Danielle’s DNA Surprise

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.

Intro

The saddest thing is I don't even think I was ever angry.

Maybe that'll come later.

Maybe I'm the type that cries first and feels angry later.

I feel bad for my mom.

She was in her early 20s when she got married to someone who couldn't have kids.

And I don't think she knew what that meant.

You know, she didn't want kids at that time.

And maybe it just, she got in too deep.

I think there's layers to all of this.

There's so many layers to people.

It's so complicated, and I think the more that we give people the chance to peel those layers back and figure out why they really made the choices they did, then we'll understand better and not be angry.

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 NPE, 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.

I knew it or I had no idea.

I knew it or I had no idea

When it comes to DNA surprises, some people are completely blindsided.

Others felt like they knew it all along.

Danielle never felt like she fit in with her family.

Her mother died when she was just three years old, and for the rest of her childhood she was raised by her dad, who travelled often for work, and her aunt, her mother's sister.

Danielle knew that her dad had difficulty conceiving her older half sister with his first wife, and she questioned if they were biologically related.

More than a decade after her dad died, another aunt gave her a letter he'd written to her, which described the sometimes tumultuous relationship but genuine love her parents had for one another.

A confession of sorts.

When she learned that her sister had taken a consumer DNA test, Danielle finally had her chance to uncover the truth.

After getting her results, doing extensive research, and learning surprising information from her mother's best friend, she finally did.

Thank you Danielle for sharing your story.

Speaker 1

My first name's Danielle and I am from Brooklyn, NY and my age is 44.

Story 1

My DNA surprise was finding out that my father who raised me wasn't my genetic father.

I think that I on some level always had an idea that that was true, but it was very complicated because my mom passed away from breast cancer when I was 3 1/2.

And my dad raised me along with the help of my aunt and grandmother.

And I think this was a shock for everybody that she died so young.

And I don't know if my dad maybe maybe they would have told me, but I don't think so.

I do think he knew.

I'm very close to believing that he definitely knew.

I just don't know if he knew who or he knew the exact storyline of how it happened.

But he raised me with a lot of help from my aunt and my grandmother.

He traveled for work.

He was gone, you know, sometimes three months at a time overseas working in 3rd world countries to teach Planned Parenthood, AIDS prevention.

There were a lot of times that he was gone, that it seems strange to me that he would leave me behind.

And he would always say it was because there was children in other countries that needed help.

And I always pretended to understand that as a little girl.

And my aunt who raised me has a daughter and helped raise me, I should say.

And they were good to me.

But I never felt like I fit in anywhere, not with my dad.

When he was home, I'd stay at the apartment with him and I would feel a little lonely because I'd miss my aunt.

And her house was a little bit busier because she had her daughter.

And my uncle lived there also.

And he was very good to me.

But I think there was always a feeling of being misplaced.

And I, I think it caused a lot of issues for me.

I had really bad anxiety as a little girl.

I was worried about dying, getting sick, I was missing my dad.

But then when he would come back, I didn't want to go with him.

And I can honestly say I never felt like I fit in where I was.

Were your parents your mom and dad?

My parents

Were they married when you were born?

They were married when I was born.

I do believe that they were having problems.

I don't know exactly when that started.

But without giving too much of my sister, my half sister who ended up not being related to me at all, too much of her story, I can start a little bit farther back.

My dad was married.

He was a Holocaust survivor.

He wasn't in a concentration camp, but he was born 1926 in the Czech Republic.

He moved to this country 1939 because of the war and when he came here they went from being very wealthy to very poor.

He was living in Queens.

He got married to another woman who came here from Europe during the Holocaust for 1927 I think, and that is my half sister's mom.

They did not have an easy time getting pregnant.

They were married for 10 years before she arrived.

His sperm count was low.

That's what they had told all of us, you know, as to why Alison was their only child and why it took ten years for them to have her.

And it turns out that she is not genetically his either.

So my mom met my dad when him and his first wife were separated.

Or I should say he left and they got together before they were legally divorced.

She went for an interview with him and they ended up hitting it off and they ended up to get married.

And I'm not saying this is the reason why, but my half sister's mom killed herself.

So that was a trauma for my sister.

And then she ended up living with my mom and my dad, and that was when she was 16.

We were raised always thinking that we shared a dad.

I always had a feeling that I wasn't related to my sister as much as I, you know, would have liked to be.

I just didn't see any at all similarities between us.

