When Diana learned that her biological father is an old family friend, she was completely shocked. But soon after her discovery, many things started making more sense. With the help of a newly found cousin, Diana began making connections with her family members, including an aunt.
Unfortunately, Diana’s biological father and brothers haven’t reciprocated her efforts to connect. She shares how she’s moving forward despite not being able to speak directly to her father.
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Episode Transcript
Transcripts are AI-generated and may not reflect the final published episodes.
[00:00:00] Diana: Actually, I always thought, I was the boy of the family. Because nobody understood me. ’cause we were all girls, growing up and I was rude and crash and disgusting. And I still am. I’m very immature and my sisters don’t get me. But I think yeah, my, my other, this newfound family, they do get the humor.
[00:00:19] Diana: It’s good.
[00:01:35] Diana: Diana and I’m 53, and right now I live in Glendale, Arizona, but originally, I’m from Danver, Massachusetts. That’s where I was born and raised. My husband and myself were just casually taking the ancestry, DNA test just to find out, where we could go visit places and travel and see, ancestor, our ancestors and stuff.
[00:02:01] Diana: Growing up, I was always told my paternal grandparents English French and polish very French and Polish extremely French and polish my maternal parents, English and Irish, oh, grandparents, English and Irish. So planning a trip going over there. Those are the places we wanted to go see. So we get the DNA back and.
[00:02:23] Diana: And it looks, I am so white. I am so white bred. It’s just ridiculous. So I believe all of you know what I’ve been told, and I’ve told my mother, she was still alive at the time about the DNA test, and her first question was, have you found any long lost relatives? I’m like, no. No. But I am having a hard time with her side of the family because everybody seemed to be named the same name.
[00:02:49] Diana: But I was doing well on my father’s side. I was finding a lot of information and no DNA matches about a year goes by and I get a DNA match that could be second cousin, and he message messages me. And we talked for quite a bit. We ask each other are you adopted? How can we be this close and not, any family members.
[00:03:13] Diana: We both came from the same town and he mentions a name and I’m like, that sounds familiar. I’ll go through my family photos and look it ended up being a street name. That was the name, not a family name. That was familiar with me. And Quite a few more months go by because I just blow it off, he couldn’t find anything. I couldn’t find anything, and I really wasn’t interested. I didn’t think anything of it. I did know that one of my aunts had given up a baby for adoption many years ago. No, it was a family secret. So I wondered if that was him, but it wasn’t. So a few months go by and he contacts me again because he’s been doing his ancestry on his family for 10 years now, and he’s traveled to go see things and, he’s, he is a big genealogy nerd.
[00:04:00] Diana: And so I ended up getting another DNA match and it said it could be my first cousin or aunt, but the person was 84 years old. And I’m like, it cannot be my cousin. And if it’s my aunt, let’s, we gotta figure this out. Andy, who was the one who had contacted me originally, he says that’s my aunt.
[00:04:26] Diana: And he mentions her brother, his name is John and his wife and their last name. And I’m like, what? I’m like, those are family friends of ours. Very close family, friends growing up. And I just put two and two together and he said I don’t know if you’re ready to hear this, but Yeah. John is your father.
[00:04:48] Diana: And this was a family that I remember being around a lot up until I was about the age of five and then lost all contact with, but was always. Talked about this family in our family. And of course there’s a lot of different dynamics in my family. My birth certificate, father, he died when I was eight, but had left our house when I was about five years old.
[00:05:17] Diana: My mother had started up another affair with somebody down the street named George, and I believe that’s how she met John, my biological father. Was through George, because they were together in Boy Scouts. Okay. Wow. I don’t know if you’re following this.
[00:05:34] Alexis: So you were born from this affair that your mother had, and then when you were five, the family friends were no longer close with your family.
[00:05:48] Alexis: And your birth certificate father was separated. And then also at that time, your mom began another affair.
