Christine’s DNA Surprise

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Intro

I don't believe in making up for time lost.

I don't think you can.

I don't think that you can take, you know, 45 years of, of life and somehow get that back.

What I do think is the time that we're spending together now is so important and it is something that is just so special to me.

But it's also, I'm in my 50s and they're in their 40s and life has happened and we grew up without each other and we're getting to know each other.

And I don't think it's something you can rush.

Even though I jumped in with both feet.

Speaker 2

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

I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.

In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out that I'm an N P/E, a person who has experienced a non paternal event.

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

Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees, and donor conceived people and their families.

Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.

This is DNA surprises.

When someone opens up their DNA test results, the outcome isn't always an explosive surprise.

Sometimes it takes a while of pulling at a thread before truth is unravelled.

In this week's episode, Christine shares how her curiosity about one of her ethnicity results led to her shocking discovery that her dad isn't her biological father.

But in another twist, even after finding out the truth about her paternity, the mystery about her ethnicity remained.

Christine discusses both of these DNA surprises and how they've affected her relationships.

She also shares how her surprise has transformed her perception of herself for the positive.

Thank you for sharing your story, Christine.

My Family Tree

My name is Christine, I AM 54 years old and I was born, raised and currently live in upstate New York.

A little bit of background about my raised family.

I knew quite a bit about my mother's side of the family and the family tree.

I grew up with my great aunts.

One of them came from what is today the Slovak Republic.

They spoke Slovak around us.

I have memories, real hard memories of being around them and knowing about my history.

On my mother's side, we have a family Bible.

I knew quite a bit about my grandparents, my great grandparents coming from that part of the world.

And on my dad's side, I didn't really know too much beyond my grandparents.

Our family name is fairly unique and there was always discussion about where the name came from, our origins, and so there was always questions around where we came from, England, Ireland, even Germany.

I was always curious about my my background.

I'm a history teacher.

I've been teaching for 29 years and I always tell my students, if you don't know your own history, it's hard to understand other people's histories.

I just have always been fascinated with it.

My story really for me begins in 2010 when a distant relative contacted me from my dad's side.

He did it through Facebook.

He said that he had a complete family tree of my dad's side of the family.

And I was ecstatic because I really didn't know a lot beyond my grandparents.

We communicated on Facebook, we sent emails back and forth.

We shared pictures.

He gave me photographs of distant relative.

He shared the extensive family tree with me and I was just so happy to to get this information and I decided to share it with my dad.

And my dad's reaction was you need to be careful with this person, you don't know who they are.

At first I wasn't totally surprised with his response because he's a fairly closed off person in that he doesn't share his feelings and he's very suspicious of people.

So I continued to have contact with this relative.

I shared the information with my dad as much as I could and I just went by what this person was telling me about the the family tree and I kind of filed it away.

Something happened between this distant relative and I and it got a little weird and so I cut off contact with him, but I still had all of the information.

I had given it to my dad and I also gave it to my brother.

I have two older sisters from my mother's first marriage and growing up we always knew that we were half siblings.

And then I have my younger brother from my mom and my dad and I shared this information with my younger brother because he and I were whole siblings and he didn't really think much of it at the time.

My dad and I never really talked about it.

And again, I didn't think it was that unusual, but I did have it and I set it aside.

And that was in 2010.

My dad's side of the family and our family had a falling out in, gosh, the 1990s, we had a falling out.

And I was always very, very close to my my dad's parents.

My dad is one of six children.

I'm one of 18 cousins.

And I grew up around my grandparents on my dad's side.

Every weekend, my dad would put us in the car, my brother and me, we would go to my grandparents.

We would spend the whole day there.

I really loved my grandparents and I was very, very close to them.

I was very connected to that side.

And so when the rift happened in our family, it really devastated me.

And I was in my late teens.

And so we stopped talking with them.

We had no contact and for many years without 15 to 20 years.

Fast forward the late 90s, my both of my grandparents died and we went to their funerals and came into contact with my cousins again.

