of my family and it would have been a whole different dynamic.

Yeah, I'm just so sorry that you've been through so much.

Have you begun exploring this newfound Greek heritage that you have?

Is it something that you feel like you connect to?

And how are you doing that?

I do.

I have started taking lessons on Duolingo, so I'm trying to learn a little Greek.

My grandmother will and I call her ya ya because that you know that's grandma in Greek and she'll always say, you know one or two words here and there in Greek.

So I and I asked her to try to like teach me some things.

I have always loved Mediterranean food in general and so, but now I've incorporated more like I'll try new recipes, new Greek recipes at home.

I'm actually going to cook a traditional Greek Easter dinner.

So I'm not Greek Orthodox, but I do want to start incorporating some of those types of traditions into our family.

And I've talked to my husband about that and he's totally fine with that.

He's Catholic, and he comes from a strong Catholic background, and our daughters go to a Catholic school, but he's very open and understanding and willing to, you know, honor some of those traditions and things.

And so, yeah, just slowly incorporating some of those things into our lives.

And I talked to my girls about, I mean, they're so young, they have no idea about my story, but they got to meet.

When we went home last year and to see that, it was one of the coolest things about all of this.

My youngest daughter, she, she's not shy, but she wants what she wants when she wants it.

And she can be very particular and she's not always the warmest child, if you know what I mean.

Like she's a little rebellious.

And, and so we went over there and they warmed up to her right away.

My oldest is shy and she was not shy.

It was almost like to them, it felt like home also.

So that was so cool to see.

And then when we went to leave Ava, my youngest, I mean, she just lost it.

She was bawling her eyes out and she said, I don't want to leave.

I don't want to leave.

And they had just met this woman and that was something that just I'll never forget that.

And so we talk about mommy's mommy is Greek and you know, I teach them just random Greek.

I'm by no means close to being fluent, but I'm just trying to kind of them so that the older they get when they start to understand they realize as well.

And you have such very close ties to Greece.

Do you have any plans or is it on your list that you want to get over?

There for sure, for sure and it's always been on my list.

Like that's the crazy thing.

I feel like Greece has been a popular destination more recently, but long before.

I've always wanted to go to Greece, always.

And I never really knew why it stuck out to me.

I mean, now I know why.

When I was in college, I worked at a Greek restaurant in my hometown as well.

And so it was just so funny.

It wasn't their restaurant, but it's just, you know, looking back, it's so funny to me how close it was.

You know, Speaking of the unthought known, right, But.

The Unthought Know

You know how I, I mentioned that I went through the yearbook and it just started jotting down these random names and then I'm like, what are you doing?

Like, what are you?

What is this going to get you?

So I had like, tossed that paper aside and that's when I pulled out my poster boards and things after I didn't get anywhere with my mother.

And I had come across this paper a few months later, and Alexis, my father's name, is on that paper.

So you did find him initially.

Yeah, I just, that gave me the chills to then see his name because I honestly didn't remember any of the names on that piece of paper.

It was just like a what am I even doing?

I have no clue.

And then I come across this paper again and I see his name and I'm like, holy shit, it was.

It was right in front of me all along.

So, so many of these stories, it's like a combination of really hard work and luck.

Relationship with older sister

Wow, wow.

I wanted to ask you about your relationship with your older sister.

How is that going?

Do you talk to her regularly?

I wouldn't say regularly, but we do try to keep in touch.

We have very different lives.

I've, I've got two young kids.

She does not have any kids.

She's not married.

And she works for a restaurant and so she works late hours, you know, bartending and that sort of thing.

And so we do keep in touch.

She sends my girls Christmas gifts and, and we send birthday gifts to each other and, and that sort of thing.

So it's been good.

We're just, we're very different, but we're also very similar in, in the most random ways.

I don't know that we'll ever be like super, super close, but I think it's just because of how different our lives are, you know?

Sure, sure.

What about your brother?

Were there any questions about his paternity?

Pretty convinced that Michael is also not his biological father.

However do not know for sure.

I was the one who told him about my results when I called him.

I did say if you want or have any interest in taking ADNA test I will happily buy you the test and send it to you.

I can even get the results if you're maybe nervous or afraid of what they might be.

And he, he said, OK, OK, you know, I'll think about it.

But he has not express any interest in doing that.

And I don't know for sure what's holding him back.

But, you know, you say I have had a rough life.

He's had it so much worse than me.

I've had therapy and I've had a solid support, you know, most of my life to be able to process these things.

But I just don't know if he can handle it.

I don't know that he wants to know.

Yeah, totally understand what things have been helping you through this experience.

The importance of family and support

I think going to the conference where I met you so early on, I think a lot of people were very surprised.

That one, I got a lot of comments about how young I was, which you never know when you're going to find this out, but going so early was very helpful because at that point I had only been like six months into maybe eight months into my journey of finding out.

