Lily’s DNA Surprise

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Speaker 1

Hi everyone.

Before we begin this episode, I wanted to take a brief moment to give a shout out to Sam Bradfield who is a Truth Teller level patron on the DNA Surprises Patreon Community DNA Surprises is listener supported and 100% independent.

Your support helps ensure that the podcast will be around for years to come for other people who have experienced the shock, grief, anger, and sometimes joy of Adna Surprise.

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Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2

Hi, mom and my dad.

I can't call them dad, my mom and my biological father.

Their responses to me after finding this out, they're just so disappointing to to hear of two human beings treating well, really, it's their child this way.

As a mom, I just couldn't understand it.

As a parent, I can't imagine treating any human, and especially not my own child, this way.

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

I'm your host, Alexis Ourselt.

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.

If you're familiar with other DNA surprise podcasts, this week's guest needs no introduction.

And if you aren't, allow me to introduce you to Lily Wood, host of NPE Stories.

Lily started NPE Stories after experiencing her own NPE.

She is a strong presence in our community, a bona fide truth teller.

I call her one of the O GS in this space.

She joined me to talk about her DNA surprise, and how it has affected her life.

Lily offers a vulnerable and transparent look at what happens when the relationships in our lives aren't what we hoped for them to be, and how we can create our own families where there is none.

You can listen to countless other NPE stories, including my own on her podcast, which is LinkedIn, the show notes, along with the many fantastic resources she mentioned.

Thank you Lily for sharing your story.

I am Lily.

I am 41 years old and I'm from Minneapolis, MN.

My DNA surprise story, I found out on April 9th. 2019 that I was an N P/E.

I had originally taken a 23andMe test for the health biomarkers that they advertise.

I'm a health not I'm a biohacker.

If there's anything I can change in my life currently that will help me live longer with a higher quality of life, I was like, I will do this.

So I I took it for the health reasons.

And just the tiniest bit of confusion happened with my 23andMe test.

My ethnicity was was slightly different, Not the big change you saw, but I was getting a lot of Italian names show up and I was getting I think maybe like 1/4 Sicilian show up.

And I've always thought that I was almost 50% French.

I was raised by my French father, my Norwegian mother, and to see.

I believe at the time it was 1 to 2% French, but since they've changed things around over the years, it's actually now 0% French.

I'm I'm 0% French but I I my ethnicity was changing with that 23andMe test.

So I spoke with my sister and I said Can you believe we're not as French as we thought?

And she said.

Now I'm 50% French, 50% Norwegian, just like we thought.

But she had taken ancestry and I had taken 23andMe and we knew they were different databases and like so many people, we questioned the technician, could there have been a hair in the test tube?

How?

How great is this science?

And obviously DNA is a sound science, but we were we were questioning this right through a phone call.

And I just had spent my $100.

I wasn't going to spend another and same with her.

But we agreed we needed to take the same company's DNA test.

So four months later, I finally took my Ancestry test.

And that's when I guess you could say the seed was planted.

Something was confusing with my test results.

I'm waiting for my Ancestry test results.

I'm waiting the, I believe four to six weeks.

And I start joking to my husband and my best friend.

Well, who knows what I'm going to find out about my dad.

I was never raised to have any suspicions whatsoever.

I always thought my mom was my mom.

My dad was my dad and I had one sister.

So the day my ancestry test results came, I opened them.

It's in 2019 and.

I see my sister's name which makes sense and she's showing as close family relation and right below that I have with nearly the same amount of Santa Morgans.

I believe it was around 13-14 hundred Santa Morgans relation was this man named Tim and he was showing up as 1/2 sibling as a brother.

But I don't have a brother.

And I switch over to my ethnicity and again it's confirmed.

You know, I have a a chunk of Sicilian and and no French.

And I go back to the DNA matches and I see this last name, an unknown last name, appear over and over and over again.

At least the first six people.

This is the last name I've never heard of.

I am the youngest of 27 grandchildren in a very close family.