[00:05:56] Diana: Yes, okay. With a man down the street. So my mom passes away in 2018. Of course, I found all of this out after she passed away, but she never stopped asking me all those times, have you found anybody?
[00:06:09] Diana: What’s new with your family tree? And it never occurred to me.
[00:06:14] Alexis: So you had no clue growing up or anything. You had no suspicions.
[00:06:19] Diana: So I’ve got two older sisters. Okay. And the joke was, growing up we all had different fathers because none of us look alike. My two older sisters have more similarities than me.
[00:06:33] Diana: I we joked it all the time. We never said, who we thought our fathers might be, but then when it came out, yeah, it’s like I never knew this would be real. It was a joke. It was never meant to be serious. And when it ended up being serious and and now I’m not full siblings with these sisters, oh God, what a heartbreak that is.
[00:06:57] Diana: Of course, I still am. To them, they don’t know any different. This is another thing. My mother always, this was a story I heard forever, so I’ve got this dimple in my chin and she used to tell me, as soon as you were born, Diana, I knew you were your father’s because you had that dimple in your chin.
[00:07:17] Diana: My dad had a dimple, but my two other sisters don’t. So I, and I honestly don’t know if my biological father has one. She repeated that story forever and I think it helped her believe too, right? Because denial is strong. Because she knew there was a poss. Yeah, she knew there was a possibility and this is what proved to her that I was.
[00:07:45] Diana: And looking back, I am so grateful that this happened after she passed, that I found the truth after she passed, because I wouldn’t wanna have to deal with her denial and blaming and I the victim put, because she would’ve taken that and run Yeah. With it. Yeah.
[00:08:05] Alexis: What was your initial reaction once you settled into, this is real?
[00:08:12] Diana: It took probably about three days for even me, for me to come out of the shock and numbness. I don’t even think it’s real still. Yeah. It’s weird. Yeah. Because when I found out, because when my dad passed, I was eight years old when my birth certificate, dad, I was eight years old finding this out at 53.
[00:08:34] Diana: It was like losing my dad all over again. Oh my God. Like I had him, I lost him. But he was still here in my heart and now I’ve lost him again. He’s not my father anymore. Yeah. So that was a really hard thing to deal with. And then thinking about all the rejection I’m going to probably have to face going forward.
[00:08:57] Diana: And the good thing is I haven’t had any rejection because I haven’t had any response. Yeah.
[00:09:02] Alexis: How long did it take you to reach out to your new found family?
[00:09:07] Diana: I. Took me five weeks and I went out and I bought one of those cards from the year you were born. It goes through all of the you know what I’m talking about?
[00:09:19] Diana: 1968 I was born and I wrote a nice letter in it to John explaining, he knows who I am because he and my mother had he actually visited my mom probably four years before she died. They were still friends.
[00:09:35] Alexis: Okay. So he So you believe he knew that he’s I believe he knew,
[00:09:40] Diana: Yeah. I believe they both knew and no.
[00:09:45] Diana: Oh, the other thing is my mom was best friends with his wife. In high school and stuff. They were high school girlfriends. Oh my goodness. All girl. High school Catholic high school. Yeah, my mom graduated pregnant. Oh, she’s a trip. Yeah. She’s just such a trip. Yeah. So I wrote the letter and then I gave all of my information as far as how he can correspond with me, my phone number, my address, my email address and I said, I welcome any correspondence.
[00:10:17] Diana: I sent it off just after the 4th of July, and so I haven’t heard yet, but since then, I found all my brothers, my half brothers, they’re all older than me, and I remember playing with them. I remember having a lot of fun. They had a pool in their yard and I’ve reached out to them and I’ve had no response from them either.
[00:10:37] Diana: And I did reach out to my cousins and my aunts that are, John’s sister, Gail, is who I finally figured out on the DNA. She was the match that led me to John. So Gail, I am in contact with. I talk with her, I email with her. I’m on a page with all the cousins now. But it’s a side of the family that doesn’t talk with, they’re completely disconnected.
