Chaya’s DNA Surprise

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Intro

It's taken me a long time to really disconnect what I feel is an unhealthy bond and start to see my mother in a different light.

And not necessarily a -1 but one where I had to come to terms with what my mother sees as real in fact, is in fact not real in fact.

And it's a hard thing to come to terms with that.

The reality that you've been told and someone genuinely believes in is not real.

And so I called her right away and I told her, yeah, they're all stoked.

They've been waiting for me.

This is not what I expected.

She was shocked, but it I had already started to put up the guards.

I I feel bad at how quickly I didn't believe anything she said anymore but her shock to me sounded fake.

It may not have been but I don't know.

To me my trauma response was to protect my own brain.

At this point she's like how could they have known?

What do you mean how could they have known?

And retrospectively, this is the moment I knew.

Speaker 2

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

I'm your host, Alexis, our salt.

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.

As we've heard earlier this season, many people within the DNA surprise community saw their test results as mere confirmation of something they'd long suspected.

Story 2

But as heard in this week's episode, not everyone was able to put their finger on just why they felt different.

Shaya never felt like she fit in with her family.

She found solace in music and the friendship she formed in the metal scene during her rebellious teen years.

Then one day, during a heated exchange with her parents, her mother revealed that the man she believed was her biological father was not.

She pursued a relationship with the man her mom identified, only to then learn even more shocking information about her paternity.

Thank you for sharing your story, Shaya.

Speaker 1

My name is Shaya, I am 42 and I live in a small town between Vancouver and Whistler in British Columbia, Canada.

I'll just start like at the beginning and just some background of my childhood and my teen years.

As a kid, I have siblings and I was raised with my mom and dad and we lived in the same town I'm in now.

We live just down the street from my grandparents, so they were a huge part of my life.

I was primarily raised by my dad's family.

We had no contact with my mother's family.

Actually, it's funny to retell it because to me this was like normal.

This is no big deal.

This is like not the big part of my experience, but a lot of people are quite taken aback by it.

But we had no contact with my mother's family and that was my parents choice.

However, my mother's family did routinely want contact with us and so they took unorthodox approaches to that.

My school was told that we could be kidnapped off the school grounds.

There was an ad put out in the newspaper by my mother's family looking for us.

I believe my my maternal grandmother took my parents to court to try to gain access.

And when I was in high school, letters were sent to the school from the family looking for me.

And so like, I would see my dad walk into the high school and I was worried he would catch me skipping class.

And I'm like, oh, what are you doing here?

He's like just getting these letters that were sent here.

So I don't know.

I don't know what happened in the court proceedings.

I don't know what happened with those letters.

I just know that we had no contact with them and that was just life.

I had a fairly happy childhood.

We went on family Rd. trips and I was a weird kid.

Like I like to go out in the forest and make my own Ford.

I was much happier alone than with like my siblings.

I would turn the family car into a Fort all the time and I just always felt a little bit off.

But I think what's important to know from this is I didn't know as a child that biologically I was not my dad's daughter.

I didn't know that the family, the paternal family, which was the only family I knew, I didn't know that they weren't my family.

But in retrospect, I exhibited a lot of the psychological habits of someone who knew they were adopted.

I would Daydream a lot about a different family, and I would Daydream a lot about like someone coming to take me and save me.

And there wasn't necessarily something to be saved from.

I just felt very out of place.

Did you feel like your dad treated you any different from your siblings or anything like that?

It's a very subtle shift, so I don't want to say I felt like I was treated different.

I definitely, I felt different.

I felt like I didn't think the same way as them, like even as a kid and my brother and sister are twins so I just took like oh I'm different because I am not the twins.

You were able to kind of explain it away, yeah.

So you were just very different from from everyone else.

Yeah, I always had, like, these weird, like, fixations on, like when I was a little kid, I loved Tom Cochran so much.

And then when I was a teenager, it was like the music was Marilyn Manson and the comfort movie was Wayne's World.

And so I would watch SNL and Mike Myers would be on there and I'd be like, oh, I just love him so much.