I know my cousins, my aunts, uncles, my grandparents.

What is this last name?

And so I tell my mom that I'm coming over to visit her and she says am I in trouble?

And I said no, I I I honestly didn't think she was in trouble.

I just needed to talk to her about this at that point.

Did you think, OK, this is confirmation my sister is my half sister and my father is not my biological father?

Or were you in denial at that point?

I think I was in denial at that point.

Before I'd gone to my mom's house.

I really believed there was a good reason for this.

I Something was off.

But I never suspected that my dad wasn't my dad and I still didn't quite understand Santa Morgan's.

I didn't realize that I wasn't looking at a full sibling relationship.

I didn't realize that you know somewhere in the teens is only 1/2 sibling relationship.

OK, so you go over to your mom's house.

Yes.

I go over to my mom's house and my stepdad happened to be there.

And my stepdad is is basically a father figure.

He's been my dad since I was four years old.

They're both there.

They're in the rocking chairs and and I come in and I just get right into it.

I said I don't have any of my paternal side.

I said my dad.

So I don't have any of my dad's family showing up in my ancestry results.

But Angela, my sister does.

And this last name and I I said the last name is coming up over and over and over again and I'm not French.

What's going on?

I really did not believe that I would hear this and my mom just looks at me and she says in the 80s when I worked at Federal Express, Bill with this last name was my Co worker.

Actually she she called him her boss, which I didn't like.

So there's silence.

And from that I say, are you telling me this man named Bill is my father?

And she just sat there, red faced, pursed lips, probably shame on her face.

And that's how I had to figure out in that moment, Yes, this man is my dad.

He's my father.

My dad is not my dad.

And this Tim showing up in my DNA matches is actually my brother.

How are you feeling at that moment?

In that moment, I was.

So shocked.

I was in total disbelief.

I felt sick to my stomach.

You know, I was.

I hate the word hysterical.

But I felt like almost like a like this kind of this excited this weird hysteria feeling in me.

I was.

I was not.

I was not healthy.

Let's just say that I was not in a good place.

Both my mom and my stepdad were weirdly quiet.

There was no comforting.

There was no getting up to hug me.

I mean, these are not huggers.

Anyway.

It was, it was so surreal.

My mom scoffed.

That's the only way to put it.

She scoffed.

And she said, because I said, are you saying dad's not my dad?

And she said, oh, Lily, your dad is still your dad, you know, immediately dismissive.

And I said who is this man?

Did he rape you?

Who who is this because she had had kind of said it was her boss.

And I realized then she was putting she was already trying to lay the the story down that you know he was in a position of power which is what I believed And and placing herself as, you know, I, God, I thought she was a victim of something in the beginning.

She did admit that it was a consensual relationship.

I said is he still alive?

She said she didn't know and then she tried to give me some office gossip from FedEx in the 80s that I didn't care about something did She was trying to like, change the topic.

I it was so surreal.

And then she laughed and said, You mean I could have gotten more child support?

Wow.

Yeah, it was.

I mean, but this is, this is not.

New behaviour.

This is in my family.

This is this is kind of how things go.

Were you still close with your raised father at this time?

You mentioned you'd had a stepfather since you were four.

Were you still close to your dad?

Was I still close to him?

He was.

So to use your words.

I am a people pleaser.

I'm I guess you could say I'm currently trying to be a reformed people pleaser, but I was raised as a people pleaser.

I I love my parents approval.

I wanted their approval and their love my entire childhood.

They're both rather self-centered individuals.

And my dad, I would have a relationship with where I wanted to please him, and I would.

Give him information I thought he would like about once a month, if that makes sense at all.

So we'd we'd get together for kind of these strained family barbecues once a month for three hours, and I would attend to him and ask him how he was.

I wouldn't say he'd do the same to me.

But no, I guess he I no was not a close father daughter relationship.

So once you get this confirmation from your mom, do you tell him?

No, I made a mistake doing that.