She was older than me, 20 plus years older, but I just couldn't see anything.

She's very musical, artistic, I like the arts, but we are, she's just very different from me.

So I had been assuming this whole thing for a very long time.

And 1:00 trip my husband and I took to visit my sister in Boston.

She had mentioned that she did Ancestry DNA because her boyfriend who was sitting there at the time said he had done Ancestry DNA and he found out all this cool stuff about himself.

He found out that he had some Native American in him and like he wasn't all Italian like he thought and it was really exciting.

So she's like, well, I did it because it sounded so exciting.

And it turns out I'm 100% Ashkenazi Jew, and that's not surprising at all.

So that was boring.

And that night when we went to sleep, because I had told my husband about 50 times, I really don't think my dad was my genetic dad, but I assumed he was hers.

I said, this is how I'll find out.

We went back to Brooklyn and I got a DNA, Ancestry DNA in the mail and I sent it away.

And this is the first time I'm admitting this will be the first time that she hears that that was actually the intention of doing Ancestry DNA.

It wasn't like most people that say I did Ancestry DNA and I found out like, no, I did ancestry DNA because I heard someone else in my family did it and I was pretty sure that was a good way to find out.

So at this point she still believes that she is related to your father.

Is that correct?

Yeah, she had no idea, 'cause I think so many people look at their ancestry and they're like, OK, it says I'm what I am and that's it, you know?

So yes, she is 100% Jewish, but that doesn't mean that those two parents, just because it's a match ethnicity wise, is adna match.

But she didn't look farther into it.

She just let it go.

OK, so then you go back home and you get a test.

What happens next?

Everyone thought I was crazy.

I just would like to say that, you know everyone, it would have been going on for years.

It really got very strong.

My feelings when I had my first child's and I was 31 and I just was so sure that something wasn't right.

I just felt like how could he really leave, you know?

Something was just strange to me and I know he needed to make money and I know he was single parent, but and the other thing that I should just say is that if he had trouble getting pregnant when he was in his 20s, what would ever make anyone believe that it would be easy for them to get pregnant when he was in his 50s?

So it was just also just common sense.

And then the last thing about it is that I had heard stories that my mom had had an affair and I actually heard the story from my sister and my half sister and I didn't talk to her for a while because I just thought it was cruel that she told me that because my mom wasn't there to defend herself.

Basically all of this just made me realize.

And then the tipping point was I got a letter that one of my aunts, not the one who helped raise me, my Aunt Una, my momma's other sister, gave to me, that my dad had written to me when my mom died.

The Tipping Point

He was in Bangladesh.

It says that on the top.

He typed it and he signed it.

Love Dad.

And it was basically this letter just telling me about my mom and telling me what people would probably tell me about their tumultuous relationship and how just like storms, they would have these times where they would fight, but they would make up and they would reaffirm their love for each other basically.

And I think he was trying to tell me that I wasn't his because so many of the words and I didn't get this letter till I was an adult.

So many of the words were like you were a part of my Rosemary.

You were our our chance at a happiness I wasn't able to give her.

There was a lot of this like tone and I knew from that letter and he raised me.

I mean, it was me and him.

I knew what he was saying and didn't have to say it.

And my aunt said absolutely not my sister, they were they're Irish Catholic.

My sister would never, she would never have an affair.

And I said OK.

And I said, well, my dad mentioned that she had had an abortion.

Oh, never.

Not Rosemary.

No, no, she never would have.

And I think all of these things just confused me more and set me back.

How old were you when you got the letter?

I was already a mom and it was just, it was all coming to like a head.

My aunt Una and I didn't have a very close relationship because she had wanted to take me away from my dad.

She had threatened that she was going to take him to court because my mom would have wanted her to have me.

And he, she wanted him to move to Long Island and he wanted to stay in Brooklyn.

And they ended up having a huge falling out and they stopped talking and she stopped talking to me.

So when he died when I was 18, my dad died when I was 18, suddenly he had a heart attack in the car.

She contacted me, but it took me a while.

You know, I just was like, now you're going to come around.

You know, you kind of abandoned me because you didn't get along with him.

And she was like, well, you don't know everything.

And I was like, I don't want to know anything.

He's gone.

And I don't know what you have to say, but I just can't.

I just didn't want to hear it.

But she claimed that after all that, getting that letter and then me saying to her, were you going to tell me years ago that he wasn't my dad?

She said no, I wasn't going to tell you that, so who knows?