[00:11:03] Diana: They haven’t they owned a big family company. And they separated because of bad family business. So neither one of ’em and one side knows about me. The other doesn’t. Okay.
[00:11:16] Alexis: And what is your relationship like with the family that you are in contact with?
[00:11:20] Diana: So far it’s so good. I’m Andy, who was the original contact.
[00:11:25] Diana: We keep in touch quite a bit. He always wants to know, have you heard anything? He was the one that, uncovered all this. For me. So he feels he has a big part in this and is concerned for my wellbeing at times, yeah. He’s an only child, so family is very important to him.
[00:11:45] Diana: So he’s gathered everybody in this one Facebook group who wants to be in it. It is funny though, I’ve had some bad responses in that Facebook group saying, Just because your blood is not, doesn’t mean your family. Wow. That’s cruel. So yeah, that set me back a little bit. I’m a little quiet in that room now, understandably. Yeah. I heard that.
[00:12:12] Alexis: Yeah, that’s, oh, I’m sorry they said that.
[00:12:16] Diana: Andy came back to me and said F them,
[00:12:18] Alexis: That’s good. That’s good that he’s looking at you. Was Gail able to give you any more information about her brother and
[00:12:27] Diana: She’s given me some health information that I needed to know.
[00:12:31] Diana: She hasn’t spoke. With her brother in over 20 years since the business failing. And before that, they never, they were always estranged because of the difference in lifestyles. She’s a very funny woman. She’s well traveled. She’s really experienced in everything and welcomes everything. Her brother’s lifestyle, she just couldn’t deal with.
[00:12:53] Diana: He was quite a partier. And that’s another thing I believe I. It was a swingers thing. That is where I evolved from oh yeah. I don’t know if my father, my, my birth certificate father was involved in it all or not. I don’t know. But my older sisters remember certain things. Twister parties.
[00:13:15] Alexis: Yeah, I was going to say what made you reach that conclusion?
[00:13:18] Diana: Memories, my older sisters. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re my one, my older sister’s eight years older than me. My middle sister’s five years older than me, so they have a lot more memories than I do. Okay. They were 13 and 10 when we stopped hanging around with that family. So they remember a lot of things.
[00:13:36] Alexis: And do they remember what caused them to drift apart? Was that ever discussed?
[00:13:41] Diana: The only thing they recall was that you were never to talk to the boys in school. That’s what they remember hearing from my mother. They’re so much older than me, the boys are, so I never had a problem. Wow. They didn’t have to warn me.
[00:13:57] Alexis: And do you have a lot of memories of your biological father before that split? I know you were only five.
[00:14:04] Diana: Very little. I just, I know he was a big man. That’s it. I just remember him being a big man.
[00:14:09] Alexis: So how has it been for you to not hear back from them? Like, how are you moving forward and processing this discovery without contact with that side of your family?
[00:14:19] Diana: I. Well, at first I was checking my email every day, checking my spam every day, checking every, just, I had sent out Facebook messages, checking them every day, seeing if they had seen my messages. And that went on for about a month. And it just it fades away. I just, I get tired of wanting.
[00:14:39] Diana: I don’t want anymore. I wouldn’t mind it, but, I don’t want it. I don’t need it. It was always a want. It was never really a need because I’m fine. I was always fine without it. Yeah.
[00:14:52] Alexis: So how did you get to that place of just saying I’m fine without it? What helped you?
[00:14:58] Diana: I think time. I don’t, I can’t pinpoint a certain thing, just timing. You start forgetting about it. My life starts going back to normal. I don’t have either parent right now, so do I really I’ve got my mother-in-law and I love her to pieces, so
[00:15:14] Alexis: That’s good. That’s good. I think it’s important, we find those roles where maybe we don’t have them, and those influences.
[00:15:21] Diana: Yes. My mother-in-law was definitely one of them.
[00:15:22] Alexis: Yeah. That’s really good. What did your family think about this? Your husband, your sisters?