Alexis, I wish I had.

I wish I'd been the one to tell my dad at at the end of this terrible day, I I've actually end up deciding to get up and leave because there's no way I was going to get any support from them.

And I needed love.

I needed someone to be there for me and I needed my husband, honestly.

And so I get up to leave, and I tell my mom.

Well, you're going to talk to Dad about this.

You're going to tell him thinking that here I was making her be the bearer of bad news so I don't have to see him being devastated.

What I did was make a mistake, I realized, because then she was able to present it the way she presented it, and I wasn't there when she told him, but she somehow was able to tell him in a way where she kind of reminded him they'd had a bad marriage and.

She reminded him of all the terrible things he had done to her and then she said you know, she'd didn't realize that when she had had a one night stand with her boss slash Co worker that it resulted in a pregnancy.

I don't think she was truthful or honest, but she's the one that ended up telling him, and I kind of wish that I had taken that one on instead.

Did he reach out to you after that, or how did you find out that he knew?

My mom called me a day or two later.

I had a friend over caring for me because that's where I had to get love and support The following days, after finding out I was an N P/E, I had a friend over and you know where you can hear through a person's cell phone in a quiet room, you can sometimes hear the other person.

My friend thought my mom was so odd and so strange, and it was.

I'm glad she picked up on that because that is how my mom was.

My mom called me and she said, well, I told your dad he's cool about it.

And I remember after the phone call, my friend saying, your mom said he's cool about that, like, that's so weird.

And it was, it's a weird thing to say.

Yeah, my mom apparently did did tell him he found out, and he told my mom.

Well, she's still my daughter, so nothing changes, you know, the kind of the the trait, the the sayings that you hear.

Nothing changes.

She's still my daughter.

How are you feeling during that time?

Well, I had my, what I found out was a panic attack.

I didn't know that.

I thought I was dying.

I woke up, I think it was two or three AMI started to go to the bathroom and I, you know, fell or or or went down kind of in the bathroom.

I'm calling my husband.

I thought I was having a heart attack.

At the time, I was 37 years old.

And I, my body was obviously not responding well to incredible stress and trauma.

And I found out later it was a panic attack.

But in the moment you think you're dying, you think you're dying.

He drew me a bath, and luckily he thought it was a panic attack.

He's Googling at 3:00 AM what to say to someone in the middle of a panic attack.

And it's some something he found where he's able to kind of bring me back to reality slowly.

He was saying things like.

This is just a moment.

This will pass.

You are OK.

You are alive.

Your body.

It was saying like things.

I was only halfway hearing them.

Of course I was not processing things.

Well, let's just say that I I had no support the day after that panic attack.

I called my primary care physician and they were able to get me in that day with an open therapist.

I bet she had a cancellation or something.

She ended up being ACBT Therapist Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

It was quite helpful for life in general.

I worked with her for an entire year.

Did she understand anything about NPE?

No, yeah.

No, I I wish I had made the switch.

Earlier to OR or done some more research, I learned a ton of about great healthy communication strategies and mental distortions and black and white thinking.

I learned a lot of wonderful things.

But no, it wasn't.

It wasn't a perfect fit.

Let's just say that.

And you have kids, right?

Yes, I have three kids.

And what are they thinking during this time?

Did you tell them?

So I did.

I ended up telling them, gosh, within days.

I feel all of that was such a blur.

I did tell them we're always very honest about my my children, all they know about anxiety and depression and we talk about feelings a lot even before all this happened.

So they knew, you know, they knew something was going on.

I think I I told them.

That grandma told me grandpa was my dad and he wasn't and that I was very upset about it and I was.

I was processing things and I just needed to spend some time, you know, I had an age appropriate way of talking with them about it.

But I did tell them the truth from the beginning.

And of course we asked them how, how did they feel about this and.

We gave them plenty of reassurance as well, but I'm I'm guessing at the time my husband was probably taking on a lot more of that because I was not well those first few weeks.

Not at all.