And from there, we slowly began to communicate with each other again.

We we, we wound up coming back together as a family around 2014.

So about four years after I had received this information of the family tree from this distant cousin.

And so we went to weddings.

We were invited to celebratory events that were happening in each other's lives.

And so we were back together.

And I felt so much better about where I was with respect to that family.

I never told anyone about the family tree history because my dad really didn't seem very interested.

So I just again put it on the back burner and just kind of forgot about it.

Fast forward to 2019, I decided to purchase a 23 and E kit.

And I've racked my brain about why I bought the kit.

It's been over three years since my discovery and I've had time to really process and think, and for the life of me I really don't have a definitive reason for buying the kit.

The only thing I can think of is that I had this family tree from about 8 to 9 years ago and although my name was on it and I saw the information, I was still curious.

I'm just curious about people.

I'm curious about where people come from and I think this might sound strange.

I think on a like almost like on a cellular level going back to when I was a little kid, I just always felt a little bit different.

When you say that that feeling was like on a cellular level, did you ever think to yourself, I don't feel like I fit in?

Speaker 1

I did.

I was always very emotional.

I'm still very emotional.

I would get made fun of for that.

And I don't want to speak poorly of my raised siblings at all.

I'm best friends with one of my sisters, but I was always very emotional.

I always took things very personally.

I cried a lot as a kid and none of my siblings did.

And to look at us, I don't stand out that much.

I'm a little bit taller, I'm a little bit longer, I have bigger feet, but I don't look that much different than my two sisters and my brother.

But I did always feel a little bit different.

But again, is that hindsight?

Because once you find out that you are an NPE, for me anyway, I'm looking back with a much different lens.

And I don't know if that's fair to the people in my life, but I am doing that.

For sure.

I think that's natural.

That's natural.

So you get this 23 andme test out of curiosity, maybe on some level wondering if you're going to uncover anything.

Yes, I send in my sample.

And during that time in 2019, my husband and I were getting ready to sell our house.

We were in the process of building a house.

And so a lot of time went to that and life happens.

And so we were just very, very busy.

And when I got the results, I wasn't super eager to get them.

I don't recall.

And when I opened them with the 23 me interface that shows you that pie right, of your ethnicity, and at the top I saw Irish and I thought, OK, that makes sense.

It was Irish and English.

I think it's about 50 some percent.

I don't recall looking at anything else.

So I think when I saw that, part of me was satisfied because of the conversations that I had had with my dad about his side of the family perhaps being Irish, English, German and also on my mother's side of the family, my maternal grandfather was Scottish and Irish.

So I didn't think anything of it.

I closed it up and I forgot about it and it wasn't until six months to a year later that I revisited the results again.

And I know that 23andMe and Ancestry, they do updates and I'm not sure if they had done an update, but when I opened it again, the Irish ethnicity was the same.

And I kept going and I kept looking down and I saw Scottish ancestry and then I saw Italian ancestry over 25%.

And that's stop me in my tracks because nowhere throughout my life have had I ever heard anything about being Italian.

And that's what got my wheels really spinning because my mother's side of the family, her mother was from the Slovak Republic, my grandfather was Irish and Scottish, and then my dad's side was Irish, English, maybe German, never ever anything about the Italian piece.

So I screenshot my results and I sent them to my mother.

I guess I should say that my mom and I throughout the years have had kind of a touch and go relationship, which I have listened to so many different stories and it seems to sometimes be a common thread.

I sent her the screenshot and she said that she had no idea about the Italian piece.

There were a couple of other things in there, Ashkenazi Jewish that she said, oh maybe.

But the Italian piece she completely said, I have no idea what that what that even means, where that could come from.

But on 23andMe it also shows you the date range of that ancestor, right?

It was between like the 8 late 1800s and the early 1900s.

At the time I wasn't really familiar with I.

I feel I feel kind of stupid saying this, but if it's over 25% it has to be a grandparent.

I don't know if I just was in denial that that could possibly be true.