Do you believe that he was trying to tell you as much as he could in the letter without telling you?

I do, but then there's part of me that feels like he was trying to hide it too, mentioning an abortion like is, you know, because we all lived in the same place, we never left.

And I think maybe just in case he I ever heard something from someone, you know, just to make sure that lined up.

But I always thought it was weird.

Like, why would you tell me that?

Why did you tell me?

Yeah, that's like a really personal thing to share that if it didn't have anything to do with you.

And I remember being like when you bulbs before you were born.

And I'm like, why?

Why'd you do that?

You know, like, but whatever.

I was just like, OK, you know, fine.

But I always remembered that being weird.

How many years went by between you getting this letter and getting that internal sort of affirmation that he may he may not be your biological father to when you took the test?

That letter was 31, The test was 36.

So it took me a long time and I tried everything.

I mean, I contacted people trying to understand more and I was at the point and I I feel so bad that I'm saying this and she's going to hear this, but I was like at the point I was going to take care from her brush.

I was like that sure.

By the time we visited her and it was kind of like a gift because that night we're sitting there and they tell me they did ancestry and I was like, what?

The ancestry test

That's crazy because I literally we joked around my husband and I that I was going to take some kind of sample.

But the weirdest thing is then so we take this test and we're not linked.

And I called Ancestry DNA just to just to make sure.

And they were basically like, yeah, these are these are usually not mistakes.

Is this a possibility?

And I was like, yeah, it's definitely a possibility.

It was so confusing because I'm half Irish Catholic, like first generation Brooklyn, like my mom's one of six kids and my dad is an Eastern European Jew.

But it lined up like it's true, I'm a Jew.

Like I was like, well, that part lines up.

Like I'm happy.

Like at least I know who I am.

I called my mom's best friend who I hadn't really had much relationship with, and I basically begged her to explain more to me.

She said, yes, I know it's a lawyer.

I know she fell in love with a lawyer.

I heard they got pregnant, but she told me she had an abortion.

So there's this abortion piece that my dad was feeding me, which I always thought was so weird.

And she was like, you know, I know your sister is probably not your dad's.

He came to this country in the in 1939.

It was during like the Holocaust and they were on a boat and he got measles, mumps, rubella at thirteen years old.

And it left him low fertility.

So they went to a sperm donor.

At that time it was rare, you know, it was the 50s.

And they mixed his sperm with this donor.

And Rosemary always told me that's my mom and her best friend's name is Pam, that they pretty much knew that Allison was not my dad's, but they weren't 100% sure because you didn't know when you mixed.

But I think my dad was so smart.

I mean, not just book smart, really intuitive.

And I know he knew.

I just know he knew with me.

I know he knew with her he couldn't have kids.

He knew that.

And she said she got pregnant with this lawyer and she cried to my dad like, this is how badly I want a baby.

And he said, OK, Rosemary, you have an abortion.

And then we'll go to the fertility doctors like I did with Allison's mother.

That was a story my mom told her friends.

So there was a pregnancy out of wedlock, but she told him that she was going to have an abortion, but she never did.

Oh, I considered that.

I was from a donor and I did all this research.

I would sit for hours on my way on the subway.

I would sit with a notebook, like trying to break down my tree from ancestry.

And I finally like found this woman who's like, I'm going to try to help you.

I was like, whoever my dad is, is your cousin somewhere?

Second cousin, I'm from Brooklyn and maybe you can help me.

Then I said, but I'm a don't probably from a donor.

So she's like, I have this cousin.

He lives in Seattle.

He's a neurosurgeon, which is like a dream for this hypochondriac girl.

And he donated sperm in the late 70s.

And I was like, Oh my God, it's him.

So she asks him if I can write to him and he says yes.

And we write back and forth and he is so lovely.

And I was so happy.

He had never had kids and he was married and lives in Seattle.

And lovely, lovely, Lovely became a realtor after he retired from being a neurosurgeon.

My mom was a realtor and an artist.

But I just loved him so much.

And he was getting excited too, the crazy thing.

And he's like, all right, let's figure it out.

Let's do adna test.

So I sent him ADNA test.

We both did it.

And can I just tell you, I think that this is one of the most upsetting things was finding out that he wasn't.

It is so strange.

The chance to have someone so lovely be my genetic father and be able to meet him would have been so nice, but we were both so disappointed.