I I was also obsessively on my phone looking into paternity and NPE type of situations because someone had turned me on to the word NPEI think. 3-4 days after finding out, and that's how I was able to find the NPE.

There was a very large NPE forum on Facebook years ago and I joined that one and I was just scrolling, listening or reading stories endlessly those first few days or weeks.

Did you try to find more information about Bill?

Yes, yes I did.

So I needed to know who this man was.

Was he alive?

I googled him.

He was still alive.

He has a, you know, still a big presence on LinkedIn, Board of directors, this trustee, that philanthropist, he's still busy in his retirement age.

I found an e-mail address for him and I emailed him the first day and I I received a reply that that night.

I believe that first day as well and he seemed promising with that first e-mail.

So I was.

I was like, good.

He's not crazy, I don't think, from what I know of him, he said.

Lily, I do remember your mother, and we can bring clarity to this situation, and I'm out of the country, but I'll be in touch with you.

So I was like, OK, this feels good.

This he is, he's formal, he's polite.

He might even be reassuring in a way.

And then?

Lowly things kind of went S after that with him with the next communication weeks later.

It was First of all, I'd reread that e-mail 100 times and he said he was out of the country and he'd be in touch with me when he got back into the country.

So when weeks later he writes me and he calls me Lulu, not Lily, that was a little weird.

Lulu.

I haven't heard from you.

That also freaked me out because I hate to think I've done anything wrong.

I was trying to appease him and his schedule.

I haven't heard from you, Lulu.

That's weird.

Not my name.

And also I was waiting for him to contact me and and a couple other things that were a little bit of red flagish in that e-mail.

And I had like my best friend read it.

My husband, my mentor, a few other people.

And they're like, this is kind of weird.

Why don't you set up a phone call with him?

I did set up a phone call with him.

I had my list of questions.

He answered all of them.

He didn't ask me a single question.

I was fascinated by the stories he told me.

I took notes.

I was absolutely so excited, scared, nervous.

I wanted him to like me.

He came away from that phone call probably feeling pretty good.

I was a little surprised because at the end of the phone call he said he either said he's just going to tell or he has told his wife.

That freaked me out.

He didn't tell his wife for almost a month.

I I just couldn't imagine finding out you had a child and not telling your spouse for.

Was he married at the time that he got with your mom?

No, he was not married at the time.

He was with my mom.

So in in fact he didn't do anything wrong.

He was single.

He was a divorced man with two children, 10 years older than me, 8 and 10 years older than me.

The worst man free to do is he wants.

And my mom was married, but right, you know, she had a one night stand.

She had an affair, but he was not.

When you talked to him, did you express that you were hoping to have a relationship or did it seem like there could have been any door open there?

I didn't say I wanted to have a relationship.

I was very careful with what I wrote him.

I think I started first with the medical history and I'd like to know more about him and I'm excited.

I think I said to know more about him and his family and my siblings.

Did I want a relationship with him?

Yeah.

Inside.

I mean, did I want to admit it?

No.

But like, yeah, I wanted him to love me and like me and be a father figure.

But I know it's probably asking way too much of A complete and total stranger.

But that's what I I wanted and it was really sad the the final e-mail I got from him after that phone call.

I just reread it actually last week.

You know, it's now a four year old e-mail.

I printed it off because I was like, am I going crazy?

This e-mail was so.

I mean the man is is very smart and he uses his words cuttingly well and which kills me.

And then he throws in these slights and insults mixed in with these big words and his great vocabulary and it's it's a terrible thing to read.

But it basically said something like me, my entire family and my children, not me.

Because he doesn't consider me his child.

Me, my entire family and my children are rather disturbed at your behavior.

How you would throw your family under the bus and hurt your mother so very deeply by trying to.

I believe he said reach out to me or or find out, find me.

So that one I reread about 100 times and then he had more paragraphs about how concerned he was at my behavior.

Again, Alexis, I just reached out to find out who this man was.

I don't know what behavior I did.