Plus my mother denying that there was any Italian on her side.

So I sent the information to my one sister and my brother and they were just as perplexed.

Again, we we chatted about there not being any Italian in our family at all.

And so I just, I sat with it and I thought that this is just so strange.

That was 2019.

It could have been even 2020 because the wheels really came off the bus in 2021.

Making Meaning of the Results

How are you making meaning of the results?

Were you just like?

I have no idea what this is.

Or was there any part of you that started to try to make things make sense, even if it wasn't necessarily looking at a grandparent or something?

I I think that when I saw the Italian piece, I knew, I knew that there had to be a, a very close relative that was 100% Italian.

I began to question what was happening, but I think that my personality is, you know, I wanted to just kind of go along.

And if my mother tells me she doesn't really know and she's kind of shutting me down, I didn't want to really press the issue, but I did behind the scenes with my siblings.

I definitely was questioning where that piece came from.

My sister and I got talking and our dad's birthday was coming up and this is now 2021.

So about a year and a half again had gone by and nobody's really giving me any information.

And so for my dad's birthday, I said to my sister, why don't we buy him a kit?

Now I didn't really know where the Italian piece came from.

I didn't know if it was my mother's side, but I didn't think it was my dad's side.

I don't want to be stereotypical, but nobody on that side looks Italian and I know that there are lighter skinned, lighter eyed Italians, but there was never any conversation about it on either side.

So I thought, well, maybe we can get him to do it and just at least have a little bit more information and put some pieces of the puzzle together.

So she and I decided to buy him Adna kit and we did it through 23 and May.

We sent it to his house and he received it, but he never said he received it.

I was waiting for him to pick up the phone and say, hey, I have the kit.

We waited a little while until I reached out to him and I said, did you receive the kit?

And he said, yes, but I'm, I'm not going to do it.

He kept saying those kits are social Now.

My, my dad is an engineer.

He's a very, very smart man.

And he kept telling me that the information is incorrect.

And So what began was this back and forth between my parents and me every time we would see each other and every time we would get together, I would bring up the Italian piece.

I would bring up where is it coming from?

And my parents joked.

My father started telling me that he was related to Columbus.

And so my parents just dodged.

They dodged the questions.

They weren't able to give me or they weren't willing to give me any information that I could go on.

And I think what that did was it just made me more curious.

And it really was curiosity still at this point.

It was still just where did this Italian piece come from?

My parents again went back and forth.

At one point my mother said, oh, your dad will do it for you.

And then it became He'll never do it.

Because it's social?

What do you think he meant by that?

Like, was that because he's worried that it's putting his DNA into the world?

He said that he didn't want his DNA out there.

A little bit paranoid, I think, and my mother kind of agreed with him.

They just were unwilling to do it.

So I turned to my sister and my brother, and we kind of all decided that we were going to do Ancestry.

And the reason why we decided to do Ancestry is because my sister had an account through Ancestry, but she couldn't find any of her information.

So she kind of talked us into Ancestry.

And truth be told, in the beginning I was annoyed because I'm like, I've already got my DNA through 23 andme, why can't we do 23 andme?

Yeah, so but it proved to kind of put more pieces of the puzzle together.

So the summer of 2021 my brother, my sister and I all sent our our DNA to to Ancestry.

We were waiting on this information and my parents had a get together at their house, which they typically did.

It was a Sunday breakfast and it was maybe 3 weeks after my dad's birthday.

So we were at my parents and there were some of us in the kitchen, There were some of us in the living room.

And I remember sitting at the table across from my mother and my sister, her daughter, my sister-in-law, her mother and my dad.

And the Italian piece came up.

And I don't want to say who brought it up because it's a little bit of an issue still with with my siblings and I.

And, but when I look at it, it doesn't really matter who brought it up because it was still out there.

Nobody was able to give an answer.

And so it came up at breakfast and the joke started flying.

But I noticed that my mother was becoming uncomfortable and my dad left the kitchen.