He's so funny.

And my mom, like, obviously looking back, it's in horrible taste because she knew what I didn't.

But my mom made the joke of, oh, you love him so much because Mike Myers is your real dad now.

He's not just so clear.

I hit my teen years and any frustrations I had as a child exploded when I became a teenager and I didn't know why.

Getting angry and frustrated

I still thought there was something wrong with me.

I was angry.

Like I didn't even know why.

What are you angry about?

Why do you have the attitude?

I didn't even know.

I was just so angry and frustrated all the time.

I tried to run away and I would steal cigarettes from my parents and just rebelled, rebelled, rebelled.

I found kind of solace in like dark heavy music and the heavy metal community.

And like this band of misfits I created as my friend group, my bonds with my friends grew stronger, stronger, stronger and I spent less time with my family, which frustrated my family.

I heard blood is thicker than water far too many times in my life.

I didn't understand why I was so angry.

I thought there was like I had an issue.

I asked to go to counseling, but this is in the 90s.

You just want your outcast daughter to fit in the mold, right?

So I asked to go to counseling and they asked me why and I couldn't tell them why because I didn't know.

And so they said, well, if you can't tell us why you want counseling, then we're not doing it.

So I never did that.

I just felt very lost.

But then I found very fond with my friends.

I met my husband when I was 15 and I just bonded much easier with outsiders and I did with my family.

And so that just like, fed the what's wrong with me?

When I was 18, this was the year I graduated high school, but I hadn't quite graduated yet.

The blowout

My family and I had a big blowout about some poor choices that I had made at the end of this blowout.

Like, it's funny, the moments that like, stay in your mind.

I'll forever remember where my mother was sitting, where my dad was sitting with the lighting of the room, like everything.

And my mom stood across to me and said, well, we can't expect you to be honest with us because I had been lying about what I had been doing and the choices I've been making, you know, just teenagers lying to their parents and being rebellious.

She said, I can't expect you to be honest with us if we're not honest with you.

And I literally had no idea what was coming next.

And that was when she told me that my dad wasn't my biological.

Father wow, so it was already kind of like in a heightened emotional.

This was the argument to end arguments.

I feel that they felt that they were really losing me as a child.

And so I, I, I don't know what they were thinking with this being the right time to do it.

But it was in the most vulnerable and scared like heightened emotional moment that the bombshell was kind of dropped.

And I literally had no idea.

My mom looked at me and said you, you really had no idea.

And I said I absolutely not.

And then immediately everything started like laying at lightning speed through my brain.

Like my dad's family is the only family I know.

I asked her who my father was and she told me a name that I had never heard.

His name was Dave.

I never heard it.

My mom asked me how I was doing and then my dad answered and he said she's fine.

So kind of there I picked up that we're not talking about it, we're fine.

And then you just kind of bury that down, right?

So you kind of just pushed it down.

Was there any part of you that was like, I want to find this person?

All of me.

Every part of me immediately wanted had 1,000,000 questions, wanted to know all of it.

I asked my mom privately, do you have a picture?

Do you have anything?

She had a couple keepsakes from his parents.

She said that he didn't want to be a parent.

They did go to court.

He had had to pay some sort of small child support for 12 months and then he signed off his parental rates.

This is all what I'm told, right?

So I don't know any of this.

My mom cried a lot when she talked about it.

My dad clearly was like, let's move on.

I love you like you're my own.

This changes nothing.

And so I went through a lot of other things that year and then like as soon as I graduated, I moved out, continued burying everything.

Also, the fire to that flame is I now had freedom too.

So it was a lot of drinking, a lot of experimenting with drugs, a lot of partying.

And then I snapped out of it for a little bit.

And then I was 19 and pregnant and I moved back home.

My parents were split up now.

I moved in with my dad because my mom didn't have the space for us.

I stayed there until after I had my son, and then we moved out on our own and started building our lives.

And it was after I had my son that I started to have questions because they would ask about family history.

And I didn't have any history on my mom.

And it was a sensitive subject.