This, this is very odd, I mean.

And also just this idea that why wouldn't you want to connect to somebody that's biologically related to you that you just learned about.

So it seems like he kind of went like warm, cold very quickly.

Yes, something happened.

Yeah, and so.

At that point, then how are you feeling?

Devastated.

I first of all, there's self blame, right?

I'm kicking myself.

This man is telling me I did something hurtful and wrong and I threw my family under the bus.

So I must have.

I believe him.

I think I I feel deep shame.

I feel like a little kid that's done something wrong.

And it wasn't until I kind of used like my audience, my my husband, my friends and I had a few other people read it, including my therapist at the time, my CBT therapist.

But other than the self blame, I'm also now I'm angry.

I am so angry that I'm being accused of.

I was like, you're the person that had sex with my mother and produced a child.

What I just found out about it at 37 years old had my life you know rocked my world rocked and I'm contacting you to find out more about you and my two siblings.

What have I done wrong?

So I go from one feeling like a very bad person.

Total self blame to now I'm angry and how dare you and some regret that I reached out to him.

I I don't regret knowing the truth.

I regret knowing that I come from bad stock.

I'm so sorry that that happened.

It's just so cruel.

And I think any everyone in the community knows, like, you are the most empathetic, kind person.

And so I'm so sorry that that was the way that they've treated you.

Oh, thank you.

Did you write back to him after that last one?

It was recommended to me to give him space.

I wrote a draft in my e-mail drafts and I I still have it.

It's a four year old e-mail draft.

I just, I always peek at it in my draft.

I never sent it and I wanted to address the points about, you know, I said Bill, I'm curious as to why you think I threw my family under the bus air quotes by contacting you.

And so anyway, I was addressing all of his points.

I never did send it though.

I've with that time and space I realized this person.

Unfortunately he did not seem like a safe person or receptive to me and he is a bit intimidating with his words and his language and his writing skills.

Whatever I were, whatever I was going to write to him, Alexis, he is going to, why not mean have the last word.

And I'm not going to leave this feeling, OK.

My husband wrote him.

My best friend wrote him.

I didn't ask them to.

They did this without me knowing.

But they've got such terrible responses.

They said, Lily, stay away from this man.

I don't know if he's a bad man, but something about me triggered something in him where he, you know, felt it felt, I guess I could say, very protective of his, his family unit.

And I was.

I think he viewed me as some form of enemy when I contacted him.

How are things with your mother?

Yes, so I You know, I'd had a strained relationship with her the few years before.

Mostly, ever since I've become a mom, I realized just how important it is, you know, just to remain healthy and to allow my children to have to feel their feelings and their emotions and not punish them when they show feelings, which is different than my own childhood.

So we're already a bit strained.

My mother, I wrote down the things I wanted to talk to her about because I realized she was in shock that first moment, right?

I have empathy.

I feel she's ashamed.

I feel bad for her.

I know I wouldn't say this was a surprise to her.

She may not have ever had DNA confirmation, but she at least had the knowledge that I could have been the product of an affair with another man.

So I asked her to come over and talk to me.

She comes over and talks to me and I have my list of things I want to ask her and tell her how I'm feeling and her response to things that I go through my 4 important things with her and she interrupts me at the end.

And it's do you never talk with someone?

And you feel like they're not really listening but they're just kind of ready to say something.

You know they're ready to say something.

That was her.

And I could tell with just because I know her and is she's ready to go.

And the first thing she says to me is when I'm done is she says, I'm not hearing any, I feel statements.

Lily, you're just saying you statements.

Like she didn't even hear what I said because she had to correct the way I spoke to her.

Was she right?

Sure.

I probably did forget to say my I feel statements in that moment.

But I'm her daughter and my world has just been torn apart.

And that's what she has to do in that moment is to correct me.

And then I said, mom, I don't even feel like you're sorry.

I don't even feel any remorse.

And she said, go get your phone.

