Rose’s DNA Surprise

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Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

And all the things that I've done everything that I do revolves around, talking to him each day now, and it's not replacing anything.

I have a wonderful life.

It just completes me.

It just makes me feel good and it, you know, and I know, it'll probably lean off a little bit because now it's new, and I have so many questions and, and he'll say, I had to call a phone picked up twice today, and I was going to call you, and I change my mind and I said, you don't.

Your mind, like, call me, it was only for a minute, it just lets me know that you're thinking about me and I'm thinking about you

imagine spitting into a tube, sending off your DNA.

And unknowingly turning your life upside down for me and thousands of others.

This is our reality, I'm your host Alexis ourselves in July of 2021, I discovered that I am an NP e someone who wasn't Experienced a non paternal event.

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

The journeys of people who were shocked by a DNA Discovery.

Mostly through Modern DNA testing.

We're telling the stories of NP, he's adoptees, and donor conceived people, and their families.

This is DNA surprises as traumatizing his DNA surprises can be.

There are In Silver, Linings and this week's episode Rose shares, how she felt different from her family, her entire life, and finding out, that she was an NP e made things.

Make sense.

She also shares her journey and uniting with her biological father and how that relationship is progressing.

Thank you for sharing your story Rose.

My name is Rose Marie.

I am if I will soon be 55 and I'm from Newfoundland most of my life I've kind of felt that there was something missing there was something not right?

I always had many questions in my head but afraid to ask, I grew up in a home that wasn't necessarily the best home.

It was kind of a home that I felt.

I wasn't A child that was wanted in the same sense of the loving home and my parents were married.

After I was born and it seemed to be something that was kind of, he was talked into, and he he he always made sure that in arguments, they would have that.

It was brought up that he didn't know if I was his and same things to my mom.

And, and she was Very strict with me and lot of times I would we call it a new in Newfoundland or trimming kind of thing and wouldn't tolerate anything and was very angry all the time and would blame him for things that sometimes to me.

It was a lot of things that wasn't so so that when I like most of my life that I can recall and so it all I always questioned it and I always knew that she had gone away around the time that she got pregnant.

Pregnant.

I knew that she was in Ontario around that time as well.

And I even questioned my aunt at some point who I was very close to at the time and asked her, you know, is it possible that somebody else is my father, will you have to talk to your mother?

And I was kind of afraid of her.

I really didn't want to bring anything up and because like I said she was pretty strict and those things just weren't have to do.

So as an as an adult, I always had questions and I was always a bit Affirmed on very upfront person and very I call it as I see it.

And my families weren't like that.

I didn't see many characteristics, even though they would say, I look like my mom, I didn't see.

It was just the light here I had at the time and glasses and stuff and I just it just I wasn't feeling that I was part of the families and I felt her Secrets.

Did you have any siblings that you grew up

with no?

No, I have one adopted brother.

I was 12 years old when we adopted them and so I never had anybody to compare myself to or and, you know, and I even that I felt that you mistreat a little better than I was even though he was adopted and I was like, I don't understand that like how can and every little girl wants to be daddy's little girl.

That's that's how I felt and I was never that Even though my mother would say, I would chase them everywhere, you know, when I was small and stuff but I don't recall a lot of that.

And I don't recall ever being hugged and kissed and, you know, sitting on Daddy's lap and you know, Daddy loves you or and that kind of stuff.

Like it was never that and I guess every little girl wants that in the end, you know?

And so as I had my own children and that it became even more.

So it was like how can you have a child and not Feel.

I don't care if it's biological or not.

How can you have a child in your home and raise them?

And not be more loving more, you know like how can you not show that you love them?

You become attached to them.

Yeah, it's just

natural.

It is if you have any kind of be heard at all.

Its to me is natural and then in 2009 I went into a gentleman's house with a friend of mine.

And him and his wife were there when they found out where I was from.

Cuz, I mean, it was a small area was from, and when they found out who I was, she looked at her husband and said, do you realize this could be your daughter and I just about fell off the floor and to the floor from the stool.