I don't know where he went in the house.

Things were said that can't be taken back.

And it happened also very quickly between my mother and me.

When my sister was talking about the Italian piece.

We started talking about you know who.

I don't even know how we did this, why we were even talking about this, but just like who my mother could have been with and I'm not sure why that the conversation went there, but my mother was becoming very agitated and she said to me not too loud so anybody could hear, but my sister did hear.

She she looked at me and said, well, maybe you're not a insert my surname.

And I was very shocked.

I said some not so nice things back to her.

And this would be something that we debated who said what first because that's kind of our relationship a little bit.

And she stormed out of the kitchen saying that she needed to go talk to my dad.

And everybody was left with their mouth again.

I mean, everybody was just very shocked that she had said this to me.

Yeah, you said before she said this to you, there were jokes kind of flying around who she might have been with or that kind of thing.

So at this point, have you considered that maybe your dad was someone else or your biological father was someone else?

Because earlier you mentioned the the 25% Italian would equal 100% from a grandparent at that point.

Are you thinking like maybe my mom's parents aren't one of them?

Isn't her her biological parent or did you go to your dad?

That's a great question.

I was so confused.

I, I think I, I think I was beginning to think about my dad and, and even though that might not make any sense because again, 1/4 Italian would mean it would be a grandparent.

But the way that my my mother responded and the fact that she said maybe you're not a blank, that made me go, well, maybe it is my dad.

When she said that, what what did you think?

How did you feel?

I was devastated.

I couldn't believe she said it and when she left the room I let it all out.

I was saying some really not nice.

Well not nice.

I just said I'm, I'm not tolerating this.

I shouldn't be spoken to this way.

I was so shocked and my sister tried to get me to stay and I just packed up all my things and left and got in my car and called my husband and called my cried my eyes out the entire way home.

I, I was just so shocked at that point I, I thought, OK, it's, it's got to be my father.

It's got to be my dad.

Even though looking back and, and if you have a macro perspective, it really didn't make any sense.

It it because again, it would have been a grandparent, but because she said what she said and, and Alexis, I have to be very honest, she told me because she wanted to tell me.

I think that knowing what I know now, I think that it was a burden that she was carrying for over 50 years.

And so it was, it was intentional that she told me.

So, So yes, after that I, I kind of said, I think it's probably my dad.

So my brother and sister and I were waiting on, on the ancestry results.

My sister received her results about a week after this incident at my parents.

And I'm not talking to my parents at this point, things are just very uncomfortable.

And my sister got her results.

And I remember August 14th receiving my results.

I had it on my phone and I remember opening it up because I had received an e-mail saying I had my results.

And I quickly looked at my ethnicity.

And then I went to close relatives and I saw my sister at the top, the one that had taken the test, and it showed that, you know, 1700 centimorgans, I think.

And then I immediately went down this very short list to the last name, and it was my niece, her daughter.

And then my eyes kind of refocused and I saw two people's names in the middle, and they had a surname that I had never heard of.

One was a man and one was a woman.

And I knew then that these people had to be related to me somehow.

But I still was in denial.

I think I was still just who are these people?

Could they be distant relatives?

I immediately told my husband.

I called my sister, I called my brother, and I said, there are these two people that I I don't know who they are.

And so my husband was actually at work at the time.

I had either called him or texted him.

And within 30 minutes, my world turned upside down.

My husband found an obituary and sent it to me.

And the obituary was the same surname.

I was able to cross reference the two people on my list with being 2 survivors of this person.

I realized that this person's obituary, this name is my biological father.

And so everything happened so quickly.

I was filled with so many emotions.

I was angry, I felt validated, I felt everything at once.

I've often described this journey as a bunch of moving parts, and yet I'm also a moving part.

And so I was devastated, but I just jumped right in.

My sister knew, my brother knew, but we still hadn't received my brother's results.

And even though I was feeling what I was feeling and I knew especially what I knew, I still wanted to see my brother's results.