She didn't talk about her family.

And I just kind of tried to respect that by not asking any questions.

And then they'd ask about my father's family, and I didn't know.

And so I reached out to my mother and said, I think I want to contact them.

She was ready.

She she was supportive, she encouraged.

She had the contact information ready to go.

Were you surprised by that?

I was just so happy that it wouldn't hurt her feelings.

It wasn't what I expected.

She was very supportive.

She's like, you know what?

I have his parents mailing address.

I have their phone number for you.

I was like, oh great.

So we kind of like walked that together.

I shared, I showed her the letter I was going to write and I sent it to his mother and I didn't receive anything back.

And then I said, you know what?

Maybe the lawyer didn't go to the right place.

I tried phoning his mother.

She abruptly hung up on me.

And then my mother said, how do you feel about me writing a letter to them asking them to please contact you?

I said I was shocked.

I was like, absolutely, I would love the support.

She showed me the letter before she sent it.

She sent it off.

And then I did receive a letter back from his mother and we did have a phone call.

And essentially in that letter and phone call, she made it clear that David didn't think that I was his, that she was quite estranged from her son.

And she was.

She apologized for how she had hung up on me and answered all of my questions, which were all medical, which were all history, and which are quite faded from my mind now given everything that's happened in between.

But I made the phone call from my mother's house.

I made it on speakerphone.

She hung on every word of that phone call.

It was so great to see me connecting with his family.

She wished he would want to be a part of my life.

She spoke of him in high regard.

His mother and I exchanged a few letters.

It just kind of fizzled out.

I spent the rest of my life until say two years ago, like if I was in a crowd I still didn't know what this man looked like other than I was told he had blonde haired blue eyes and was 6 feet tall.

And I would scan crowds just like do any of these people look like me?

When I worked with customers and they had to pay with credit card, I read that name on that credit card because I at least knew his name.

I wanted to know is there any chance someone here is related to me?

And I don't know it's just a constant scan.

And then when Facebook came along, I think the first name I put into Facebook was his name and he did not come up.

He was very elusive, very private, very estranged, very kept to himself.

I did find someone that was his niece.

I sent a very point blank message to her explaining my situation.

And she was either like, too estranged from him to care about causing any drama or was very heartfelt, like, family is family, it doesn't matter what he says.

And so her and I communicated a little bit.

She saw him at Christmas and took a couple pictures of him and sent them to me and told him that I was out there asking about him.

And he maintained he's like, well, that is not my daughter.

So I just kind of like looked at the pictures and like, yeah, that's a dude.

I didn't, I didn't resonate with it at all.

I'm like, I don't know, I guess this is who I'm related to.

I sent the picture to my mom.

She was thrilled to see them.

At this point, were you all in like you had accepted this as my father, or was there any part of you that was like, maybe he's not?

Retrospectively, obviously I'm like, yeah, obviously I knew because I was like, Oh well, guess this sucks, move on.

But it clearly bugged me because throughout the years it came in waves, right?

Where I'm like, I don't care, I've got this great life, why do I care?

And then something would get stirred up and I would be hell bent.

So it came in waves of like, I want to contact, I don't want to contact, blah blah, blah, blah, blah.

Until in 2017, my mother texted me and she said, were you going to tell me that he died?

And I, I didn't even know who she was talking about.

I'm like, who died just like David?

I said, I haven't heard anything.

I haven't heard anything from the niece.

I haven't heard anything I didn't know.

So then I messaged the niece.

I was like, where are you going to update me?

And she's like, what are you talking about?

Like the family didn't even know he had passed away.

That's how removed from his family he was.

So then the niece went forward and was like 1, Dave died and then everyone's like how did you find out?

And she's having to tell the family she's like 2 from someone that claims to be his daughter.

And the extended family had no idea.

Like I, my name was never uttered once.

Wow.

How did you feel kind of processing that?

I mean, obviously you didn't have a close relationship or anything, but you believe that that was your father.

I'm like, I'm really sorry I'm the one to have to tell you guys this and that this is how you're finding out about me.