I texted you that I was sorry, like in the most absolutely unapologetic voice you've ever heard.

So I I, you know, I did actually look at my phone and she did say one of those things days before like, I'm sorry you feel that way.

Kind of one of those non apology sorries.

But in her mind, darn it, check.

She'd done it.

Check.

She had said, I'm sorry and we were not to speak of this again and how dare I have any, you know, anything to tell her that's not just OK.

It's OK mom.

We'll sweep this under the rug.

So to answer your question, the the relationship did not go very well with my mom.

And if it had been any other mom and not the one that I'd had my entire life growing up, I I think we could have worked past it.

But this is not the only thing in our history.

And this is a mom who is, You know, I it's so ingrained in me to never say a bad word about my family member, but I do still want to speak the truth.

This is not someone that necessarily curated a relationship where her, her child feels nurtured and loved and cared for.

So I guess this is kind of like the, what's that phrase, the last straw that, you know, the nail on them.

It's this is just kind of, I was like, can I finally just take a break from this relationship?

Can I just release this?

And I, I did take a break from my mom.

We're currently in estrangement.

It's been four years.

It's been a sad, sad, grieving process and I miss her sometimes a lot.

But I I really miss the mom that I wish I'd had is so I don't.

I don't currently have a relationship with my mom.

I wish her well, health and happiness.

I really do.

And I'm completely open if she's ever done any sort of work, to come back into my life like I'm here, absolutely.

But I just can't keep putting in the work with her.

I think a lot of people can identify with that, especially in our community.

For some reason there seems to be themes with the parents involved in these situations.

How was your relationship with your raised father?

It's pretty much the same and I'm good with that.

He just came over a few days ago, 90 minutes, you know, he doesn't ask me questions.

That's fine.

I ask him how he's doing.

I ask him about his hobbies, his activities, and we keep it surface level.

I I care about him.

It will never be deep.

And that's that's OK.

That's how it is.

And he was briefly in my life, kind of in every other weekend, sort of dad growing up, and that's just where we're at.

So it's kind of in that same area, but I actually do speak with him.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you said that.

You've embarked on this with your sister in terms of like getting the testing.

Are you close with her?

Oh, Alexis, That's been so up and down the last four years.

It has been so up and down.

My sister was incredibly, very protective of my mother in the beginning, like a lot of siblings are.

And I understand that.

And I've heard this story hundreds, hundreds of times.

She's very protective of my mom.

Couldn't see things from my side.

That's OK.

You know, I don't blame her.

So I had to just kind of give some space from her.

My sister claimed she was Switzerland.

She's claimed she's being neutral.

But it was very clear that she would talk with my mom about this at length.

But then basically we wouldn't talk about it.

And if it were to come up she would just she would somehow let it be known that she kind of agreed with my mom and that I need to forgive and get over this and and so it wasn't great.

It wasn't great And then my my sister and it actually ended up having some horrific mental health problems and I ended up taking her child in for for six months two years ago.

And so it's been a roller coaster with my sister.

But yeah I don't have a ton of healthy family member.

I have no, I have no family members currently that I'm.

I mean the the close the the close family member that I'm able to really talk with about it.

But I have my, you know, my husband and my my friends and I made my kind of made my own family.

I really miss my cousins though.

They weirdly kind of all stopped inviting me to the the family Christmas gatherings.

And I'm sure it's because of course my mom is one generation above me.

She's more of the matriarch, so they're going to invite her.

And I'm estranged from her.

That does make sense.

I get that, I understand.

But yeah, I miss my aunts and my cousins a lot.

A lot.

I'm curious how you have navigated not having any parent figures in your life.

Because, you know, as, as we talked about on the episode, I did with you.

That's something that I personally struggled with a lot was having kind of a strange meant a strained relationship with my parents and feeling like I didn't have parents.

Really.

How have you managed that?

Yes, that has been a real huge struggle for me.

I was really hoping my in laws would be the surrogate parents.