I still in my mind and heart, I just wanted to see what was going to happen when he popped up on my relative list.

As maybe silly as that sounds, it makes perfect sense.

Because when that rug is pulled out from under you, you're just grasping for any bit of information and anything that maybe tells you something to the contrary, even though you know so totally understandable.

And and my whole life again, I knew that my my sisters were my half sisters, but I always knew that my brother was my full brother.

And not that I put it, you know, above anything, but it was just my identity.

My identity was I'm from a blended family.

I have two half sisters.

My dad is a stepfather to them and I have a full brother.

It was a matter of days for my brother to get his results.

And when I, you know, saw it on my phone, I saw my brother as as a half, you know, the center Morgans for 1/2 sibling.

And it confirmed what I already knew.

But I, I was more upset about seeing that than anything else.

Maybe because that was the last thing I was holding on to.

Because not that I ever thought that the test was wrong or they got it mixed up or anything like that, but I just wanted to hold on to that so tightly.

The Italian piece, though, was still not settled because on my biological father's side I had inherited my Irish and Scottish ancestry, which I thought I had inherited from my mother's father and my my dad's side.

That makes sense.

So for your siblings, for your, for your brother, let's say did.

He have Italian.

Show up, he did.

Yes, he had Italian and my sister had Italian.

That's when I knew it wasn't from my biological father's side.

So the whole.

Impetus for you questioning.

Your DNA.

Your heritage, your parentage was this Italian piece, Yes, but.

That.

Was not actually the.

Key to.

Your NPE.

Wow.

It wasn't.

About six months after, I reached out to the two DNA angels and I gave them my information.

I shared my tree and I explained there's this Italian piece.

I don't get it, I don't know where it's from.

And within five days, they came back with information about my mother's father.

And my mother's father is not my mother's biological father.

So the Italian piece is, in fact, from my mother's side, and it is my mother's biological father who was 100% Italian.

And that just blew open doors for me to think about, especially when I think she knew.

I think she's always known about her own status.

She's an only child.

She doesn't look anything like my grandfather.

She's short.

He was over 6 feet tall.

They had a bit of a strange relationship and that Italian piece all along was my mother.

And so it's hard for me to wrap my head around, and I and I don't have confirmation, but I do believe in my heart that she has always known about this.

She was born in downstate from where we live, in a community with a fairly large Italian immigrant population.

And my grandparents were married for eight or nine years before my mother was born.

My grandfather served overseas.

Turns out my biological grandfather also served overseas.

I don't know what transpired between my maternal grandmother and my biological grandfather, but I am almost certain that my mother knows.

Did you?

So front her.

With this.

Information No.

I I've told my sister, I've told my brother I have an older sister too.

I don't even know if I told my older sister.

I have really thought about what that would do if I were to to go to her with that information.

A little bit of back story.

When all of this happened with me, I wound up sending them a letter.

I took screenshots of, you know, my biological brother and my biological aunt.

I wanted to give them concrete evidence that this kid wasn't social.

I spent so much time trying to convince them that what was happening was real and that this was my experience, that going back and telling my mother, I just think it would open up.

I just don't know if it would help.

And our relationship right now is pretty surface.

I do see them.

We, we do spend some time together.

I've talked to my sister about it and she has said, you know, maybe we should tell her, maybe we should confront her.

I just don't know what it would.

I don't think it would help anyone.

I know, I know that the kind of impetus to all of this was this Italian piece.

And, and what I do think is she could have, she could have shut it down.

She could have said it's me.

And if she had said that, if she had said your grandfather that raised you is not my, is not your biological grandfather, not my biological father.

It was this other person.

I never would have continued going down the road.

I went down.

And again, I don't regret going down this road because I have 3 amazing brothers and two nieces and two nephews and two aunts and an entire family that I've never known.

And they've been wonderful and caring and open and just so welcoming that and I don't believe in, you know, blessings or anything like that.

But I think in a way, you know, from my sister wanting me to do my brother and I to do the ancestry again, had we not done the ancestry, I wouldn't have found these people.