But here I am.

And I'm speculating.

But to have a family go from like they don't know I exist and they don't even have contact with him to Oh my gosh, this is his daughter.

And then they came on really strong.

They had a lot of questions.

They wanted to know where I lived.

They wanted to see pictures.

They wanted to know where my children went to school and their names and everything.

And I pumped the brakes.

My husband even commented, he's like, it was so sad.

And how quickly you shut it all down considering it was something you chased your whole life.

But I essentially within a couple days messaged them and said, listen, I'm really sorry that you're having to process this.

But I actually, I would prefer to go back to no contact right now.

I'm very happy with my life.

The person I wanted to talk to is deceased and so I'm going to have to heal on my own.

My mom asked me not to do it and I essentially told her I had already done it.

I made a decision and left her out of it.

You know what I mean?

And so I think it may have been hurtful to her for me to make it such a drastic decision and then not consult her on it.

My mother and I had like a tumultuous on and off again relationship throughout the years where we'd have times where we were best friends and then times where we weren't speaking.

And so between 2017 and see, this is the part that'll start to get really emotional for me.

Between 2017 and 2022 when I decided to do Ancestry, we were on a downswing.

So our relationship was kind of on the rocks.

When I decided to do Ancestry, like I said, I was really at peace with everything.

And then I was working on, sorry, one second, take your time.

I was working on a quilt of all things because this is the moment, like, I made a decision that actually changed many lives, right.

So, like, reflecting on it, I'm like, man, I had no idea what I was about to do.

Yeah, But I was working on this quilt that I had been collecting pieces for years for.

It was these antique handkerchiefs that I've been collecting, some dating back over 100 years old.

I had thrifted all of them.

I was mounting them on.

Also thrifted antique quilt squares that were already made but not put into a quilt.

So as I'm working with all these really, really antique pieces that at some point someone spent so much time making and stitching and then gifting to family members.

And just as a creator, like you put a part of yourself and everything you make.

And so as I'm working with all these different pieces from all over the place, I, I'm just thinking, I wonder what their creators would think about them now.

I wonder what their families would think about me doing this with them.

Just trying to do justice to the original creators and respectfully.

And as I do that, the thought just kicks up in my head.

Am I related to any of these people that have made these pieces?

Now I'm touching them and working with them and I have no idea.

And those ancestors have no idea.

It just really kicked out something in me as I was completing the quilt, like putting the binding on.

And I always joke and like when you put the binding on a quilt, that's when you say like either a prayer or a curse or a wish or something.

When you're doing the binding, that's the best time.

And as I was binding the quilt, it just came to me.

I'm like, obviously I'm not done here.

I'm not OK with it.

And I need some sort of answer.

So how do I find those to satiate this call in me?

I'm, I messaged my husband 1st and I said, hey, I need to find some peace with this.

How about I do ancestry and then that will give me ethnicity, that will give me villages, that will give me a map of where my blood hails from.

And then together we can travel to these places and I'll find some peace in this chaos.

Have a lot of tattoos.

And I was like, I'm going to get lost.

Soul tattooed on my knuckles.

I'm just going to own it.

I'm going to and this is what I think will bring me peace.

I think it's the only way I can find it. 100% supportive.

He loved the idea.

He stood behind me the entire way.

I'm not a very patient person.

Like before I finished binding the quilt I ordered the Ancestry kit.

The minute you order the kit it's like oh while you wait for your kit just build the tree with the information you have.

It was shockingly easy to build the tree with just a couple names and get a tree going back hundreds of years.

I just reveled in it.

I was like, part of me was like, I'm going to find my peace.

And then another part of me was like a big fuck you because you took your answers to the grave and I'm going to dig them up.

And I felt like I had a right to know these answers despite what everyone else thought.

And then because my mother was so supportive with anything that had to do with reaching out to Dave or getting information, I sent her an e-mail hoping that maybe this would be the way to like, spur our relationship into an upswing again.

And I said, I know you're sensitive about your family, but I'm just looking for historical.