It was, yeah, it was really fresh when we met.

And so while it was very hard because I, I did, I came out of that and I was like, wow, that was a lot.

But it was also super helpful to have that kind of network so early on and all of the tips and advice that they gave and all of the workshops.

I mean, it was just a tremendous amount of information and knowledge that was incredibly helpful.

Of course, therapy, I've been leaning a lot into the physical side of it, you know, movement, sunshine, exercise and and then just having my kids has been so life changing as well.

That's been healing for me too.

Because now, and this might sound strange, but I see myself in them as children and I think it has helped make me a better parent because I know what little Deanna went through and I don't want them to go through that.

And so just knowing that I'm doing my best and obviously I'm not perfect, but knowing that I'm doing my best to break those cycles helps me as well.

And then, of course, talking about it.

Yeah, with our little ones, it, it's an opportunity to re parent ourselves in a way because like you said, you you see little Deanna and now you get a chance to parent yourself the way that you wanted to be parented.

So I, I wasn't sure if you wanted to talk because I saw your Facebook post that you just celebrated 100 days sober.

100 Days Sober

What's your story there?

So I was not on the same path as I was in college, you know, since having kids drinking, I, you know, cut back tremendously.

However, it was still, I would say interfering and and not in the way of like AI was not a functioning alcoholic.

But I would still turn to the class of wine when I had a hard day.

Because as you know, this process, you have days and sometimes weeks where you're in a funk, you're in this groove and, you know, I couldn't get it off my mind.

And so I would want to have a glass of wine or sometimes a bottle of wine.

And I just realized, like, this is not healthy.

And more importantly, it's not helping me.

I think it was making me more anxious, more depressed about the situation.

And it I just wasn't the best version of myself for myself or my kids or my family.

And so I decided, you know, if I'm going to get through this, I really need to lean in and face it.

And not just the DNA surprise, but all of the trauma of my past.

I suppressed everything for almost my entire life up until I had children.

And it wasn't until I had Parker that I really realized how much it affected me and how deeply it affected me 'cause I had never, I just never faced it.

I think it was a combination of everything and me wanting to, you know, just say like it's time to face everything and stop numbing yourself and just get through it and to be more present for myself, for my girls.

You know, I, I just wanted to be more present in life and, and actually it, it, it sounds crazy like when you say you actually want to feel your feelings, but I did.

I I knew that that was the only way to truly get through it and come out on the other side of a better version of myself.

So in your case, it sounds like neither of your parents really knew, but I'd still love for you to share any advice that you have for a parent who might be keeping adna surprise from their child I.

Advice for parents who are keeping adna a secret

Think the truth is ultimately what they should give their child or children, but think even before that, whatever is holding them back, I think they need to take the time to address that and get to the root cause.

Because a lot of times we hear that it's, you know, guilt or shame or fear or, you know, there's a religious aspect or having a child out of wedlock or infidelity or whatever it may be.

Whatever it takes to address that so that they can be at peace with their feelings or their decisions that cause those feelings or the secret, go to therapy.

What you know, whatever it is, it's going to help them because I think 1, they're going to need help with getting through that themselves.

And two, it will make them a better person.

And three, I think it'll make the conversation with their child or children more fruitful and more meaningful.

If you can say, hey look, I messed up or this happened, but I'm I'm also doing this to heal myself as well.

And what advice do you have for someone who just uncovered Adna surprise?

Gosh, that's such a hard question because there's so many things, but I have kind of lived by grace and space is what I say.

I give myself a lot of grace to navigate this and what I found out and everyone is different, but for me, it was so shocking.

And I actually kind of took a step back from pretty much from life, if you will.

I mean, I still had to be a parent.

I still had to go to work, but I took space from friends, from family to process, to heal, to, you know, think about what I was going to do next.

So I think just give yourself the grace and the space that you need and the way you need it and when you need it because it comes and it goes.

You have good months, good weeks, good days, but then you also have bad ones.

And sometimes you need to kind of step back and give yourself that space.

More really good advice.

Thank you, Deanna, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your incredible story and just being so vulnerable and open about all of the things in your life that have happened, the good and the bad.

And I just want to congratulate you for being a cycle breaker as you parent your daughters and take care of yourself as well.

Thank you, Alexis, that means a lot.

And thank you for giving me the platform and the opportunity and thank you for doing this.

I know it's not easy for you and it's a lot of time and love and passion that you put into this and it's it has helped me heal tremendously.

I mean, I listen to your podcast, among others, and I can honestly say it's probably one of the best things for all of us that need it.

So, you know, thank you for giving us the space.

Thank you so much.

Thanks again to Deanna for sharing her story.

We will be back in September with more DNA surprises.

We will also be celebrating the 100th episode of this podcast and I have some surprises and updates in store for you.

Take care of yourselves until next time.

This episode of DNA Surprises was hosted, produced, and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.

It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording Studios.