I mean, I would never, I thought it but I would never expect it.

Would just come to mind like that, like that.

It would just come in my face like that.

Yeah.

So how did you end up in this

person's house?

Did you suspect?

That this was your father or no.

No, it was just a dirty, it was a lady's son.

It was his gentlemen, stepson.

And I was just in your was Christmas or something and I was there with him and does just conversations and when she found it, my last name and who I was, she just blurted it out and that's her.

Knowing her.

Now, it's just the way she is and this man believed for.

I was 41 years old at that time.

And he believed for 41 years, that I may be used, and I never knew it.

My mother apparently went with him around the same time that she went with my birth certificate.

Father, now the one that raised me and apparently everybody told him that I was his all those years and it's very I don't know gut-wrenching, I guess, and it was a good thing.

You know, I felt good about it was, it was a shock, but I felt good.

And so then they explained everything to me and his he wasn't going with delayed.

He was married to den.

And when he came when they started talking and telling me things, he remembered every detail he remembered when he was with her, he remember where they were, he remembered everything.

Thing.

But she had gone away the month that she got pregnant.

She was, she went away.

And when she came back home that fall, he asked her.

She said she was pregnant and he said, is it mine?

And she said, no, but everybody else questioned it.

And his whole family thought that I was his and he said, he never ever bothered, because he thought I had a good life growing up and he didn't want to interrupt that.

And he would, his wife told me that he used to cry in the night time because he, I used to think that I was his and he felt, he only had two sons and he felt that he was missing something.

Wow.

Back then which is 2009.

Baby.

Didn't do DNA tests like they do now, like, we could, but we did, he sent for DNA test him and his wife, she's bit, she was very, very supportive and and wanted him to find out for sure.

And to me we were very similar like things that we did and all that.

And I guess you'd look for because now you're like oh wow, somebody really wants to be my dad, you know, like And no matter what age like I said, you always want that and so they said way to Winnipeg and got the test from when we had it done and when the day came that it came back through email, they got her.

The two sons knew of me, I didn't know anything of them and they came to his house and we read out the results and it came back negative and he was absolutely devastating that.

I was devastated.

I couldn't even keep going back there even though they were such wonderful people.

I I felt such a loss.

It was just, I couldn't believe it.

I said, there's no way twice now, like, you know, it's is not right?

So in the process of that, I told my mother and she absolutely lost her mind.

Why would you even think that?

Why would you even go there with that?

And I said, because I had you.

Well, I don't know, do you think that I would put up with everything I did to keep you in our home with your father or that for you?

You know what I mean?

To go through everything.

I did if he wasn't your father.

So Then you're feeling guilty.

Then you're really like, okay well, I guess, you know, I'm doing this and it's wrong and she made sure that I knew I was wrong.

And that, all these years, I questioned her, you know, and and felt bad about it.

And I did, I felt really, really torn about it.

And so, I went on a bit, my business and her, and I have had a very odd relationship, adult years more than anything.

And sometimes we go through periods, that we don't talk, she's Very controlling.

She's a very controlling person.

And if I could say nari narcissistic, that would be an explanation.

And anybody that's gone through this, I've read through all the DNA surprise things online and I associate so much to everybody and you're the guilty one, your made feel as though you're the one to blame for all this.

And every time my father would hit her.

I'm only here because of you.

So I took All of that to hurt and I grew up with that thing in every time.

Did he hit her?

And every time that she got mad and slapped me will, then I was my own fault because on the reason that she's here, so I kind of left it, we talked, you know, we we kind of Rican.

We can little that little mother-daughter thing for a few years and I met my second husband, and he was very supportive and couldn't understand a lot of stuff.

I was going through, I went back to counseling.

He even went to counseling with me because As he grew up totally different than I did complete opposite.

From what I did.

And I wanted that so much and his mom and dad had passed.

And I used to say my God, if I could have only met them, you know, I could get that feeling.

Still Christmas two years ago, he gave me a DNA test for Christmas.

And I'll so excited was just before Christmas, he gave it to me and I called it was around that time so it took a little longer to get it back and I got it back and none of my family.