I'm not looking for people that are alive.

I've said that I don't want contact.

I'm looking for ancient stuff.

I'm looking for peace in ancestors and knowledge and I asked her if she would help me with a couple names from hers so that I could build the tree and she was thrilled to help.

She answered any questions, she gave information I asked for if I had a question about Dave's history.

She had some answers but it wasn't anything in depth with Dave.

I was just like trying to remember about how old he was and stuff like that.

And we communicated by e-mail a few times about the ancestry thing and then I just kind of went quiet about it all.

I stopped emailing with my mother.

We were dealing with someone in the family that was quite I'll that we were having to focus on and we just waited.

This all started in May and then in June I got an e-mail from my mom and it was just two lines.

And to anyone else it would just seem like a really sweet check it mom checking in.

But to me, the alarm bells rang and it just said I haven't heard from you in a while.

How are your roots growing referring to ancestry?

I was sitting on one side of the couch and my husband was on the other and I just chuckled my phone.

I bet I'm about to find out that Dave wasn't my father.

He just knew.

Know what made me say it?

But I was just like, that's what's about to happen here from that two line e-mail.

And so the results hit on a Saturday.

Got up, poured a cup of coffee, opened the computer, took 6 minutes looking at this, closed my computer and said I knew it.

In 6 minutes I knew.

And then it all spiralled.

Yeah, what happened?

It went completely off the rails from that moment.

See I cry when I talk about what the choice I made to start this and the events that brought me there.

But then the rest of it is so out there that like all I can do now looking back on is just laugh at how scared I was and naive and just unsure.

Someone phoned me shortly after and I completely lost my mind.

I completely lost my mind.

They were like, hey, how's it going?

And I hadn't even spoken of my husband yet.

And I was like, oh, you know, just great.

Just found out my mother's been lying this whole time.

I immediately was angry.

And that anger was ferocious.

I emailed my mom immediately and said essentially that I shared no genetic matches with anyone in that tree for David and BE.

It's because I had built the tree and I saw all my DNA matches that not one of their names fell on that tree that I knew.

And I did not hear back from my mother at first.

So I just kind of was left to my own accord to completely spiral while my husband tried desperately to keep me together.

I was in close contact with a few of my friends and a friend that I had had since I was very young, and they all kind of kept me together with my husband.

And while we waited, my mom got back to me the next day, essentially saying she had no answers for me.

She had no idea.

She asked if there was a chance I was switched to the hospital or that Dave had been adopted.

So here is the child trying desperately to not see her parent as someone capable of this.

And so I was like, maybe.

And here I am reaching out to Dave's family again five years after his death and just be like, is there a chance he was adopted?

And they're like, absolutely not.

And I'm like, OK, thanks.

Bye.

And I for sure wasn't switched in the hospital because I shared DNA with her family tree.

So she asked to see my results.

I very selectively showed a few of my DNA matches.

I told her to not contact them.

As far as I know she is not and I didn't hear much.

She said she had gone over her memory.

She couldn't think of anyone else I could even possibly be my father.

And so we waited.

There was no answers.

I did fire off some messages to some DNA matches but didn't hear anything back yet.

I decided by the Monday that I wasn't going to pursue it anymore.

I I messaged my mom that I had to be done.

I couldn't spend my life continually doing this, that we don't have answers.

We'll never have answers.

Dave took his answers to the grave.

I'm going to go back to my original plan of it gives you an ancestral name, right?

I'm going to track that name down, find grave sites, go visit them.

Go go travel with my husband, find my piece, make it my own.

And she emailed me back that she would like a phone call.

I said, OK.

I expressed to my husband that I was very wary of taking a phone call with her.

And he said just just take it.

I got on the phone with her and she told me how she came to the realization that Dave was not my father.

It was through a dream she had had and then some quick Googling of herself that night before.

And she told me my father's name and his siblings names and then asked me what I was going to do with that information.

I said well I don't know my exact words were I don't know if I have it in me to ruin all these lives because I had asked her does he know about me and she said no he was a one night thing.