They're of a you know a different generation and they're more Nordic in nature so that's that wasn't quite the fit my I I was without family support without a parental figure.

My my mentor she's she's only 15 years older than me has has claimed she has a motherly love for me and I do believe that.

I do feel that from her and my best friend who's the same age as she's younger as as she always reminds me, she told me that she has a a family love for me.

We really love each other.

But when I see my best friend's mom come over, help her with her children, her grandchildren, help her paint, help her weed, even braids her hair, I get so envious.

I wish I had that, but I never had that.

You know, I never had that.

She, her, my best friend's mom, has actually started hugging me and inviting me over to her house to her farm an hour and a half away.

And my children, and telling my children they can call her grandma.

And so it's kind of become like a surrogate parental figure.

But I I'm missing that.

And especially as a mom myself, now there's no one to take care of me.

And I've kind of gotten used to that for years, right?

But it is really, it is really sad.

I really miss it.

But I wonder, even if my mom was in my life, I think I would still kind of be missing that parental figure.

Yeah, that idealized version.

Yeah, it's like grieving.

Yeah, grieving's something you never really had, but it's grief nonetheless.

Totally.

You started NPE stories a few years ago and you're really, like I say, one of the O GS at helping people tell their stories.

What led you to start NPE Stories?

For anyone who doesn't know, Oh yeah, I was a total mess, Alexis.

I didn't know what I was doing.

I still don't.

I started that four years ago.

I took my Airpods and I had an Apple developers account.

And because my husband and I make apps.

And so I decided to create a podcast account, and I put it like a 62nd trailer out there saying I'm, you know, I'm starting an NP Stories podcast.

If anyone is right, someone actually has to know what that term means if anyone wants to share their story.

Here's this generic Gmail address I made and I heard from nobody, like, nobody contacted me.

Nobody knew what MP was.

I didn't promote it.

I didn't associate my name with it.

Nothing.

I finally did get one person to come on for my first episode and slowly people would start emailing in, being willing to share their story, but that it was rough in the beginning.

So I was obsessively reading these NPE forums, people saying here I'm going to share my story.

I it felt so good when people started explaining to me their childhood, their relationships with their parents and their siblings, and how they found out they were an NPE.

The shock, the grief, the various emotions.

I would just nod along as I was reading it and I was staring at this blue light, this tiny screen for hours and hours a day, and I still need to feed my kids and drive them places and clean and do laundry.

And I said if I could just listen to this in audio format and I was, I was already a podcast listener.

I love podcasts, right?

I miss it now.

I hardly get to listen to them anymore.

So that's I just wanted to hear these stories in audio format.

And I said, well, I'd be willing to record stories.

I could, I could do the editing and no problem.

I didn't want to share though, No way.

And so I just associated only my first name with it.

And I was anonymous the entire first year.

And I eventually, of course, you know, came up with my full name because I was like, why am I so ashamed of this?

Like, But yeah, that's why I did this is I just wanted to hear other people share their stories because it made me feel better to have a sense of of community.

Yeah, so I was going to ask you because you were anonymous in the beginning and you weren't out there with your first and last name.

What was it that really pushed you to now be open with your story?

And I mean you talk very vulnerably about the relationship that you have with your parents and and how this has gone.

What pushed you to do that?

Well, I'll tell you why I was keeping the secret.

One was, you know, my mother's shame.

But also, I still was kind of hoping my my new siblings and my birth father would accept me.

And I thought they wouldn't if they knew I had a podcast and I was talking about it.

And so that first year, I kept that secret because I really wanted them to accept me and love me, and I didn't want to do anything to rock the boat or to make them want to reject me even more than they're already doing.

And finally, I realized this rejections, I mean this.

This is their choice.

This is what they're doing.

And I have these brave people coming on telling me they're scared, they're nervous.

They haven't been able to eat all day.

They're ready to tell their story.

And sometimes they they share these open, honest things with me, as you know.

And sometimes there's tears.