I was always told I was French because of my last name my my father birth certificate.

Father came from New Brunswick and there's nothing that I think so.

Well, okay, so what am I going to do now?

No one's coming up.

Somebody has had to do the test.

It does not that didn't seem sensible that they didn't.

So, you didn't have any

matches.

None.

And the ones that I thought were the last names that I had no clue who they were, the one that was very close to me, would have been a cousin and I thought she was my mother's brother's daughter.

Her name was similar and I think his he had her before he was married and I thought, oh, that's who that is.

So I kind of left it Wayside.

And then there was a young man that came up his last name, and I contacted him through every Facebook account that I could through the DNA, you know, ancestry thing.

And no response, no response.

And I got my cousin that I grew up with which she's not my cousin now, but I guess we'll always be.

I asked her to do a test for me so that I could confirm that I'm not related to the dad that raised and She said not a problem, so she didn't and it came back in February or March.

I think merch somewhere around there, and she called me.

And she said, are you sitting down?

And I said, well actually is really early.

I'm laying down, still in bed.

She said, you're no relation to me and I was devastated.

I mean, because now I knew that she had lied all this time and she had every opportunity to finally told me the truth and Everything we went through.

What you other gentlemen, we kind of rekindled a little bit and I'm thinking like, you lied, you lied, you lie.

You didn't even have the courtesy or to decency or respect to come forward to.

You had every chance to tell me so I called her, I found her.

Number P had moved from one place to the other and I called her and I just said, I want to know who my father is.

And she said, what do you mean?

And I said, I want to know who My father is you picked a fine time to call me about this?

You've never been nothing but trouble since I had you and I said this is not about pitter-pat and back and forth.

This is about me knowing that the man that raised me is not my father and I want to know who it is.

Well, who's coming up on your ancestry?

And I told her so she gave me a tri.

I asked her a couple names because there is a very common name and I had heard that it might be one guy.

She said no, she said and she told me his first name is Rex and I said, okay, so then I would have had to try to find it all this information and I knew the community came from, it was just finding it and I did have friends down there, but it was just a process.

You really want to be sure.

But just before that, I kind of jumped ahead, because I thought it was one gentleman, and my husband knew his daughter, he had died and my husband had known the daughter and he contacted her.

And she had had a test done for me and he wasn't okay.

And just gentlemen, we had heard had a child from somebody around where my mom is from.

So it ended up being just one big Buster was nothing.

I mean I she I kind of upset her trying to find it my information.

You know she was very forgiving and very, and she wouldn't tell her mom until she was shorter and I'm glad for that but I felt I needed to know and I had every right to know.

And so when she gave me, the name Rex, then I kind of started and I can't say me, I'm saying, I investigated at all, I didn't my husband spent night after night hour after hour after hour, he had so many obituaries and I'm sure funeral home don't have as many as he had trying to find us out for me because he knew how much it meant to me.

And in the process actually he found a cousin of mine that was looking for his mom.

He was given up for adoption in Ontario and is from where my birth father is from and we had a reunions with them this last fall, and some of my cousins.

So I got to meet all them before.

I've actually got to meet my birth father, so they were very welcoming.

We've had a great reunions with them and he flew home from a Ariel met his biological family and it's a wonderful wonderful thing.

That's amazing.

I

heard a lot of negative and I heard some positives and you get that fear that, I don't know if I really want this person or that side of the family in my life because at my age.

Now, I've been through so much turmoil that I don't know if I can handle anymore.

And

so what were some of the things that you were worried about?

Some of them are not the best characters they've been in trouble and you know, there is some of them are into drugs and stuff in it happens and All Families.

I know that.

But sometimes you only get that side of it, you know, is like negative things you want to hear that.

You don't hear all the positive and I kind of didn't know what to do.

So.

So, I found his number.

He was living with his brother and his brother's wife, and he had come home from Ontario.

He lived in, Ontario most of his life and raised, two children was married and divorced, and I found his number is his brothers number actually, and I called it To get everything you made a call and I asked for him and his brother got him on the line and I told him who I was and I said, you know, it's a possibility that you're my father.