She had never even thought of him again, never even seen him again never even spoken to him again and so he probably wouldn't even remember her.

And so I asked for details of their friendship and that and things so that when I, if I did decide to reach out to the family, I had some sort of information that showed I wasn't like a wackadoodle.

I wasn't just like, I'm a random person.

I've names of friends and locations.

And then she warned me.

She said when you look them up on social media, the resemblance is going to be shocking.

And she just wanted to prepare me for that.

And I, I didn't know what to even do with that information.

I grew up with no genetic mirroring other than her and my siblings look very much like their father.

So I hung up the phone.

I gave names to my husband and a couple of my friends and told them help me find them all, which they all did immediately.

I then took a moment to look them up on Facebook and I remember the first time I saw his picture I was alone in the house but I still said there you are, I found you.

My brain didn't even know how to compute at all.

They we look so much alike it's uncanny.

And how anyone could think that I was anyone else's kid is beyond me.

He was impossible to find or contact on social media.

He quite prides himself in being impossible to find on social media or to contact or anything.

So I reached out to Linda who was my strongest genetic match who is also his sister.

She was quite distant from the family.

So when I reached out to her like bless her soul, I was a mess.

Within the 1st 5 seconds of hearing her voice, I was a wreck.

I don't even think I got my name out.

I started crying and she's just the most patient person.

I I kind of choked out very quickly that I was sorry that I was calling her, but that's she was my strongest DNA match.

I said I didn't want to name names, but I was looking for her brother.

I was trying to be so private because I was told this man had no idea existed.

So here's this man walking around.

I'm about to ruin his life.

I'm 40 years old, right?

He has no idea he has a kid and grandchildren.

And so Linda was just yeah, I see on ancestry were related.

So I'm going to deduct because you're on a paternity search and you're looking for my brother, that you are led to believe he's your father.

And I just answered yes or no through sobbing tears.

I know for a fact she's related to me.

I know for a fact she is on my paternal side.

This is my very first contact and I'm just a disaster.

She explained that she was distant from her siblings, but she told me it didn't matter what anyone thought or if anyone wanted to, if anyone was ready for my arrival, that no matter what anyone said, I was family.

I told her I just felt lost and I'd been like I'd been lost for a long time.

And she said, well, you're found now, and so no matter what happens, you have me.

How did that?

Feel I can't even like, put it into words.

It was the most shocking thing that anyone had ever said to me.

She said what she thought would be the best plan of action would be to speak with her sister, who's also his sister obviously, and together take their information to Greg.

My father and I said sure, whatever.

I, I have no idea what the best plan of action is here and I probably shouldn't be making any like life decision.

I took about a week for them to make contact.

I was not sleeping.

I was very on edge.

It was a very tumultuous time within me.

It's hard to even remember.

I was just so drained.

And I hadn't heard anything from my Aunt Linda.

So my brain immediately assumed that this family was like scared and pieced out.

And so my husband has like bought me a bunch of bath products, candles in the bathroom.

He's like, you are going to just go have a bath and decompress and just let go.

And it's been a long week and like, this is the only way I can help you right now because you're crazy.

He's running the bath.

I'm like crying.

I'm like stripping off my clothes, but I'm also muttering.

I'm like, I was fine without them Anyway.

I was it's, it's fine.

I've been fine on my own.

It's OK.

I I'll be fine.

And then my phone lights up and it says Linda and I just like immediately I would turn the water off.

I can't hear anything.

Oh my God, the poor man's been yelled at so much.

And Linda says to me, I just got off the phone with my sister.

She's like, are you alone right now?

And I said, no, I have my husband.

He's right here with me.

She's like, are you sitting down?

And I was like, no, she's like, maybe.

So here I am.

It's kind of poetic that I am completely naked as the day I was born, essentially prepared for a rebirth.

I sit down and she's like, so I called my sister Nadine, but didn't go the way I thought it would.

And I said OK, because, well, when I called her and started telling her this story, she cut me off and said what's her name?

