Ellen’s DNA Surprise

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Welcome to DNA Surprises: Setting the Stage for Ellen's Lifelong Quest

Have you heard about the Untangling Our Roots Summit?

Untangling Our Roots is a summit created for people impacted by adoption, donor conception, misattributed parentage, and unexpected DNA discoveries, along with therapists, genealogists, and advocates who support them.

This is more than a conference about discovery.

It's about what comes after, how we process identity shifts, navigate relationships, grieve what is lost, and build meaning moving forward.

Over 3 plus days, attendees will engage in powerful conversations, practical workshops, and quiet spaces for reflection.

Covering healing, mental health, genealogy, storytelling, ethics, advocacy, and so much more, Untangling Our Roots offers community, understanding, and tools without pressure to have it all figured out.

This year's summit is March 19th through the 22nd, 2026 in Atlanta.

You can learn more and register at Untangling Our roots.org.

Speaker 2

So that wrapped up the visit and what is so crazy to me now, I look back on that and I didn't put too much thought or stock in that.

I was on such cloud 9.

I'm like, well, things are just going to continue how they've been going and I was wrong.

Speaker 1

Welcome to DNA Surprises, a podcast that explores the life altering world of unexpected DNA discoveries.

I'm your host, Alexis Ourselt.

This show centers the stories of people who've experienced NP, ES or non paternal events.

In other words, people who've learned that their biological father isn't who they thought he was.

We'll also hear from adoptees, donor conceived people, and the families navigating these discoveries.

Get ready to follow the incredible journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.

This is DNA surprises.

My quest to find my past would return again and again in the years to come, Like a lighthouse beacon that flashes bright and then fades, only to return again.

This quote, written by Steve Pemberton and shared by this week's guest, perfectly captures the whole that DNA surprises have on so many.

There are periods of intense focus on our feelings, our research, and our desire for connection.

These are sometimes followed by periods where thoughts and feelings are fleeting, especially as time goes on, but they often return again, just like a lighthouse beacon.

In this week's episode, Ellen shares how she learned the truth about her paternity more than two decades ago.

Since then, she embarked on a quest to learn the truth about her biological father.

She's encountered acceptance, quiet rejection, and obstacles that have prevented her from fully connecting with her new found family, but she holds on to her desire for truth and connection.

Thank you for sharing your story, Ellen.

An Unconventional Childhood and the 'Sperm Donor' Bombshell at Age 11

I'm Ellen.

I am in my late 30s.

I'm from the Midwest.

I have known about my NPE status for over 25 years now.

I did not find out from ADNA test, although I have done one as an adult.

I grew up pretty unconventionally.

I was the middle child of three children, had a mom and dad that were raising me and I did not question their relation to me biologically.

But I wouldn't say it was an easy childhood.

My raised father was just very eccentric, educated and very intelligent, but was never satisfied with a job or career path.

And so that lack of stability, it took our family along for a wild ride.

In addition, there was a big religious theme growing up in my home.

The best way I would describe it as my parents were charismatic Christians, involved in different churches, small groups.

There were just always these people in our lives that spoke this kind of charismatic Christian language.

So my parents would all often share what they called their testimony.

What that means basically is you share all the tales of your life, good, bad and ugly, and ultimately how that led you to Christ.

So I grew up feeling like it was very normal for my parents to tell their testimony.

I was very familiar with their testimony.

And then one day when I was 11 years old, my raised dad asked me to go in our backyard with him and he wanted to share his testimony with me, which immediately felt bull and off because I had heard it so many times and I just didn't know why he was making it a point to do this.

So he's telling you the story.

It's very familiar.

Essentially, he married my mom in their early 20s.

They had my older sister right away.

And then four years into their marriage, they got divorced and he moved to a different state.

And my mom was a single mom raising my sister.

And four years after their divorce, they remarried.

And I had always assumed that I came along right after the remarriage.

That was the part of the testimony that I was learning for the first time.

So it was actually my raised dad who told me that he was not my biological dad, that during my parents divorce, the way he described it to me was it didn't mean anything.

It wasn't a big deal.

Basically, I'm not your biological dad, but your biological dad was just a sperm donor and I'm your real dad.

And ultimately this crazy thing, you know, LED us to Christ and LED us to getting remarried and then they had my younger brother.

So it is, it's it's interesting being the NPE as a middle child.

My older sibling and younger sibling are full blown siblings and the middle one is the half.

The Shock of Discovery, Lack of Details, and the 'Perfect Age' Debate

I'm thinking about the fact that you've heard your parents share so much of their story.