No, my lovely couldn't be me and I mean, I just didn't know what to say what to do.

Was his work, you know, I had the DNA, I had at that point.

I knew that his niece was related to me, I had spoke to her on Facebook and on the DNA thing, but they weren't really close or so I thought, and she said, well, what do you want from me?

And I said, well, nothing really.

I just wanted to know if you knew anything about on, you know, and he didn't really.

So, that's what I decided to call him myself.

I just said, well, apparently, you know, this is what Happened and weekend that you were with her.

This is what happened and you picked her up at a train station, which she had told me that little bit of information.

And she went off to stay with her brother in Ontario, and his wife and back, then, in the 60s, they partied all weekend.

And apparently that's when I was conceived, but it was all the time frame from when she was in Ontario and Newfoundland.

So, maybe she really didn't know.

I don't know, because I haven't spoke to her since, you know, I guess I've mellowed a little bit.

It all happened and times are different then than what they are now.

So, do I forgive or not?

Really, and I know I'm going to need to in order to move forward.

I'm just not there yet.

I'll just hung up and I sat down and I wrote him a letter and I sent the letter to him.

And I said, I'll wait for you to get in touch with me.

I said, you know, it's your call.

I said, I want nothing from you.

I just want to know who you are.

And I told him about the situation with my mother and apparently I put in a joke there that I guess you were.

It could have been a number of people but you were the lucky one kind of thing and the luck of the draw.

Because apparently, that's what I said, I don't remember saying that and I left it, I just that was last year and I left it and ice it, a Christmas card this year, actually, and I had been given pictures through the family that I know now through the reunions and his Mother, I look like his mother and I had a picture done off myself and her side by side and I sent it to him in the mail and he got it just before Christmas this year.

And I said you know I hope you realize that I am your daughter because I said I hope you see the resemblance I said all I wish is you have a good Christmas and a great New Year and I just signed at me.

So around the 22nd of December I was at when the stores I live and the phone rang and it was an Ontario number, and I wasn't going to answer.

So, yeah, maybe I should, you know, and so many scams and stuff and I answered the phone and he told me who it was.

And I just found someone more in store and my daughter-in-law was with me and I'm trying to reach you for her.

Tell her and I'm trying to grab her by the shirt and I lose all my stuff out of my arms.

And she looks at me and I just know the words that my father And she went to get my husband and my son, and I'm in the corner of the store, but an hour talking to him and he's apologizing for not getting in touch with me.

And he said, I knew he said after you hung up that conversation said, I knew that was a possibility, he said, but I guess you really don't want to admit it and he said, the, let his sister and I used to say, to me, can you call that lady?

Did you call that lady?

And he say, no, I will one day.

I will one day and He did.

And from the 22nd to today, we talked every day sometimes twice a day.

It's the best feeling in the world.

It's of all the turmoil and all of the I haven't met them because of covid.

I've been five and a half hours away from him and he just wants to meet me and I just want to meet him.

And he such a sweet person and then going back to about his family.

Yeah, there's some that are, he's not one of them.

He's a very kind man.

Very gentle.

I don't sense any reason other than him wanting to get to know me.

Personality-wise, I think we're a lot alike, it's just been so positive.

It's been such a wonderful Christmas.

I didn't get to see my children and This doesn't replace any life that I have.

Now, I have a wonderful.

I have a wonderful husband, two, great children and their spouses.

It just completes my life.

My heart is so full.

I can't tell you.

I'm so happy for you and nobody gives up.

Don't give up.

Hopefully, it'll come.

I didn't think it would be 75 years old now.

So I'm just waiting for covid to let up so I can go see him.

And, you know, And I know that he has no family, one son has passed away and one, he's doesn't have much contact with he's in Ontario for a personal reason, you know, he doesn't have much contact with him, and he's never had a daughter and where he lives, it's only his sister Li his brother passed away last year, so who knows?

Maybe he'll move it where I am, and we've talked about that.