And when I told her your name, Nadine just said I have to go.

I have to call Greg.

But we know we know about her.

We've looked for her.

We have been waiting for her to find us.

But I have to go.

But just tell her that we know we love her already.

We cannot wait to see her.

This is our whole life.

We've been waiting for this.

I immediately start apologizing.

I'm like Oh my God I am so sorry.

This family thinks it's found some long lost daughter but it's not me.

He must have a different daughter because no one knows I exist.

He doesn't know I exist.

He probably doesn't remember my mother.

I'm supposed to have to plead my case here.

I said how did they know about me?

I was told and and I completely believe this to be true.

She brought me to him and told him that I was his daughter, but that she had someone else that was going to be her father and adopt me and that she wanted him to stay away and that he was not to be involved in my life.

And then she left, which is quite different from the retelling that my mom gave me.

What are you talking about?

Like, I'm so sorry.

I have given this family false hope.

And Linda just, I think she didn't quite know how to walk me through it because she's like, Nope, it's you.

So I think your father's wrapping up some things, but he's going to be contacting you and he's been waiting to contact you this whole time.

And everyone's really excited.

So just thought I'd tell you.

Like, it was very casual and I was like, OK, OK.

I'm still don't think this is true.

I just like OK.

And then I got off the phone with her and she was like, we love you.

We love you so much and Nadine loves you so much.

Can't wait to hear hear like see you.

And I got off the phone and looked at my husband.

I could see equal parts just complete fury and just like validation.

How are you reconciling this against what your mom has told you?

Because she's like, I don't remember.

And now you're hearing from this family.

We've been waiting for you.

What's going through your mind?

It was a lot.

And it's a hard thing to come to terms with that the reality that you've been told and someone genuinely believes in is not real.

And retrospectively this is the moment I knew.

I have a deep seated weird connection in my brain with my mom and I don't know how to fix that.

And I knowing the truth in that moment, right after I got the truth, I gave her a lifeline.

I gave her a lie that she might be able to use to get out because I so desperately wanted her to not be the bad guy here.

And I said to her, I'm like, I don't know, maybe one of your friends told him.

I've been told that just moments before that they knew I was their family member and his daughter because my mother told him and I saw her struggle when I said they know about me.

And so I said maybe one of your friends told him.

And then my husband blew into the room and he was like, you're done on the phone.

You have to get off the phone.

I didn't understand.

I was frustrated with him.

Like I am in the middle of the phone call and you are interrupting.

He was just like, get off the phone, and he explained to me as gently as he could that there was something unnatural about the way I assisted her when I knew what the truth was and I wanted to bring her out of it.

Like give her an out so that she wouldn't struggle.

With it, yeah, you're caretaking her.

You always want your mom to be someone who looks out for you and someone that cares for you and puts your needs above their own and things like that, and to be in a good light.

And I could see her struggle and I I knew it wasn't true that no, none of her friends told him about me.

It was just a moment of realization for me that something is not right here with our connection.

And I really needed to sort that out in my own brain.

Then I received an e-mail from my dad like the next day, essentially reiterating the same thing.

He didn't know about me because my mom brought me to him.

He had a birth announcement and a picture of me that he still had to this day.

He kept it.

He would love to in whatever way I was comfortable.

He would like to meet me, he would like to see me, He would like to talk to me.

He would like to know about my life on my schedule, wherever I want to, whatever I'm comfortable with.

Like, it was all very cordial.

And I emailed back that I was, Yep, willing to talk, willing to meet.

I looked forward to hearing his story.

Let's start this whole process very slow.

I knew this man's name for only a week.

I don't know who this guy is, and I don't know what's going on right now.

These stories are very different.

And I feel very, very lost right now.

And also that guilt, like if you ever call your parents out, it's like you feel that guilt right away.

You're like, oh, I should not be doing this.

They're my parents.

They're my elders.

They're everything.

But at the same time, I have a right to know the story of my existence and my creation and where I come from.

That is my blood as my genetics.

It is my right to know how I came to be.

So it's a weird place to be in.