So I imagine that you really felt like you knew everything about them, even more than maybe some, like other people whose parents don't, you know, share their whole dark secrets and, and all of that as part of the testimony as you're describing it.

So and then you're also just 11 years old and you're learning all of this information.

How are you feeling in that moment?

The best way I can describe it is like you're about to go down like a roller coaster.

Like my stomach dropped out from within the shock.

I still don't think I'm over the shock.

I feel like a lot of people when they find out or like there had been all these signs all along.

I don't want to say that I knew, but I can remember the day I found out.

Not immediately, but very soon after.

Feeling like this just makes so much sense.

This makes so much sense.

But what was different about the time versus if I had found out today is there was there was no Internet.

There was no I basically was given this bombshell with no details attached to it, and I was just sort of left with my own imagination.

Speaker 3

Did you you didn't get like a name.

You didn't know who he was.

It was just this was somebody who was a quote sperm donor, which we hear yes, sometimes, which I'm assuming when you're dad said it, he did not mean it like truly your mom went and found a donor.

It was the more like derogatory sperm donor.

Exactly.

He was emphasizing the fact that this isn't an important person, this isn't someone you need to worry about.

I'm your dad, but you just need to know the logistics kind of a thing.

Another thing I now realize as an adult, it's strange that my mom wasn't present with him to tell me and she didn't even know that he was doing it at that moment.

She has since told me that they knew they were going to have to tell me because so many people knew and they had talked to someone at their church who told them that like 11 was the perfect age to find out.

I don't believe there is a perfect age to find out.

I generally speaking think the earlier the better, but this is a time.

I mean, this was I, this was a season of my life when I was going from actually, it was puberty.

Basically, you're going from a kid and you're transitioning into a teenager.

And it was an interesting time to find out.

And I remember basically kind of just carrying this news silently that whole day, just wanting to cry.

But I learned quickly that I had to be careful with my raised dad's feelings.

Basically, I didn't feel free to ask questions or talk about it.

Ellen's Mom Reveals the Truth: A Desired Father, Then Detachment Overseas

Later that evening, my mom had a chance to get me alone.

She made it clear right away that it she was a safe space to ask questions to.

And I got a totally different picture from her that night.

She said, essentially, this was not just a sperm donor.

This was someone she was engaged to.

This is someone who was excited to learn about my mom's pregnancy.

This is someone who was devastated to be cut out of the picture.

And I was given a name and some general details like his age, you know, roughly his location.

And that really, I mean, to this day that information has changed everything.

I don't think it would be easier if he were a sperm donor or a one night stand or someone who wanted nothing to do with me.

That would be a different kind of hard.

But it was certainly hard to hear that this is someone who wanted me and it's someone I don't even know.

She offered to connect you to him.

Did she know where he was or or was that even a conversation at that point?

No, absolutely not.

And in back to the fact that my raised dad was very unconventional, my family was getting ready to pack up and move overseas at this time.

We actually spent a year living in a third world country, which I already felt like I had this news and I had no way of connecting with it.

Like now as an adult, I would, you know, Google things.

I would go on an information hunt.

That just wasn't an option back then.

I didn't even have a picture.

My mom had not saved a single picture of him.

So then we moved to this third world country, and it just felt like I was even more detached from being able to obtain anything, any of the information that I was just so hungry for.

And I kept waiting for the day that I wouldn't think about this, that I wouldn't obsess about this.

And it just never came.

Encouraged by a Friend: Ellen's Handwritten Letter to Her Biological Father

So we moved back to the States.

We move an hour and a half away from where we had been living prior to living overseas.

I enter high school, I do high school very normally and we manage to stay, stay in the same spot for four years.

And as I was approaching the end of high school, one of my friends at the time encouraged me to take action on this.

She said, it's been 7 years that you've known, so it doesn't seem like your fascination and interest in this is going to go away.

She's like, just reach out and see what happens.

So at the time, with just the knowledge of his name and roughly his location, I paid $35 back then.

This was how you obtained an accurate address.

And that was a lot of money for a senior in high school back then.

But I paid the $35.

I got his name and address, and I just sat on it for a while.

And then I wrote a handwritten letter.

I included a few pictures.

And I was just so terrified to send the darn thing.

And I think the main reason I always suppress this so much, my desire to know him, my desire to reach out, it always went back to my raised dad.

I just knew it wouldn't go well.

So my friend takes the letter for me.

She uses her own address as the return label.

And she's like, I'm not going to tell you when I mail this.

I'm just going to mail it and we're going to see what happens.

So the letter is in her hands and the weeks and months start rolling.

By during this time, what are you hoping once that letter is sent and reaches your biological father, I could.

Not picture what I wanted or how this would work out or what it would look like as that was my hesitation in reaching out.