I Remember Me getting the results and sending it to him and you know, he wrote me a lovely letter basically saying whoever it is would be lucky and he was just as disappointed as I was.

I'm.

Sorry, it's.

OK.

And I don't even know, I think I'm probably just transferring my emotions on to that because it doesn't make that much sense.

But he was lovely.

And then the crazy thing is that woman, it was her cousin, it was just on the wrong side.

Then she's like, there's this guy Leon, he was from Brooklyn.

I think I met him at my bar mitzvah.

Like she wasn't sure.

And it just was a dead end.

I couldn't find anything on him and there was no links.

He had never done Ancestry and no one related, just like tightly related to him did.

And I gave up for so long.

Did you tell your sister who you always believed was your half sister?

What did she say?

Well, she was on her own journey.

She found out a lot more, a lot quicker than I did.

She had like a million matches.

That's an exaggeration, but a lot.

And she found all these half siblings and they had all met over those four years.

And there I was with like zero matches for the longest time and finding like second cousins and nothing, nothing stuck.

And I realized pretty quickly after what happened with Hal, that was the guy who I thought was my genetic dad.

I kind of realized I wasn't.

Maybe I wasn't from a donor, but I think I wanted to believe I was from a donor because then I felt like they both wanted me and they both did what they had to do to get me.

And there was a lot of shame in my realizing that I was a result of an affair because Oh my God, the shame was so heavy.

And I it's so sick because it had nothing to do with anything I could have possibly chosen.

I was so defeated.

And then I was starting to get really nervous about medical history.

My son was having stomach issues.

And I just started to get myself so nervous.

I said, how could I leave this?

So I did 23andMe, it came back first cousins with this guy Steven.

And I wrote to him and he was like, I know exactly who your father has to be.

He's my he's my cousin.

He's from Brooklyn and his name is Leon.

And I was like, this is two people saying this guy Leon, he gives me the 1st and the last name.

And I call my boss who I worked for for like 25 years in Brooklyn Heights.

And she's like, oh, I know Leon.

And I was like, you know him?

And she's like, yeah, I was like, I think he's my dad.

She goes, no way, that's crazy.

And she's like, I'm pretty sure he's still alive.

So I call around and it turns out he died.

He had died 2017.

Another woman who knew him was like, well, he has a daughter and she's a lawyer too.

And anyway, so I ended up writing to his daughter and I end up meeting her.

She's my half sister.

And then she has a full brother who I've never met.

And then I actually have a younger brother because Leon was divorced when my mom and him were together.

He was not married at the time.

And then he ended up getting married, a second marriage and having us a son who's 4 1/2 years younger than me, I think.

And we actually went to the same college.

He's very nice.

I've only spoken with him a few times.

What have you been able to learn about him through his children and his wife?

His daughter has only the nicest things to say about him, and she's actually lovely.

She lives in California.

She has a beautiful family.

She's successful.

She loved her dad.

When he got sick, she moved him out from Brooklyn to California and took care of him.

She loved him so much that he just has to have been a great guy.

His son from his second marriage, I think they had more of a tumultuous relationship.

I talked to him about it a few times and I just felt like it was loaded and I didn't want to make him feel like he had to tell me who his dad was.

I think he was still dealing with his dad's death at the time because don't forget, I think I spoke to them 2020, that dad, their dad had only died like three years earlier.

And I think his son and him had a little bit more of a complicated relationship.

So I didn't want to.

And he's younger than me so I was like looking out for him and I just didn't want to cause him any headache.

OK, so your mom's friend, she told you that your mom had an affair with Leon the lawyer and fell in love with him.

The Story of Leon’s Abortion

She got pregnant.

Your dad asked her to get an abortion and then they could go and do the donation route like they did with his first daughter, but she didn't.

Do you think that your dad believed that she did go get an abortion and then go to his clinic?

No, he had to have known.

She didn't because he was, like I said, he was so smart.

I think he was just very understanding of the fact that she wanted to have a baby and he wasn't able to provide that.

And I don't know if it was that she said, you know, why, why?

Why do I have to have an abortion?

This person won't be a part of our lives.

I won't tell him, you know, or I don't know how it, I don't know.

And I don't even know if he knew I existed.

Because she left Brooklyn for a year.

She bought a house in Long Island and they lived there for a year the year I was born, ironically.

And then she came back to Brooklyn with a baby.

So I don't know that he would have ever put two and two together.

Or maybe he did know, but his second wife, who's still alive, his daughter and his son said they know.