So that's kind of up in the air and, you know, God, Of it.

I'd absolutely love it.

Oh, I am so happy for you.

Congratulations.

What are some things that you've learned about him and have any of those things?

Put some pieces together for you in terms of who you are as a person.

It has.

And I've learned that he never knew about me, like he never ever had contact with my mother after.

So it wasn't like, oh well, she's pregnant and I'm not, I don't know.

It was mine.

I'm not going to be around her kind of thing.

It was just a weekend thing.

It wasn't something that was ongoing.

He stayed in Ontario, and she came back to Newfoundland.

So it wasn't like he saw her somewhere down the road and could question, you know.

Okay, well, she's got a baby this age.

I'm I'm not a funny person, but I very sharp.

I'm very quick, and we say things back and forth to each other and we laugh and joke about it because I can, I can here It, I can hear myself.

I love trucks.

I love I'm kind of time, boys.

He's always had a trunk.

It's the little things that you and things that he I love Lobster.

I can a lot of newfoundlanders do but I've never had like, I mean, I'm like, that's my favorite and it's his favorite.

He like you said, you'd nobody can put them in front of me that I couldn't eat them.

Well, that's what And it's little things that you keep in your mind because you're like me and you don't want to keep saying it to him.

It's like me, you sound like me, you have reactions like me, he's very thin man, my son is very thin which like, we don't know why he's very tall, then that's what he's like.

I'm more like his mind like my grandmother in the sense of shorter and, you know, chunkier kind of person But I think his personality is a lot like my son is a lot like him so it's nice to see that.

It's nice to this it you know the sad part is is that my birth certificates family?

I've had one aunt and uncle that I was fairly close to.

And every time I bring it up to her as an adult, it would be like a glider.

He's a silly, you're just like their last names, right?

And the sad part is is that you lose family because of this when I found out that I In my Bible, in my birth father, her to difficult father's, I posted on Facebook because I had nothing to hide.

And I felt that I had every right to say what I wanted to say who I wanted to.

Listen, if you didn't want to listen, they could delete me.

I really didn't care at that point and I didn't say anything nasty.

I just said that my father wasn't my father, do you know that they don't even speak?

To me?

They have never message, and I was very close to them.

So all of your birth certificate It Father's family, doesn't speak to you anymore.

I have an aunt in Alberta that she speaks to me when you know.

But this particular aunt and uncle I was very close to and they've never message me to say actually at the I got to one point that I just took them out.

My Facebook, they would never message.

They would net and it's her more than it is.

My uncle.

And she was one of the people that always said, oh, you're just like, so and so, don't you be so silly?

We and, and all that.

And I used to say, no, I don't feel that and it's almost as if they knew, like, that's what I take from it is like, did you really know and now that I found out the truth?

You're feeling guilty but I don't understand that part.

I don't know if anybody else is families.

Have been through that.

I think people behave so strangely, in these situations I've definitely personally experienced it where people that I thought would be more supportive and check in, don't say anything.

And I do end, they were people that knew.

And so I think that there's a shame, there's a shame there.

That makes them hide.

Now, does your birth certificate father?

No,

yes, I contacted them and Like I said, we didn't have the best relationship.

It's because of the way I grew up and I kind of it was very taxing.

And I as an adult, I decided to keep distance.

And, you know, and I mean he provided everything for me, other than the emotional, he provided a home.

He always worked.

I didn't do with it and sense of, you know, I didn't have everything, but that's fine too.

That just made me work harder myself.

But it was a very abusive home and I just walked away from a kind of thing, you know?

I don't wish any ill will or anything like that, but when I did find it, actually my husband told him I couldn't and he just told him he said, you know you were right, Rosemary is not your daughter.

He said, I just thought you should know and he was like, okay, thank you for calling but he's never made any kind.

Contact.

After my son lives in the same Community as he does.

The same town.

He still in contact with my son, he never questioned anything to him.

My son is his grandson.

But I also have a daughter and he treats her to same way.

He treated me and he has no contact with her.

She pretty much means nothing and she never has.

So my wish is that my father that I found it?