I couldn't picture how this was going to work, but I just knew that I couldn't keep living feeling so unsettled about it.

So I really went into it blindly, just hoping for basically internal resolution.

I just wanted some sort of peace with it.

Resolution.

Even him just telling me like acknowledging that I was there and you know, saying I don't want to meet you or whatever, even that would have been enough for me.

It would have been just been resolution.

The whole thing always felt so open-ended and it's hard to live with that.

But my mom really assured me she's like, he's not going to not want to meet you.

She's like, I know this man.

She's like he's probably thought about you every day since you've been born.

And so your mom knew that you were sending a letter to him.

Yes.

OK, Did your dad know?

No.

Bio Dad's Response and the Painful Reaction from Ellen's Raised Father

OK.

So you said you graduated high?

School, yes.

I graduate high school, I start college.

I pretty much lost touch with that friend and I don't remember exactly how long.

It wasn't a full year, it was like 9-10 months, something like that.

I get out of class one day and see I have a voicemail from her and I instantly knew what it was about.

And she's like, Yep, you got to come to my house.

You got to pick up this letter, drive out to her house, pick up this FedEx looking envelope.

It was not handwritten like mine was, but there was a single photo of him.

And so this is the first time I had ever laid eyes on his face after, you know, 7-8 years of carrying this knowledge.

The letter was pretty, wasn't super lovey dovey.

It was pretty professional, informative.

I mean details I had always wondered about.

Is he married?

Does he have any kids?

What does he do for work?

All of that was disclosed.

He was married.

He had one daughter who's surprisingly was not much younger than me.

That was very interesting thing to learn.

How close were you in age?

Three years.

He is, I would say, significantly younger than my mom.

He's about 7 years younger than my mom.

So he was very young when this happened.

And so it was a little surprising for me to learn only three years later he had another child, but that was his only other child.

So he ends the letter with here's my e-mail address.

Let's move this conversation to e-mail.

So we e-mail back and forth for a few months and then he suggests meeting.

So I had to move back home.

This is in between my freshman and sophomore year college.

I had to move back home for the summer, terrified of what my raised dad will think and handle this news and everything.

But now that we're getting to the point of me meeting my bio dad, I just felt like I can't.

I can't not tell him I'm living in their house.

So I told him and it did not go well, but I just somehow had the courage to keep moving forward with everything anyway so.

What was his reaction?

What did he say?

He said something and it's going to sound like I'm making excuses for him, but I do know the one thing I do know is he did love me.

I, I believe he still loves me and he just has this personality and this impulsivity that he can tend to say pretty damaging things.

And so he said something I will unfortunately never forget.

And it was, well, go spend the next 20 years with your real dad then.

I knew he didn't mean it.

I knew we'd get past it or whatever.

But it's still to this day just that was a very hurtful thing to say.

So.

That's that's a lot, especially when you haven't really connected even and this is the only dad you've really known so.

Yeah, the adults in my life just approached this very Gray situation so black and white.

And I have learned as an adult myself and a parent myself, me knowing my biological dad did not mean that I could not have a great relationship with my raised dad.

In fact, it probably would have been better because this big thing wouldn't have been suppressed and associated with so much guilt.

A Nervous First Meeting Leads to an Instant, Deep Connection with Bio Dad

So meeting my biological dad, so he picks the perfect middle location, 'cause, you know, at this time we're living an hour and a half away from each other.

I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my entire life.

I was 18 years old.

I'm driving this beater car.

I'm meeting him in a big city with my MapQuest.

With my printed out MapQuest.

My hands were.

Yes, shaking and sweating.

And I can't believe I'm doing this huge thing.

We met at a coffee shop and I remember walking up just like, my heart is racing so fast.

I'm like, how am I even gonna do this?

Like, how do I bring myself to do this?

Because I just have never been so scared my whole life.

And the coffee shop is busy, very busy.

But the front of it is glass.

And before I'd even opened the door, I spotted him.

I immediately became completely calm, like instantly calm.

Open the door to the coffee shop, go sit right across from him.

And all nerves and anxiety and everything vanished.

And it was absolutely that feeling of this is a person I have known my whole life that I am just now meeting.

I look a lot like him.

We have very similar features, mannerisms, and I just felt like the chemistry was there instantly.

We hung out that day for like 5 or 6 hours.

We went to a restaurant for lunch, we got ice cream.

We were walking all around this city.

I think we both kind of felt like, how does this end?

We don't want this to end.

Like we've waited 18 years to know each other.

It's finally here.

I remember feeling like just this relief of like, thank God I I don't have to live with this big question mark in my mind anymore.