And they were so brave and I felt foolish being a host of something and not being open and honest myself.

So it's really the people that came on, you know, Richard Wenzel and Gina Daniel and and and all the people that came on that first season that I was like, I love these people.

I I'm going to share my story too, and I'm going to associate my name with this podcast.

This is a silly thing to be in it, but it's part of my journey, part of my process and my shame.

It's actually you could hear it in the first season.

How secretive I am.

Yeah, coming, breaking down.

That stigma is so important, yeah.

What things have helped you?

Process your NPE.

You're more than a few years out now.

What do you think has been most helpful to you?

Oh, let's see here, listening to other people's stories, this podcast.

I'm just nodding along all the time but even without my own my own podcast, it's I love the forums the there's, you know Facebook forums there's Instagram content It's just a nice way to check in just for two to three minutes when I'm somewhere and and to see these I can't even remember some of the names of my friends and moderators and people that have things, even you DNA surprises and people that create nice content that I can just nod along with.

And the donor conceived world, the LD as the right to know.

Yeah, I I think that's those things have really, really helped me.

Danny Shapiro's book was one of the first things that really helped me in the beginning.

Richard Wenzel has has has done work with NPE, type blogs with Gina, Daniel, and yeah, just community other Npes that get it.

When I'm around people that get it, it's just like a weight is lifted, as I'm sure you know from your retreats when people get it.

The the shock behind the DNA surprise, it's like you don't have to do all the back story and I don't have to change my verbiage around talking about estrangement or rejection or the intricacies around reaching out to new family members.

It's like I can just get right into the guts of it.

Thank you for sharing that, and I'll be sure to include any of the resources that you listed in the show notes.

Where can people?

Find you If they want to listen to NPE stories or share their story with you, well, I have a podcast called NPE Stories.

It's on most of the podcasting platforms I believe.

If anyone wants to share their story of a long wait list, and if you're willing you know to wait 50 some slots, I'd be happy to have you on it's NPE stories@gmail.com if they want to to reach out.

What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping Adna Surprise from their child?

If you're keeping Adna Surprise from a child, be so willing to bring the truth to their attention as soon as possible.

But do it in a you know, do your research.

Maybe listen to the podcast or or read about NPE or go on Severance magazine to find out more about DNA surprises.

But do tell the truth as soon as possible, because the ability to reach out to someone, especially as people are aging and and parents and grandparents are aging, you you.

Sometimes you have a short, short window and your child needs to know the truth.

They do and and to do it in a way.

And please, if you have kept a secret from your offspring, show true remorse and be willing to do a four step apology.

You know and and make it right and check in with them even a week later, a month later, a year later.

Continue to ask them.

Don't make them feel like they can't talk about it ever again.

Oh, that's really good advice.

And that's a first.

I haven't heard that one before that checking in, but I think that that's really, really important.

So thank you for sharing that.

I think that hits for both of us, right?

It does.

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

Oh boy, don't do what I did.

If you.

If you just found out you're an NPE, well thank goodness you've run across finding out you're a podcast.

No, you are not alone.

There are people like you.

We have community.

You can be a lurker on these forums, on these online groups, even if you're not on Facebook.

There's other online communities and you can you can just read to.

You don't always have to be a participant.

I would highly recommend to go to a retreat or a summit.

I know that's scary to go to a place with strangers, but it is a wonderful place to just say I am scheduling my healing for 3-4 days, whatever it is and and I would really suggest being immersed in some form of a a community like that.

So I think, yeah, definitely retreat, getting involved in the online and forums and then in the podcasts, yeah.

Lily, thank you so much for joining me and thank you so much for all that you do for the NPE DNA Surprise community.

I wish you so much peace on your journey as you continue to process this and hopefully I'll see you soon.

Oh, you're so sweet, Alexis.

And thank you for all your hard work to your one woman show.

So thank you for everything you do as well.

I appreciate you.

Thanks again to Lily for sharing her story and be sure to listen to her podcast and PE stories available on all