[00:15:29] Diana: So my husband travels and he was out of town at the time. And he was very worried about me, but it was a good thing because I needed to be alone. There was nothing anybody could do for me.
[00:15:40] Diana: And right now he just, he is there to listen to me. He doesn’t bring it up. If I need to talk about it, he’s there, but there’s nothing he can, no advice he can give to me because he doesn’t know what I’m experiencing. My sisters. It’s typical. You’re still my sister, it’s just a sperm downer and I’m like, ugh.
[00:16:01] Diana: Those are the only ones. The only people really. ’cause I have a very, oh my, now my older son, I’ve got a 33 year old son. He was a little shocked. Nothing really phases him. But when I finally sent him pictures, ’cause I do have pictures of my biological father, he says, oh my God, I’m glad he is got a full head of hair because my birth certificate father was bald.
[00:16:27] Diana: Yeah. So he was grateful for that. So my younger son, who is named after my birth certificate father, he took it hard. But he is my empath. He is so sensitive. And he feels things but I think because it was the person he was named after and all of a sudden thinking, oh my God, my name could be something totally different and yeah.
[00:16:49] Diana: Yeah. He had a, he did have some emotions with it. And that’s about all my feeling. My mother-in-law, she. She questions me a lot. I still have a stepfather’s, my mother’s third husband, who is my Navy recruiter by the way. It gets deeper.
[00:17:06] Alexis: Families are so complicated. Yes.
[00:17:09] Diana: Yeah, he’s still alive. And he actually has met and partied with my biological father. And so when I told him, now his name is Hugh, my stepfather Hugh, I’m like, Hugh, I’ve got something to tell you. And he is and I said, John is my father. And he is there’s gotta be some mistake.
[00:17:24] Diana: I’m like, so of course this is, my mom has now passed away and now I feel so bad for throwing this at him. ’cause now he’s starting to question my mom. And if she was. She did cheat on him. And I told him that’s, please don’t think that it was, this is a different time in her life.
[00:17:43] Diana: She was faithful to you. Don’t worry about it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I felt terrible for doing that, but and he still asks every time he doesn’t live far from him oh my goodness. He still asks, have you heard, have you heard from John yet? I’m like, no. No. Has he said anything to John?
[00:18:02] Diana: No. He has asked me, would you like me to call him and find out because he’s 83. I wanna know if he is still cognitive. Because if he is not, what’s the sense? I don’t wanna do that to a family. I said, no, I, I told him, no, I don’t want you to, I don’t want, you don’t need to get in the middle of this.
[00:18:21] Diana: This is, my story. But he did offer. So I thought that was him to do. But no, that’s just putting another person in this. It doesn’t need to be. Yeah.
[00:18:31] Alexis: Is your biological father still married to his wife?
[00:18:36] Diana: She passed in 2016, I believe. 2012. Okay. I don’t know. Okay. But before my mom passed, yeah.
[00:18:46] Alexis: Okay. So there’s not that factor to consider in terms of Yes. Building a relationship. You touched on it a little bit earlier, but what are your feelings toward your mom now? I know she’s not here for you to confront her with the truth, so how do you reconcile that without being able to talk to her?
[00:19:03] Diana: I, boy, I don’t think even if she was here, I would be able to reconcile with her. That’s a hard question. Yeah. I honestly don’t have an answer because I was just so glad that she was gone when this all came out so I didn’t have to speak to her about it because it would’ve been nasty.
[00:19:28] Alexis: So you had a lot of anger toward her about it?
[00:19:30] Diana: Not anger. A lot of wise. I guess curiosity. No, I don’t, I don’t think I had any feelings. My mom, she was abused by my birth certificate. I saw my birth certificate. Father beat her on occasion, so I know she was afraid of him. So I know there was that possibility, but when my birth father died when I was eight, there could have been this chance that I could have had a man in my life, a father figure.
[00:19:58] Diana: And I don’t know if it, at that time, she just believed so much that John wasn’t my real dad. But, and from there I resent her for not trying to help me more. I resent her for, it’s always been about her. It, she always put her herself first. It was her Reputation was more important than anything.