He did not know.

Who knows?

I'm not sure.

Bapart feels upsetting.

I'll never know if he knew that I existed because we worked on the same block for 15 years.

I went to college on the block he lived on.

I mean we had to have passed each other 7,000,000 times.

Not to mention I passed my half sibling probably in school.

Sure.

I think so many of us in the community have these like questions that we know that we might never get answered right.

I'll never know.

I'll never know what happened.

I mean, literally, I just need to accept that.

And of course, my wish is that someone will hear this podcast and say, well, actually I knew them and this is what happened.

But I know that's not going to happen, or at least I don't think so.

But I will say the one of the only memories I have of my parents together was not a great memory.

But we were in a car and all of a sudden they were fighting and my mom must have opened the door while it was moving and then opened my back door and took me out.

And it was like out of a movie where someone's walking with someone and someone's driving next to them and they were just screaming at each other on the street.

I don't know where that street was.

I don't know what what the time frame was, but I remember it.

And it was one of the only times I remember my dad crying.

I asked him about it when I was older.

I was like, was there ever a time that we were in the car?

And you and mom got in some horrible fight and she got out of the car while it was moving and took me out of the car.

And he just cried.

He was like, I can't believe you remember that at 3 1/2 years old.

Like, what?

Who remembers anything from 3 1/2?

Like, what must have that memory been to see her into your brain like that?

Like, I just think it shocked him.

But I wonder if that was the time where he said she said to him she was dying.

You know, maybe she said, you know, this is who it was.

Or I'm going to tell them.

I don't know.

I will say out of all of this, the thing I take away is any child who's had trauma or secrets being hidden from them, they become very intuitive.

They're able to, like, remember things that they need to remember because no one's actually giving them answers.

They're going to map it out themselves.

They're going to figure it out, and they know so much more than adults give them credit for.

And the other thing is, I think it's OK to have secrets, but I think what they did is denied someone else their truth.

So I could have gone my whole life without knowing this.

And not only would that have been unfair because my dad also had a rare type of cancer, because I would have thought that I would have gotten that, but also because what if there was something I needed to know for my children?

And I am a warrior.

And I think that was really what drove my search.

And it was one of the first things I asked my half sister.

And she remembers it.

I basically was like, OK, great.

Good to know.

Any other things you want to tell me about his health?

You know, she was just like, OK, I get it.

Like, you really just want to know if he ever had cancer.

And I was like, yes, because I'm so scared.

My mom had cancer at 34.

You know, she died at 38.

I'm so nervous.

And part of it was relief that he didn't because both my parents had cancer.

My dad had cancer when I was 6 and he beat it.

But that would have, I felt like cancer was like, I don't know, like an evil person after me.

It was so scary that he got it right after she did.

The last thing I'll say about what hurt me was realizing that I was raised by no one who is my parent.

Raising by someone who wasn’t my parent

So I was like, no wonder I felt out of place.

And it was really interesting because in the end, I felt so at place with my dad as an as a teenager and once you retired and we were together and I had felt so out of place with my aunt.

But now looking back, she was the only one related to me that raised me.

He wasn't related to me.

I know an Ant on one side is probably is only 25% genetics but that's more than anybody else that was raising me had.

I've spoken to some other people who have had that experience where it turns out they were raised by someone who was not genetically related to them at all.

How do you process that?

I feel bad for the people who also had to raise me.

I know that sounds complicated, but I feel bad for him because I think he really wanted to hand me over.

And now in retrospect, I think it's because he thought I belonged to them.

Maybe he didn't even know if I was the same religion as him or if I was, you know, maybe to put me with my own, maybe to leave me there as much as possible because he let them, you know, I like they, they taught me like religion and things like that.

And I don't think he knew.

I don't know if he knew like that whoever was my genetic father had the same ethnicity as him.

I don't know how in depth my mom got.

Maybe she never told him because that would make him liable for not saying something.

But knowing what I know, I feel bad for all of us, including him, because even if he knew, he was probably so scared to tell me because it was just me and him and he would lose me or be worried that he would lose me.

And then for me, I feel bad because I just felt so out of place.

And my aunt, I'm thankful that she helped.

I think that she did the best she could.

She had her own daughter, she had her own family.

She always tried to include me.

The fact that I didn't fit in a lot of the time was out of her control.

It's just because I didn't fit in anywhere, because I actually didn't fit in, you know, I was, I was someone else's all together.