I know who he is.

He's going to be a part of my life forever now.

It felt so.

I don't even know how to describe it.

It just felt so just like things finally becoming complete.

Yeah.

I was concerned about my raise dad, but it just felt so like a coming home moment.

We departed that day and it did kind of feel like, well, what?

Now I'm in college, You live far away.

Where do we go from here?

We tended to e-mail a lot in those years.

That was just how we kept in touch.

And my older sister, who keep in mind is 8 years older than me because she, you know, came around so early before that divorce and everything, and also an incredibly supportive person from day one with this.

And also what's so interesting is at the time that my mom was with my biological dad, which was really, I've learned as an adult, only one year, it felt like they were together a lot longer, but they were really only together one year.

My sister was 7 at the time, and she remembers him.

She remembers that whole year.

She also has nothing but positive things to say about my biological dad.

And she also had to carry this knowledge and the first, yeah. 7:00 So she remembered, yes.

And the 1st 11 years of my life she had to carry the knowledge knowing I didn't know.

She was always afraid of me finding out because she wanted a wholesome family and she knew as soon as I found out that it would basically change me forever.

And she wasn't wrong.

But she's just been incredibly supportive and there for me from day one with all of this.

So at the time that I'm in college and kind of dealing with this long distance thing with my bio dad, my sister lived near him.

So she was always a landing pad for me.

I would come stay with her, I would see my bio dad and she was just supportive of it and it was great.

Bio Dad's Wife Appears, Leading to Controlled Meetings and a Confrontation

So the second time I see my bio dad, it's only a couple maybe a month later.

And it's this side of town which is where my sister lives.

This is close to where he lives.

This is where his whole relationship with my mom happened.

And the second time we got together was the best time of connection and just kind of opening up of this thing we both carried for so long.

And the bond was really solidifying and it was just a beautiful, beautiful time together that I will truly remember forever.

The get together was kind of wrapping up.

And he's like, hey, I would love to drive you by the home I grew up in.

And I'm like, I'd love to, you know, I am on cloud 9 at this point.

And so we're driving by his old home.

I'm looking at it and all of a sudden he's like, Ellen, I'm really sorry.

Like I gotta pull over.

I got to get out of the car for a minute and I'm like, what on earth?

And it was his wife.

His wife had shown up at our second get together.

And it became clear to me pretty quickly that she was not happy about things.

So again, I'm on such cloud 9 and and so young at the time that I on your podcast, I've heard so many people mention how they considered the families before reaching out.

I, I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't, I hadn't even factored that in, but I was so young.

Now I would factor that in, but he also he had not mentioned that his wife might be having an issue with this, so she not.

Shows up.

She just shows up during.

She shows up, yes, OK.

And I and her tone was harsh, like it became very clear right away that this is not a situation where she's totally OK with this and supportive and whatever, but clearly he's been going along with it anyway.

So that wrapped up the visit.

And what is so crazy to me now, I look back on that and I didn't put too much thought or stock in that.

I'm like, well, things are just going to continue how they've been going.

And I was wrong.

So the third time we got together, his wife was there when I showed up and he didn't mention that she was going to be there.

The tone, certainly she was softer, she was working harder to be nicer to me this time, but it was still clear to me that it was not OK.

And the conversation was very different.

It went from these meetings were about me and my dad getting to know each other, talking through a lot of these painful things from the past to just small talk with me and her.

And she did talk quite a bit about their daughter, which again at this time it's this is such a big mental thing to carry that I didn't.

Now I have the bandwidth and have put in a lot of thought about my half sister, but at the time I had not.

And the way that they were talking about her, it seemed like she knew about the situation.

So I'm in college, I'm living far away.

This goes on for about 3 years where I'm seeing him and his wife two to three times a year.

It's very small, talky, it's very kind of controlled, formal.

And in the chaos of my college years and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, I didn't really stop to think where is this going?

What's going to become of this?

I was just kind of trying to get through college and figured out what I was going to do after that.

In hindsight, I'm sure I was talking to them about possibilities I saw for myself.

Like at one point I thought I was going to join the military.

I had talked about the Peace Corps.

I had talked about moving to different states.

But as college came to an end, I had no plan.

I had no job.

I had no money.

My older sister so welcoming and supportive for me was like just come live with me for a little while and you can figure out what's next.

So I'm getting together with my bio dad and his wife about a month before I'm moving in with my sister.

So now the plan is clear.

Or it was like oh she might do all these different things but now we see what the next step is.

And I for the life of me cannot remember the full detail of this get together.

I don't know if it is a a trauma response, something in my mind trying to protect me.