[00:20:21] Alexis: And I think that feeling of it’s not really regret because we didn’t do anything to have a regret about, but that feeling of I missed out on having this person in my life is something that, that we all share. You know that why, yeah. If you told me earlier, I could have established a relationship earlier, perhaps, and perhaps perhaps. Yeah. Do you experience a lot of those, what ifs? As you try to process all of this?
[00:20:47] Diana: I did, but look at life I have with my husband and my children. So I it’s fate. I believe in fate. But just for, for a little bit of background, my mother, so my father died when I was eight.
[00:21:00] Diana: She remarried when I was 13. He passed away when I was 14. She went on to sleep with several men that she didn’t even know their last names. I would wake up in the middle of the night hearing her with them several boyfriends. Some would just. They were horrible. Then she ended up being engaged to a paraplegic named Paul.
[00:21:20] Diana: She had her car completely done up so he could drive it. Although I was 16 and just got my driver’s license, she wouldn’t let me drive it. So I couldn’t stand this man. That’s when I ran away. I just, I took off from my house was gone for a couple weeks. I ended up at my sister’s house and. Me and my sister went to the Navy recruiter’s office to sign me up.
[00:21:45] Diana: I was 17 years old. I wasn’t old enough to go in, so my mother had to come in and sign me in, and she was willing, yeah, she’ll sign me away to the Navy. She ended up, even though she was engaged, she ended up having an affair with my Navy recruiter and she ended up marrying him, and that’s who my stepfather is now.
[00:22:05] Alexis: Okay
[00:22:05] Diana: For the remainder of life until she passed away. Okay. Yes.
[00:22:09] Alexis: And how, yeah. How was your relationship with your stepfather? Did he serve as a father figure to you?
[00:22:14] Diana: Yes, he did serve as a father figure. Although I jumped right into my husband’s arms, I. At the 10th age of 19 and we’re still married.
[00:22:23] Diana: Hugh, my stepfather was there for me until that, and now that my mother has passed, we have even a better relationship because she’s not in the way.
[00:22:32] Alexis: That’s good. Yeah. That’s great that you have that relationship. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned through your connection to your extended family?
[00:22:41] Diana: We all have amazing sense of humors. That’s great. We all of, yes. All of this newfound family people. We’ve got, we all have the same outlook on life. We all have the same even politics. It’s really strange how we all meld together. So much in common.
[00:23:01] Alexis: And do you feel like those are things that you are different from your sisters with?
[00:23:05] Alexis: Like your sense of humor and things like that?
[00:23:07] Diana: Oh, yes.
[00:23:12] Alexis: Fascinating how you find all these things that. Just makes sense, sense all of a sudden, like a sense of humor or hobbies, all of these things that kind of made you feel different and then you’re like, oh, that’s where that came from.
[00:23:28] Diana: Yes, definitely.
[00:23:30] Diana: My two sisters, my mom, they’re big readers. They’re very business orientated. And I am. Out in left field. I like, I’m liberal, I’m artsy creative. I’m way out there. Yeah.
[00:23:45] Alexis: What do you hope for, if you have any hopes either just for yourself in terms of this journey, like where you want to end up feeling or what do you hope to happen with any of the relationships that you’ve reached out with?
[00:23:59] Diana: I would love to have an extended family. I would love to have a relationship with my brothers. We all seem to have a lot in common. It was the most amazing thing to see their pictures and see, I’m gonna get emotional.
[00:24:14] Alexis: Okay. It’s okay. Take the time you need.
[00:24:16] Diana: When I saw my father’s picture, it was like looking in a mirror.
[00:24:22] Diana: I, I just couldn’t believe. It’s oh my God, that’s me. It’s that’s my family. So I feel connection to them that way. I do hope, they. I’ve seen nephews that look just like my boys, they could have cousins. ’cause I’ve got a very small family. I do hope for that. But yeah, that’s all.