I wouldn't have found my family because they weren't on 23andMe.

And and my mother, you know, had she maybe said it's, it's me, this is where the Italian is coming from, I never would have found my family.

So I feel very lucky that I have found them, even though it's been difficult with my parents and it's really changed the dynamics of my raised family.

But I feel so much better finding my brothers.

Finding My Brothers

How did you?

Find them and connect when I.

Received my results on ancestry.

It was within an hour.

My brother reached out to me and said, hey there, it looks like we may be related and how knowing him now because it's been three years, he's not a big talker and it but it was sort of like, Oh my gosh, I guess I'm jumping in, I'm I'm doing this.

And that's what I decided.

We communicated back and forth and we met about, oh gosh, maybe a month after the discovery.

I met him first and then I met my other brother.

Some of the brother I met is 7 years younger than I am.

I met my brother who's nine years younger a little bit after that.

And then some time went by before I met my, my brother who's 13 years younger than I am.

So I've, I met them all fairly quickly.

I am very close with two of them that my, my youngest brother, he's he's got a teenager.

He's much younger than I am.

He's at a different point in his life.

But we're still, we still connect.

We still text my brother who is 7 years younger.

He and I talk all of the time and my other brother as well.

I don't think you can, I don't think that you can take, you know, 45 years of, of life and somehow get that back.

The importance of family

And I don't think it's something you can rush, even though I jumped in with both feet for sure for.

Sure.

Have they been able to tell you anything about your biological father and what kind of person he was?

Yes.

They have shared so many stories with me.

My biological father was a police officer in the city in which we lived.

His parents actually lived less than a mile away from where I grew up.

We were all very close.

We were all under each other's noses and the information that they've shared with me, I feel, I feel like I know him.

I feel like I, I was just telling my brother the other day that I love someone and respect someone I've never met.

So they've they've been able to not only share stories, but my biological father took a lot of home videos and my one brother had them digitized.

And so I have video footage and I have his voice and I have so many pictures and I look just like him and, and that's something else I think many of us go through.

Even though I said I didn't stand out looks wise, in my family there were always a few things that stood out.

And one of the things that I think is important to share is everyone and their grandmother told me how much I looked like my mother from the time I was a little kid.

And not just looked like her, but mannerisms.

And I never ever heard that I looked like my dad.

And I wanted so much to look like him.

I wanted so much for people to tell me that I looked like him.

And the joke was my wrinkle over my left eye was like his and my toes.

Not much, but I think.

You know, going back to that cellular level, I just never heard that.

And I grew up being very close to my mother and, and not being close to my dad.

And again, I've heard this, you know, thread through people's stories, my biological father and I putting pictures next to each other.

It's incredible.

It's just incredible how much we look alike.

So the stories, the pictures, the fact that his two sisters are alive and have been able to share their stories with me, it it has helped.

It has really helped.

Again, it doesn't make up for because I don't think that's even something that can happen, but they have been as helpful, I think as they can be.

And they've just been so gracious with me and I just, I'm sad that I haven't known them my whole life.

I'm, I'm really, really sad about that.

But I've had distance.

It's been over three years and I think I'm in a much better place now than I was when I started this journey, even though things are still not super, super great with my parents.

But we've moved forward and and I've decided to move forward because hanging on to anger doesn't do anybody and it doesn't do me any good.

Connecting with Family

What does?

Moving forward, look like have you ever had a conversation about the fact that you know who your biological father is and that you've connected with family?

Or is it we just don't talk about it?

I did have a.

Conversation with my parents shortly after we like we're talking for a couple of weeks and after that two week period, I sat down with them.

And it's interesting because I used to be able to talk to my dad kind of by myself and now they're a united front.

And they actually told my sister when all of this was coming out.

My mother said things like the brick wall is up.

Your dad, your father and I are united front.

She said things like if it gets out, the family will be up forever changed.

And this was before I even got my results.

So when I did sit down with them, it was very uncomfortable.