All I remember is that a confrontation started out of nowhere.

I remember thinking this came out of thin air because I am just about the most non confrontational person ever.

So is my bio dad.

Something started with his wife and like I remember pulling away in my car kind of in a frenzy, like my dad and his wife were arguing.

I I don't know.

I got in my car, I drove to my sister's house.

I was crying.

My bio dad started calling me.

My sister remembers me talking on the phone with him and I apparently on that phone call I said to him, could we start just getting together?

You and I?

I think this is something I had been thinking for a long time.

Like us meeting this late in life, Like it is not out of the question to ask for a few get togethers where we can just kind of get to know each.

Like almost like a, a therapy session where we deal with some deep stuff, share some stuff, you know, And we just three years of knowing him had gone by and we just weren't getting that opportunity because I felt like I had to keep his wife happy and keep things small and light and whatever.

So we have this phone call.

Fifteen Years of Silence: The 'Lighthouse Beacon' Returns with Online Sleuthing

I'm honest with my feelings about that.

I'm crying, whatever.

The call ends.

Then I'm thrown into the chaos of packing up my college life across the state, moving in with my sister, finding a new job.

And during that time, he was sending me very long emails and I wasn't giving them my full attention.

I remember at this time feeling like I just got to park this for a minute because it doesn't seem like there's a resolution and I got to take care of like my basic needs like moving and finding a job.

We've always communicated through e-mail, sometimes slow, sometimes fast.

A lot of times they were long emails and so a couple months go by and I really start to give those emails my full attention.

And this is what is so annoying about the time that this happened.

Nowadays you have the same phone number and e-mail address for multiple decades.

Back then, like as the tech boom was happening, like millennials didn't know what they were doing.

We had like 6 different e-mail addresses and then.

AOL.

Yeah, Hotmail is the offender here.

And Hotmail is like notorious for people not being able to get back in and all this stuff.

So this, these, these intense emails were happening on Hotmail of all accounts.

And so I cannot access that account anymore.

I can't remember what these emails say.

I journaled cryptically about them.

The one clue that I had to go on is that I journaled at this time.

I'm plagued with thoughts of my bio dad.

I really need to reply to his emails and I do remember at one point I did reply and then I didn't hear anything.

I'm like, it's OK, you took a long time to respond.

He's going to take a long time to respond.

Well, a full year goes by and I'm now living locally to him.

At this Phase, I started to figure out that I could do some online researching sleuthing if you will.

So I start looking up his daughter on Facebook and certainly was seeing pictures and clues and all this stuff.

Signs of life, I guess is one way to put it.

And so all of a sudden, and I wasn't again, this is such a there is this book I read and there's a quote from this.

It's a book written by an NPE.

It's an amazing read.

It's called A Chance in the World by Steve Pemberton.

Oh, I haven't heard of that one.

Oh, you will read it in like a day.

It's not very long and it's riveting.

And he has a quote from his book that has just described to AT what this has been like carrying this news for so many years.

And it's my quest to find my past would return again and again in the years to come, like a lighthouse beacon that flashes bright and then fades only to return again.

So this is how this has felt like I, I have gone through phases where I'm thinking about this a lot.

I'm researching it online and then it fades away and I'm not really thinking about it for several months, years, whatever it is.

And then it comes back again.

It always comes back.

So that quote, so descriptive of what this has been like.

So as it pertains to the the looking up online and stuff every couple months, years, whatever.

So I'm randomly looking up my half sister on Facebook and I see that we have a very familiar mutual friend.

And what I mean by that is at this time this was someone I had loosely known my whole life, but I had moved back to this side of town and I was trying to make friends and stuff and I was hanging out with this person.

We had recently at this time gone to a wedding together and I see that he is a mutual friend of my half sister.

And I'm like, I just have to know how they know each other.

I didn't think the situation all the way through.

And I just like a reaction, called him and I'm like, before I get into anything, I have to express the confidentiality of what I'm about to tell you.

He's like, what the heck?

Like what?

So I'm like, do you swear to me that you will keep this information to yourself?

And he swears and I'm like, OK, how do you know so and so.

And his immediate response is she's my cousin.

And I'm like OK well we've been hanging out.

I have to tell you I am related to this person and I explain how And he is mind blown.

He has known my dad, his wife and their daughter his whole life.

Come to find out they are not biologically related.

But he had always referred to her as his cousin because their moms are best friends and all this stuff.

And this was so just insane to figure out and learn.

As the call is wrapping up, I'm like just a reminder.

This is so confidential.

But also at this time I had not heard from my bio dad in a year.

So couple months go by.

He's like Ellen, sorry I couldn't keep the news to myself.