I have It is accepting of her like he is of me and I think that's going to happen for her.

That's my prayer is that she finally gets to grandfather that she deserves, because she was a good woman.

She's a good girl.

And my son is too, but it's always been the boy thing.

And like I say, we adopted my brother and he kind of took the place of I guess of boy, on the thing, right?

And I was just to the Wayside anyway.

Solid, you know it's a good thing and a bad thing and I try not to go back other than talking to you right now.

I try not to go back down those roads because it's just too painful.

And I'm just waiting for me to go see him so that they're my children can come the next day, right?

And you don't so that Emma and my son will have a relationship with them but I really want my daughter to finally have cuz her other grandpa.

Other honours.

Other side is passed away, so I'm hoping that this is going to make up a lot for her.

That's wonderful.

Have you confirmed with your mother or have you just not spoken to her since I had last conversation?

No, okay,

spokesperson.

It's, but it's confirmed.

I mean, I went back to the DNA and I got the assistance of a DNA angel, when I had Rick, Name.

And what I didn't tell her his name I gave her access to everything and she came back and told me his name.

Also told me he had one brother, his brother's name and she said because his brothers, it could be either one.

But the other brother was nowhere in Ontario.

He was he was married and living where he was living and so it wasn't him.

So it sounds like your husband has just been so instrumental in helping you through this.

This process.

What other things did?

You find have been helpful to you as you learn this information?

I know that you kind of knew it your whole life but once it was confirmed, what things have helped you accept it and he'll and

process.

I guess, having two conversations with him.

Now each day, I don't know if a lot of people feel like this, but I would look in the mirror and I would never feel good about myself.

I am my husband would tell me, you know, you're beautiful and all the things that, you know, a husband does.

But I couldn't feel that I couldn't see who I was and I don't think anybody can understand that.

Unless they go through it, it's once I have my grandmother's picture, it was like, oh my God, like it's me, it's going to be me as I get older and knowing that somebody wants to be in your life, you put it.

You have a different perspective on things.

Like this Christmas has been probably the best Christmas and it's because I can finally feel complete.

So it does so much for your inside.

It gives you this feeling that somebody actually wants to be part of your life.

Have you heard of genetic

mirroring?

No.

So it's

basically what you're talking about and it's it.

Most often is applied to adoptees because they're adopted by, you know, both parents, but it's about how important it is to see yourself in your family and how being able to do that gives you a strong sense of self-confidence and self-worth and all of the things that you are just talking about.

And then when you finally do, see your biological Family.

It's like something clicks and it's just it's very important for your sense of self to see yourself in the people that you're around when you're growing up.

So yeah I completely understand that I didn't know there was a name

to it but that's how I felt that's how I feel right.

It's it may gives you a whole different perspective because I was always trying to see myself in and I do have my mother's family.

I know I do have certain traits Yes.

But they and since all this have gone on nobody speaks no none of her family has reached out to me whatsoever.

So I feel that most of them knew.

How

do you feel about

that?

It hurts?

It hurts my mother and I go different periods of time throughout the years that we don't talk and it's almost as if when we don't, that's when her side of the family.

Don't bother with me at all.

And I tried Numerous occasions to be in touch with my cousins and a few years back.

One of my cousin's tried to be in touch with me.

And I was to the point in my life that I really didn't need them.

I had gotten over what I needed to get over and I just don't bother me.

Don't bother with me please.

Like I didn't want them in my life but I do have a chance that I grew up with.

I mean I was very close to and none of them have reached not one knowing how I grow up because every one of them knew it and want my mother to leave for years.

They didn't know how hurt my mother was to me.

And it's funny because maybe your was good times, but as a child, you only remember the bad stuff, that's the sad part.

It, it weighs the good and I can't change that.

I can't take that away from my mind, I can't I've had counseling and I've just learned to deal with it and Really, I can't say is not my last but I think this their last two because I'm a good person, I wouldn't do anything to hurt anybody to intentionally.

I've made mistakes many and a lot of it had to deal with not knowing who I was and where I came from.