They gave me very little information.

The only thing my mother conceded was health information because I have had some health issues that I thought came from my dad's side of the family that surprise, you know, not.

So we did, we did try sitting down and then I actually sat down with just my dad.

I don't remember how long after.

Maybe a month or so after and he and I met at his work.

He's 83.

He still owns his own business.

And it was almost like a meeting.

It was kind of strange.

I had questions on my phone that I wanted to ask.

I wanted to know if he knew my biological father.

I had all of these things I wanted to say and I was able to ask him questions, but unfortunately I questioned the answers.

They said that they thought that there was a chance when I was born that I could have been my biological fathers.

But then, you know, my dad said that he didn't even know him.

I mean, it just there's, there's more to it in terms of whether I believe what's been to hold to me.

And unfortunately, when you have something like this happened to you, you really listen to people's answers and, and you question them.

And I think if you weren't honest about this, I don't know if I can believe a lot of what you're telling me.

And I know that's sad, but that's how I feel.

It makes sense.

After you've had that level of betrayal that you would feel that way, yes.

Did your mom?

Tell you anything about the circumstances my mother has been.

More tight lipped than my dad.

My dad has talked to me.

We sat down again.

We had even gone out to lunch during that period of time.

And I told him I didn't want to go with my mother.

And he had said to me, your mom told me some things happened in the kitchen, but your mother can say things that are hurtful, but are we OK?

And that was just something very odd for him to say to me.

Like are we OK?

But I feel like my dad at least tried to be vulnerable with me.

My mother on the other hand, she has said very little.

She's actually shared some information with my sister because she knows that my sister and I are very close and she knows it will get back to me.

So what that tells me is that she's not comfortable talking about it and it saddens me because I, I don't hold anger towards the decisions that she made.

She was quite a bit older than my biological father.

She had already had two children, so it's not like she was 18 years old.

But I still don't, I still don't have, I'm not judging her, but I, I've never been able to sit down with her again.

She and I have had our issues and she's very difficult to talk to, very, very difficult.

And she's just been very tight lipped.

A few things that she has said is that she cared very deeply for him.

It was a relationship.

Again, he was much, much younger.

I found out that my biological grandparents on my paternal grandparents did not like her at all because they felt that, you know, she was robbing the cradle kind of thing.

So there was, I think, a lot that she was dealing with when she was dating this very young guy.

But she's just she.

I don't want to put all of the responsibility on her.

I could probably try to sit down with her again, but I'm just, part of me is afraid and part of me doesn't really feel that any of the answers will really make me feel any better because I've moved on with that side of my family.

I've embraced them, they've embraced me.

And it's separate.

The one thing that my dad did say when all of this came out, he said we're not interested in meeting any new people, which really told me that they've known, you know, my, my biological father's side of the family is pretty large.

I don't know the circumstances around, you know, when my dad met my mother, my mother had two children.

You know, I, I have to say that my dad took on two children plus 1/3 and I'm a stepparent myself.

And that was one of the things that I connected with him later in life when I got married and I had my blended family, you know, And so the respect that I have for my dad, apart from not being honest, I still have that respect that he, he, he took all of these girls under his wing.

But again, I don't want to romanticize and I don't know the full story.

I don't know the full story.

So, you know, will I have a conversation with my mother?

I don't know.

I'm not totally closing it off, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

It's interesting.

How so many people in this community end up with unanswered questions and kind of making peace with that, even if our parents are alive, just kind of going, OK, this is as much as I've got and I'm good with that for now.

It's it's interesting thing because I think so many of us are so thirsty for answers at first, right?

Like that's what got you.

And now you're like, OK, I'm going to leave it.

So that's, that's so interesting.

What do you think has helped you get to where you are right now?

What helped you get to where you are today?

My husband has been incredibly supportive and my rock, my siblings both on my raised siblings, my one sister and brother, and my brothers on my biological father's side.

The fact that that side has embraced me has really helped.

I think time too has helped me.