I I told your half sister that was how I learned that.

So up until that point, she didn't know about my existence.

She had no idea.

So she had no idea.

What was her reaction.

I have no idea.

So, and I think again, I can't remember the details of this, which is so unlike me, but I was so angry at this person that I was expressing my anger and he kind of instantly shut me down.

He blocked me on Facebook.

He stopped talking to me.

So I got no details.

All I knew is that he had told her.

And I'm like, well, this is really going to seal the coffin of like, I don't think I'm going to hear from my bio dad now really any anytime soon.

And that was 15 years ago and I still have not heard anything.

An 'Excavation' of Lineage: Half-Sister's Wedding and Grandparents' Timing

So like this lighthouse, it's come and gone, but I have gone through, especially in the last 15 years, big things in my life.

My career, getting married to my husband, having children, becoming an adult.

The last time I saw him I was this college student.

And now I'm this full grown woman with a life.

So this summer, and this is after a phase of not thinking about it, not researching it for lots of years.

I don't even know how it was like osmosis out of thin air.

I find myself looking up my half sister on Facebook and that started the I'm still in it.

It has started the biggest, deepest dive I've ever gone into this.

There's someone that I she's not a therapist, she's a life coach, but I feel very safe with her.

I've been working with her for the past decade.

She's really familiar with this situation and the way she describes what I'm going through right now is an excavation.

I'm examining the whole timeline of everything that happened even before I was born.

I did an ancestry DNA test and honestly the DNA test itself didn't really tell me anything I didn't know.

It has been the the way you can put your family tree together and figure out who is who and whatever.

That has been the most mind blowing and I have gone so much deeper than I ever thought possible on my paternal side.

I almost feel like I question if I know more about my lineage than my bio dad does because it's just it's been so deep.

So back to my half sister.

Her Facebook profile picture looked very bridal.

And so I'm thinking to myself, oh she got married.

I'm sure she had a wedding website.

Whatever I Google that wedding website pops up right away.

At this point she hadn't gotten married yet.

I saw the details, the date, the location, everything.

It was that very same date I was going to a wedding in that very same city and it ironically or not so ironically it was for a relative on my raised dad's side.

It just kept getting weirder and weirder.

I couldn't stop researching things.

I just kept digging and digging and digging.

Side note here, one of the last things I remember my bio dad saying to me is my parents want to meet you.

And my last grandparent that I knew died when I was 15.

So I have spent a lot of my life without grandparents.

Something about that really, really appealed to me.

Like I would love to meet my biological grandparents, but then obviously this long period of whatever you want to call it, ghosting, separation, whatever has gone by.

In 2020, when I was going through one of my periods of looking up my bio family, I came across my grandfather's obituary.

He lived to a good age and something about it was just very, very hard to see that final like I had carried it in my mind.

He wants me to meet his parents.

And then it was like, Oh well, that opportunity is gone.

But I knew my grandmother was still alive this whole month.

It was this summer that I'm discovering things about my half sister's wedding and everything.

I started to feel this real urgency of, I don't know how to reach out.

I don't know how to insert myself but I kind of feel like I got to meet my grandma now or.

The opportunity is going to be gone.

And so I became obsessed with this idea.

My dad is one of five siblings.

And I'm like, maybe I just contact one of the other siblings and say, could I meet the grandma?

You know, whatever.

Well, like a month into this journey, I her obituary pops up.

Crazy or not so crazy.

The day that this all started for me, and I know the exact day because I have screenshots in my phone of just stuff I was finding, is the day that she died.

And so part of me feels like I'm not very religious, but I am very spiritual and I'm like, did she get to the other side?

See the situation for what it is.

And now she is.

She's present with me.

And This is why I have not only the obsession with resolution and what happened and peeling back all the layers.

I have never had an interest in my genealogy the way I have this time.

Never his siblings.

I want to know everything about his and beyond as far back as it will go.

And I've learned countless interesting things.

And there's just a big part of me that wonders, is this my grandmother on the other side giving me a push like, 'cause just the timing is just so ironic.

The day she passed is the day this all started for me.

The Pain of Ghosting and the Shocking Way Half-Sister Learned of Ellen's Existence

That's incredible.

And I'm sorry that you didn't get the chance to meet her.

Thank you.

Your grandfather.

It's been 15 years or more now at this point since you've heard from your biological father, Do you think that like he tried to reach out to your old e-mail?

Does he have your new phone number?

I mean, have there been any of those what ifs of like does he have your latest contact info?

I assume you've gone down that rabbit hole and and there's been opportunity, but I'm just like the fact that he just completely dropped off is so.