And I felt I was being lied to and I'm quite satisfied with my life right now.

I've never been more content than I am right now touching on that.

Howdy

You think it affected you growing up, and into your, you know, early, adulthood having that uncertainty about your father,

it played a big role of definitely because you are, you're always missing something.

It doesn't matter how, like, I didn't do what it wants, like I say Christmas time, especially, I recall was always lots.

And, but you miss that connection with both parents.

Really because I always felt as though, Not that I wasn't wanted but it was like, I was a hindrance.

It's like they were put together and they really shouldn't have been together and I've come to find out that my birth certificates.

Father kind of talked him into marrying, her and back.

All those years ago, I mean to be a single parent and have a child was a big deal.

So she was probably lucky that he did in that sense, because if she had been with, you know, she was with Rex and she couldn't reach him.

Anyway, I don't think that they Be kind of knew she kind of would know where he was back, then wasn't cell phones, and like everything is now, right?

And like I say, I mean, I guess forgiveness will come, but it's your missing something, and I don't know, and I can't explain like there's a lot of people that have had relationships with their birth certificate, father, that has been wonderful.

I've read stories.

Probably the best thing could have happened to them was being raised by another Her man, because some of them are not really great and maybe she'd even my mother made the best choice that she's not.

She could make at the time, not knowing what this man was about and all that, you know, only being with him a short time, but sometimes I feel I would have been better off if I was given up for adoption.

And so sad as that sounds, that's how I feel and I can't change those feelings.

It wasn't really.

As a child, I didn't have much of a childhood even though it was only me for 12 years, I still there was so much that I missed out on.

And I remember going to my friends house, there was, she had three sisters, it was for girls and they had an awesome mom and dad and I used to not want to go home, I wanted that but I didn't have it.

And I guess you try to fill it in even though you don't realize that the time you try to fill in the void, Right.

And I even took counseling, it was, you know, well, the little girl inside you miss something.

So now, you have to feel that more, you have to do everything for that.

Little girl, right?

And I never treat my children the way that I was treated.

So you do learn and you do things differently, you break the cycle, you do what you have to do, and I am who I am and I can't change that, you know, and And I don't know if I want to change it right now because I wouldn't be where I am.

I wouldn't be married to who I'm married to, I wouldn't have the two children that I have and I know I wouldn't have a father in my life that I wanted.

So you know all said and done there's always at the end of the road, you know, and I hope nobody gives up I don't because I didn't, I kind of left it and I kind of just, you know, I am kind.

Persistent and my father laughs now.

And I say that and he's like no and I get a real chocolate of it.

Right?

And I says are you glad that I was though?

And it's that kind of a relationship, we laugh back and forth and I just can't wait to meet them and I hope everybody gets the same result I really do.

I guess it's the what ifs, no matter what you do in life is what if what if I had chosen this road what have I had done that?

What have I done this for my career?

You know?

But we can't keep going back to that because they're not only takes backwards and you can't go backwards.

All the wishes in the world if you could change, you can't.

So I guess I'll tell you except that.

That's the only way you're going to move forward.

Yeah, exactly.

So looking towards the future, what, what is your hope with your birth

father?

I'm hoping within the next little while to we've had a lot of covid cases here in the last couple of days, which even last year when it was full force, we didn't have cases like that.

And like I say my daughter is at long-term care in her City and she's now probably positive.

So I was glad that I didn't go in, you know, to her face.

But my hope now is as soon as this lets off, I'm going to go in and visit them and my Are going to come visit them the next day and we're going to form a bond.

That's only just going to continue with what we have started.

I'm hoping possibly that he may move into town where I am, you know, not with me because I don't want that.

That's, he has his life and I have mine but sneer so that I can ease into a, seniors complex, and our seniors complexes here.

I do home care.

And so maybe he'll move here and I'll help a will help him move here we've already He said to be packaged to him and he's all overwhelmed.

But what's in it and it's even pictures of when I was a little girl that I we've had done off and send a little album to him and so there's a lot of things that he needs to catch up on and a lot of things that I need to catch up on and that's going to be, you know, we're going to continue with our lives and do what we're doing and work and all that my children and but he's going to be a part of that.