Listening to other people's stories, your platform that the work that you do that has given people like us a place to land, listening to certain common threads through other people's experiences to realize that I'm not alone because it for a while I did feel very isolated.

Also, just I think, realizing how much my life has changed.

One other thing that has happened since this discovery, I found out some things about my biological father and I decided to stop drinking alcohol.

And it's something that I probably should have done many, many years ago.

It I joke that I've never had a good relationship with alcohol.

I made the decision almost three years ago.

When you ask what has helped, I know for me that that has just made things so much clearer for me.

It has allowed me to try to see my parents side and have some empathy for the choices that they made.

And I don't think I would have given it up if this hadn't happened.

So just the way that my life has been going since the discovery, it's just gotten better.

I just feel that I'm more at peace with myself, even though I still don't have the answers that I really want.

I feel like I know myself better because I know my brothers now and I know, and it's if this is just all coming to me right now, it's it's sort of like full circle that I was so hungry and I was so inquisitive when it was all kind of happening.

And now I'm really, really content with moving forward and making memories and having relationships with with everybody, everyone.

Like I feel like my heart, I feel like, not that I'm the Grinch, but I feel like my capacity to love, which has always been pretty big.

Ever since I was a kid, I was again, that sensitivity piece and just always thinking about other people and what's happening to people.

And it's just more people to love.

And before this, my, my brother texted from my, my biological father's side and he said good luck because he knew I was doing this.

He said, good luck.

You know how much I love you and my family loves you.

And we're just so blessed to have you in our lives.

And that's really the truth.

And so everybody's helped, right, right.

Yes, yes, that's, that's how I feel.

It's a good spot to be in.

That's amazing.

What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping adna surprise from their child I.

Advice for parents who are keeping adna a secret from their children

Would say to look inward first about why you haven't been honest.

Try to be introspective and do some self reflection on what scares you about telling it, what might anger you about sharing the information.

But I think it's it's important to start with yourself and to look in the mirror.

I believe that parents should tell their children, and I don't know what best time it is to tell your children.

I think that young children tend to be more resilient.

I think that you can choose appropriate language and discuss it at an appropriate level if you decide to tell your children when they're young.

But if you let those opportunities go by and you're faced with a grown adult child, I think that you owe it to them to be honest and to tell them why you're afraid or why you were afraid or why you kept it a secret.

Because I think that sometimes we underestimate how forgiving we can be with one another.

I'm not in that situation as a parent, but I do think that parents should be honest and again, start with themselves and reflect and have some trust in their children that the child will receive the information.

And it might be bumpy at first, but it's better to get it out than to allow your child to not have this information.

Everything from health to not just your physical health, but your mental health.

There's so much that makes up who we are, and we have a right to know all of it.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

That's right.

What advice do you have for someone who just uncovered Adna Surprise?

Advice for someone who just uncovered Adna Surprise

Well, I've thought about this answer just like the first one that you ask.

I think that many of us in this community have questioned themselves for a very long time.

I know I did.

I know that ever since I was a little kid, I would question what I did, what I said.

We tend to perseverate, and I would say that if you feel like you want to jump in with both feet, that you jump in with both feet.

If you feel that you need to pause and step back and collect yourself, then you pause and you step back and you collect yourself.

The most important thing is to listen to yourself.

Listen to what is in your heart.

Trust your gut, trust yourself because again, the trust piece is what's been really kind of shattered for so many of us.

And trusting yourself is where it all starts.

So I would say go with how you feel and do whatever you feel is best for you.

Christine, thank you.

So.

Much for joining me and sharing your story and being so open and vulnerable.

I wish you nothing but the best and continued peace and beautiful relationships with your new found family.

Thank you, Alexis.

Thank you so much for doing what you're doing.

Thanks again to.

Christine for sharing her story.

If you have Adna Surprise that you'd like to share, please submit your story at dnasurprises.com.

And remember, you can join me for early access to add free episodes over at patreon.com/DNA Surprises.

Until next time.

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

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