Without being able to get a lot of answers from the players that were involved, what has helped you process this?

What has helped you process this?

I think the thing that's helped me process it is telling the story, because I think the shame comes from feeling like you shouldn't tell anybody.

And I think it's important to just say it.

And I think anyone who is hiding something from someone that's imperative to their medical health, to them knowing who they are, should tell them because I think it frees everybody.

I think about sometimes, I know, breast cancers, a lot of factors, but imagine the immense weight my mother was carrying, carrying this baby, giving birth to a baby that wasn't her husband's, not being able to tell her best friends, wondering if he'd always hold it against her.

What about when she was dying?

Wondering if he would love me the way she would love me.

I just think it would have been freeing for her to tell her family and her friends.

Yeah.

Are you very open about it with all of the people in your life?

I tell my kids, yes, I tell them exactly what happened because I don't want them to carry the guilt of it because that's what happens.

You inherit guilt.

And I feel bad for my sister's mom's death because my mom, I'm not saying she played a part in it, but might have been something that happened that deepened my my sister's mom's depression.

And I think we inherit the guilt of the choices of our parents.

And I think the way to clear it is to admit it and say it and let it out.

That's really beautifully said.

Thank you for sharing that.

What's next for you in your journey?

What’s next for her

I.

Think I'm just going to not let it go, but I think I wanted to do this because I just wanted to document it.

I've always thought about writing about it and it's just too many things because I don't know what the story would be.

Would it be the girl who lost her mother really young and was always worried of getting sick?

The girl who was raised like Punky Brewster and Henry?

That's how I always like me and my dad used to watch that show like that.

Is that the story how we ended up having this amazing relationship and we were too odd choices like The Odd Couple of parent and child?

Or is it that I'm angry about not knowing where I came from for most of my life?

I don't know even know what the story is, but here it is, all of it out and I can maybe put it away a little bit.

Yeah, are you still angry?

Saddest.

Things I don't even think I was ever angry.

I don't even know if that makes sense, but I felt bad for her.

I felt bad for everybody, including me, but I felt bad for my dad.

Can you imagine how that would have felt coming here from another country when you're 13 because people want to kill you because you're Jewish and you get on a boat and you get so sick that it means you can never have kids in your life that are genetically yours?

I mean, what the hell?

His story was like a horrible a horrible saga.

And then it didn't work out with his first wife.

She ends up committing suicide, leaving him with the first daughter who isn't his.

I mean, who is?

But genetically then he falls in love with this young woman.

What are the chances that she'd die when she was 24 years younger than him, leaving him with another child to raise that wasn't his?

It's a.

Lot.

Yeah, it's a lot.

Like what did he ever do?

He would just sit.

And at night sometimes he would just sit there, no TV, Like he would watch the opera and then he would just sit there with his like martini.

And God knows what he was thinking now.

I wish I could ask him, but I didn't know.

What would you say is your most burning question around all of?

This what happened.

I just want to know what happened.

I mean, honestly, the idea of just being able to sit with one of my parents, the genetic ones, the not genetic 1.

It's really interesting how profound that sense of not belonging was for you for so much of your life.

Do you feel like you have a place where you belong now?

Yes.

Because I made my own family and thank God.

And it's ironic.

I married someone named Dan, and my dad's name was Dan, the one who raised me.

So it's fun.

The thing is like, I don't want anyone in my life to feel responsible for the fact that I didn't feel like I belonged because the feeling I had was in me.

It wasn't anyone else.

It wasn't their fault.

I think I just couldn't figure it out.

I it took me a really long time to figure out what this feeling was I felt and then I finally figured it out so I feel it was cathartic.

What advice do you have for a parent who is keeping adna surprised from their child?

My advice is to tell the truth and to put the truth before any feelings of vulnerability or fear because the child deserves to know, and especially if they're going to find out anyway.

I feel like everybody finds out anyway.

I don't think people like us are going to exist much longer because people are going to be able to scan themselves and know exactly where they come from.

Yes, and what advice do you have for someone who just uncovered?

Adna surprise, that's easy.

You're OK.

You're going to be OK, and that's it.

Danielle, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story with me today.

I'm so happy that you found a place.

Where you feel like you.

Belong with your family and I wish you the best.

Thank you so much.

Thanks again to Danielle for sharing her story.

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

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

You can sign up over at patreon.com/DNA Surprises for as little as $5 per month.

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.