Do you have any hope about the A ship with your

mother.

Um, I don't think we'll ever have a mother-daughter relationship in the sense of when I let stuff go and go back to where we were.

I think, eventually, I'll forgive because I need that for me.

Not really necessarily for her.

I'm trying to understand her position that bin.

I'm trying is just continual lies and I think If she can get past, the lies and come clean with everything that happened.

There may be a sense of.

Okay, that's my mother and not feel that ugly, feeling that I feel because I don't want that because, no matter what she still raised me, no matter how she treated me, she's still my mother, but I don't trying to get past it and it's really her and I know that other people are trying to and I feel bad.

And some can get past it and never have an issue with it.

It must be awesome.

Feeling to be able to do that.

I wish I could.

I don't, I don't know when that'll happen.

No, more than I knew when he get in touch with me.

So I'll just take it day by day and see how it goes.

You know, I'm, I'm open to stuff more now than I was.

So, who knows?

Yeah, I don't wish you any ill will.

I don't wish anything bad for her.

I would just hope that she would get some satisfaction out of knowing that I finally have the answers that I was searching and I just wish that she would had a come forward herself.

When all of it started, as I became an adult, she had many opportunities to tell me I wish she wished she

had.

Yeah, what advice would you give A parent who might be keeping a DNA surprise from their

child.

And I mean, it depends on the age of the child to.

I mean, if it's a young child and you feel that it's probably the best Fordham, I guess, it's better to wait but I don't lies just multiply it.

Just hurts in me and it's going to hurt no matter what you do when you tell them but I think when they're old enough and are capable in your mind.

Kind of come to terms, I think know, they're afraid they're going to lose them and afraid that things are going to blow up in your face.

And they may, they may, I mean, you've lied from the beginning for whatever reason, but they deserve to know every child deserves to know and eventually they're going to know because DNA doesn't lie.

It to me.

It's about selfishness.

Don't be selfish.

You might have to be selfish in the beginning because you didn't know what was going to happen and you kind of took the role that you thought was going to be less turmoil and but you got to come clean.

You have no other choice because when they find out and it's even worse, if you've passed away and they find out, I've been reading so many stories online about, they have no resolution.

They just have questions and there to rest of your life now not knowing.

So I think it's just Is selfishness and I think you should come forward.

And what advice would you give someone?

Who just discovered a DNA surprise?

Breathe breathe.

Just sit back and let it absorb, you know, don't jump the gun.

It just sit back and wait, just a little bit because it's such a shock.

You will be Dave crying, you will be days.

You're angry with me days.

You're, you don't know what to do.

What do, what's in your heart?

If you feel you need to move forward, do it.

If you need to wait a while, do that every person is different.

What affects me might not affect you but don't give up.

Like, don't if you feel that you need this to complete yourself, I tell you, it's going to answer a lot of questions for you because to me anybody that knows there's something missing.

There's something missing.

Absolutely, if you feel that you don't have right answers and that somebody is not telling you the truth, go with your gut feeling because I will never serve you around.

And I didn't, I always knew.

And I think most of the people will agree with me that there's something missing and hopefully it's a good thing.

Hopefully it's positive.

You know, if it's not well then I guess you'll have to deal with it whatever best way you can.

And if it's counseling, go to it, don't feel ashamed because you have Go to counseling.

They bring so much into your life that you don't even realize and how to deal with things.

I don't know where I would be without it.

That's great

advice.

Well Rose, thank you so much for sharing your story.

I know it was a difficult one, especially in your childhood, but I'm so happy that it's taken a positive turn and I wish you nothing, but the best as you move forward, and build this relationship with your father.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you letting me take part in this because it does help anything that you do with regards to this and talking about it.

It helps.

Thanks again to Rose for sharing her story.

If you have a DNA surprise story that you would like to share, please email, DNA surprises at gmail.com.

And if you haven't yet, please rate, review And subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts.

And Spotify until next time.