[00:24:43] Alexis: I hope that for you too.
[00:24:46] Alexis: Sometimes I think it takes some people time to come to terms with reality and I hope that’s the case for you. And that they do realize,
[00:24:55] Diana: Yeah. When I sent the letter off, I. I told myself he is gonna need time to digest this and to accept this and to come to terms with it just like I did, and who knows what will happen.
[00:25:08] Diana: Yeah. So I’m giving as much time as he needs and. If it, if the time expires, then well, so it does. Yeah.
[00:25:18] Alexis: Are there any resources or things that have helped you along your path? I know time was a big factor, but is there anything else that you tapped into for support?
[00:25:27] Diana: Actually just that Facebook page, the DNA surprises, just reading over and over again.
[00:25:32] Diana: And knowing I’m not alone. I’m not the only one out there. And that this is so normal. There are thousands and thousands of us. I reached out to a friend of mine has a son that she hasn’t told. The entire city knows who his real father is, but she hasn’t told him, and he’s in his twenties. And I reached out and I said this happened to me and I suggest that you.
[00:25:54] Diana: Pull him aside and you tell him the truth now before it’s too late. And I got called all sorts of names, the Devil and Evil, and you don’t know my situation, she says, and I’m like, okay. I just wanted to help
[00:26:07] Alexis: her a little bit. Yeah that’s one of the questions that I ask everyone is, What advice would you give to someone that is a parent of an NPE or somebody that’s holding a DNA surprise, like adoption or NPE or anything like that?
[00:26:21] Alexis: What’s the advice that you would give them?
[00:26:23] Diana: Tell them as soon as you feel they’re able to handle the information. And I’m not saying wait until they’re 16. I think eight years old is almost too old. They need to know it’s a right and even if it’s because the biological parent didn’t want anything to do with them, they need to know.
[00:26:46] Diana: Let them know the truth. The truth is always the best.
[00:26:51] Alexis: What advice would you give to someone who just discovered a DNA surprise?
[00:26:56] Diana: Don’t let anybody tell you this is, has not changed you in any way because it will change you. How do you think it’s changed you? I’m more skeptical. Isn’t that terrible?
[00:27:10] Alexis: We all have our fair share of trust issues now. Yeah.
[00:27:13] Diana: Yeah. But but I’m lucky because my family is so small, I don’t have to use my skepticism so much. Yeah. I look at everybody differently. I listen to everybody’s story differently. Here’s the other thing. There is this, We are stereotyped reaching out to our new families.
[00:27:33] Diana: They think we want a piece of the family pie. Yeah. If there’s money involved. I can say for myself, of course, that is not true. I am so comfortable and happy in my life. I don’t need, I don’t need anything right now. Maybe acknowledgement. That I am part of the family. That’s all. Yeah.
[00:27:52] Diana: I don’t need monetary things. I don’t. I don’t know. It’s weird, but that is one stereotype going forward to let people know. Don’t let that I guess I’m talking to the people that have been contacted by new family members. Don’t think they’re there for your money. Yeah. I am not at all for, out for anybody’s money.
[00:28:14] Diana: I don’t know who has money. I don’t.
[00:28:17] Alexis: I just, that’s a really great point because, Just looking for connections. Yeah. And that’s all I’ve heard, for the podcast. And that’s all I’ve seen in the groups is people just looking for connection with family. They’re not looking for anything else..
[00:28:30] Diana: Right now, I consider my journey almost over only because I haven’t heard anything. So if something does happen, I’ll consider it a, an awesome surprise and hopefully it’s something good that happens. Of course.
[00:28:45] Alexis: Diana, thank you so much for sharing your story. I wish you the best of luck on your journey.
[00:28:49] Alexis: I hope that you hear back, and if not, I hope you’re able to have peace with where everything is. Thank you so much.
[00:28:56] Diana: You’ve helped me tremendously just by letting me speak my piece, and I wish you so much luck.