Crazy strange, yes, I'm wrestling with these things myself.

And the communication was certainly messy.

You know, the finicky emails and the change in phone number.

However, the thing I always come back to is I googled myself.

I googled him, it's very easy to find both of our contact information.

In addition, I have sent him emails as recently as like 2013 with my current e-mail address.

Now I do question though, did those reach him Because the e-mail address I was emailing him it was like a cable e-mail address.

So if he's not subscribed to that cable anymore, he probably doesn't have that e-mail address.

In addition, I know his wife's not happy about this.

So is something getting lost in, you know?

I'm telling you, it's becoming more and more difficult to live with these unknowns.

And I never thought the pain of the what I have perceived as a ghosting from him has been so intense at times that I've just convinced myself, like, I'm done.

I'm never reaching out to him.

But the deeper and deeper I get into this excavation, I don't think that's going to be an option.

I think I'm going to have to reach out in some way, if nothing else but foreclosure.

And I do have to say the wedding thing with his daughter got weirder and weirder.

So about a month before the wedding, I visited the wedding website again and it had been updated.

And the ceremony, the address to where the ceremony was, was on the same complex as the ceremony I was attending at the very same time.

So obviously I knew like I'm probably not just going to see my bio dad standing in the parking lot or anything like that.

But the irony, the parallels, the fact that I knew about it, you know, my husband has even said to me, if you had not gone through one of your periods of discovery, we would have just gone to that wedding and you would have had no idea that that other wedding next door was your sister's.

There was a special moment after the wedding that we attended.

I'm like, come on, Hon.

We got to take a ride around the block.

I just got to see what I can see.

And the things on their side of the complex look pretty wrapped up.

A lot of cars were gone.

There weren't people outside but I did manage to get a really cool glimpse.

It was like a party bus and my half sister, her brand new husband, their whole bridal party was standing.

They all looked so relaxed and calm.

They were taking pictures.

My sister and her husband had two dogs on leashes.

She looked the most stunning I've ever seen her.

As someone who's randomly looked her up online for years, I managed to get this image that day that I will have forever so.

That's such a kind view of it.

You just sound really happy for her.

I do, I do.

And as painful as this whole thing has been, because a question that comes up a lot when I'm talking about this is, does it bother you that your sister learned about you and you've never heard from her?

And it did for many years.

And I was convinced she doesn't want to know me, she's an only child, blah blah blah.

Well in this period of excavation called up the person who told her.

We also had not talked in 15-16 years.

But I'm like I need some resolution with him because I also had gone all this time without knowing the full details of how he told her how she reacted.

It was so much worse than I could have ever imagined.

He texted her from some app where it was some unknown number that you didn't know who it was coming from and you couldn't respond to that number and he wasn't sure if she was getting them.

So for a period of months, over and over again, he was texting her.

You have 1/2 sister on your paternal side.

Like how creepy.

What a weird way to find out.

And then eventually they did the work work to figure out who it was.

She sent him a Facebook message and said, I know it's you.

Stop sending me these texts.

They blocked each other.

Her mother called him.

They had a confrontation, had words.

So he also has had no communication with them for all this time.

But learning the specifics of that was pretty eye opening.

She knows nothing about me.

She could think that I am a part of this creepy way that she found out, you know, So I'm also like, I have now looked at myself and been like, well, you have not reached out to her either.

Sure.

And I mean, that's I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm feeling a lot of empathy for your sister right now because what a horrible way to find out and then have to confront your parents with that information.

And and then, yeah, she doesn't know anything about you either.

Like, really at all, except for maybe what her mother has shared, which her mom is not happy about the situation.

So yeah, that's a really compassionate view of her.

Planning to Reach Out to Bio Aunt and the Pillars of Support in Ellen's Life

And so do you feel like you're going to reach out to her, or do you feel like you're going to reach out to your biological father first?

If you do, it's I'm.

First of all, the idea of all of it is so terrifying because as far as I mean, as far as I know, the situation hasn't changed on their end of things.

As far as my bio dad is still married, I still want him to be married.

I don't want to carry ill will toward his wife or anything at this point.

Even if we could just have like phone conversations, like if I could just talk to him on the phone, that would be so much better than nothing.

What's really interesting, and again, I just feel like this is some spiritual thing going on with my deceased grandmother.

When I get the guts to reach out to someone, I believe it's going to be my aunt, my dad's sister.

I want a layer of separation, protection, whatever you want to call it.

And I think I'm just going to say to her, like, first of all, it's so cool to talk to a female from that side of the family.

Have never done that before.

I've seen you in photos.

I feel a fondness towards you that I can't put into words.

Would you please communicate to your brother that the door is open with me now or in the future?