And you go back and forth and it's a lot of highs and lows and a lot of I can't believe I did this on myself.

And then the next day you're like, oh, I can't believe I did this.

The day we met, he brought the birth announcement and my picture that my mom gave him.

It's undisputable.

It is my mother's writing.

It is for sure a picture of me on the birth announcement.

A different person is listed as my father that I'd never even heard before.

And he was just so thrilled that I would meet with him, would speak with him.

We shared our life stories.

The day we met, it was a lot.

I insisted on a paternity test still because there was always this part of me that's like, I don't know, maybe I'm still wrong.

And here I've thrown my mother under this bus and maybe I'm still wrong.

Maybe you're not my father.

Maybe I'm ruining lives.

We did the paternity test that obviously came back positive.

He was confident the whole time.

I'm like, if the paternity tests come back negative, I'm real sorry.

And he's just said when they come back positive, I'm really going to enjoy telling you that I was right.

The paternity test was positive.

He met his grandchildren, he met my husband.

I met my Aunt Nadine, who is like my double ganger.

We look like identical.

I am very embraced, very loved by this family.

So are my children, so are my husband.

So I have a fierce group of friends that will protect me and my family and my peace at any cost.

It has really changed our lives and I think for the better.

Like obviously some relationships have fizzled and been really strained, but I am surrounded by the strengths of the people around me and to know that in searching out who I am, where I come from, I did know wrong in that because that is something everyone has a right to know.

What are things like with your mom now?

How is your relationship with your mom now?

It's been 2 1/2 years since Ancestry and so in that 2 1/2 years there have been sometimes of communication.

There's been times of no communication after that phone call where I had that realization that something happens within me when I hear my mom struggling with something in that I then will OfferUp and out.

I have not had any unsupervised phone calls or emails or texts with her.

We have had communication, but it is all supervised because I just don't trust myself completely yet.

I'm still trying to find that confidence in being able to find grace with people and not be affected by their emotions or their experience of my ancestry journey.

We have talked in depth where I gave her space to tell her story again.

The story did shift quite a bit.

Whereas my father's story, the first time he tells it to, the 100th time he tells it, it's the exact same.

He held me in his arms, he knows the spot, he held me in his arms.

The words he uses to reiterate the conversation are the same every time.

So with my mom right now that we aren't talking right now, it's just there's nothing constructive that can be said.

I'm just trying to live so peacefully and happily.

And so a lot of people have asked, so why now retell it again in a podcast and bring it all up again?

And I think by putting it out into the world, it's just another part of me that like lets it go a little bit by putting it out into the world, it just kind of normalizes it.

And if other people hear it and then think twice about when they're going to tell their children about their own genetics and it prevents like one person from having to have this reality torn multiple times in their life, then that's why I would want to put it out there.

Not to hurt anyone, just sharing my story to hopefully learn from it.

What advice do you have for a parent who may be keeping adna surprise from their child?

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

Oh, those children know.

They don't know in a way that they can articulate it, but they know.

And it's either going to come from you in a time of honesty and love, or they will dig that up themselves.

Another thing I've really learned is that if someone goes to all the trouble to dig that hole to bury some secrets, they're not burying just one.

There's more.

They toss a whole bunch in there and it's either going to be you bring that to light yourself in a timely manner so that that child spends less time wondering what's wrong with them, or that child will dig it all up themselves and you won't really have a say in what they dig up.

What advice do you have for someone who just uncovered a DNA surprise?

Give yourself some grace.

Surround yourself by people who are going to give you grace to completely fall apart.

And whoever helps you pick up those pieces and put you back together, those are your people.

And healing is not linear.

You're going to have highs.

I still have highs and lows.

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

You have been through so much, but you have told your story so well, and I know that other people who have been through similar experiences will really benefit from this.

I hope that your relationship with your father just continues to grow and that you find peace in the journey that you're on.

That's the goal here.

Thanks again to Shaya for sharing her story.

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

And remember, you can join me over on Patreon for early access to ad free episodes.

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.