It will never be closed.

Because another thing I fear is that so much time has gone by.

I think he a possibility, thinks I've shut the door on him because he's ghosted me for so long.

I want him to know.

Yeah, that was a crappy thing, but the door is still open.

And the door is still open to my half sister now or in the future or never, honestly, if it's never, it would also be really helpful to know that if they were to just say we don't want to know.

You have a nice life.

Really knowing what it's been like to carry this for so many years, even closure would be so welcome at this point.

So I do think I'm going to reach out to the bio Ant at some point.

It's just working up the nerve to do that.

And that that sounds like a smart approach because, you know, I've talked to a lot of people for the podcast and it does seem like having that layer, an aunt, a cousin, someone who's a little bit more removed can help facilitate connection.

It's been a really long time since you first learned this information.

I'm curious if you could talk about what it was like to learn at an age where you couldn't really do much with that information.

And how the waiting and the the periods of, you know, either being powerless to do any research to now kind of this period of distance and no communication has played into your experience of your DNA surprise.

Oh it's so challenging.

I don't think there was a perfect age for me to learn really with my situation specifically what I really wish that the adults had done from the onset.

Work out a Co parenting plan.

My bio dad did want to be involved even after my mom had broken up with him.

He wanted to know me and I do think that for his spouse, for my mom's spouse, it would have been a lot easier for everyone.

Just me growing up with everyone knowing me.

I respect that my parents knew they had to tell me and did it at a relatively young age, but they're just in my situation there wasn't a good age.

There just wasn't because it was the hardest part of this has been that my bio dad wanted to be involved in was basically kind of shut out so.

What is your relationship like with your parents that raised you now well?

They are now divorced again for the second time.

I do still loosely keep in touch with my raised dad.

He now lives in a different state though, and I, I feel very sad for him because he's reaching an age where I think he realizes that he's made a lot of poor choices through the years that but I, again, I will never be like, I'm not going to talk to you.

I'm going to shut you out.

We don't have much of a relationship.

But again, I just know that the, that the whole ghosting, no contact at all, like there's no need for that.

So that's what that is.

My relationship with my mom is really good.

She is remarried to someone different now.

Very happy.

She's always been supportive of this.

She's always let me talk about it, cry about it.

Relationship is good there.

That's amazing.

And you've mentioned your husband a few times.

I assume he's been a support to you.

What has helped you over this long period of discovery and just navigating your experience?

My husband who had the most like cookie cutter normal upbringing ever.

There are times that especially when I'm going through right now, I feel like it's just, it's got to be so much for him.

But he's he's strong enough to handle it.

He is so supportive and loving.

And a husband is not a replacement for a father, but my husband has done a phenomenal job loving me unconditionally and being stable for me and being there for me.

And I can't imagine what my life would look like without him.

And also my sister, I'll bring up again, has just she's been a pillar in this decade long journey.

And I I also can't imagine where I'd be without her support and like willingness to listen to this and everything so.

Crucial Advice for Parents and Those Navigating Unexpected DNA Discoveries

What advice would you give a parent who may be keeping adna surprise from their child?

Stop it, you cannot carry this any longer.

We live in a modern age.

Your child at any time could do adna test.

You do not want them to find out that way.

It will be so much more freeing to you to be honest with them.

What advice do you have to someone navigating adna surprise or who just found out that they're.

Happy peace be with you.

It is such a, it's such a mental load to carry and wherever possible.

I mean, I spent so many years thinking I was the only person in the world with this situation.

That's false.

There are so many other people, so look for a community.

Look for, even if it's someone that is not an NPE, if they feel particularly supportive or compassionate or willing to listen to you, like lean on that person.

It's too heavy to just carry a loan.

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

You have been going through this for such a long time and you still have so much compassion and love and empathy for everyone involved, which is really admirable.

I hope that you get contact with someone from your biological father's side soon and can maybe get even more peace.

Yes, thank you so much, Alexis.

And honestly, thank you so much for the work you're doing this for me to learn that there is a whole community of people after spending so many years not knowing that it's just been it's been an incredible resource.

So thank you so much and like I hope you never stop.

So thank you.

Don't plan on it.

OK, good.

All right.

Concluding Thoughts, Listener Call to Action, and Podcast Credits

Thanks again to Ellen for sharing her story.

If you have Adna surprise that you'd like to share, please submit your story at dnasurprises.com and for AD free early access to episodes, join me over on patreon.com/DNA Surprises.

Until next time.

DNA Surprises is hosted, produced and edited by Me Alexis Hour Salt.

It is mixed and mastered by Josh Auersault of Siren Recording Studios.