Yvette’s DNA Surprise (Update)

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Episode Transcript

Transcripts are AI-generated and may not reflect the final published episodes.

[00:00:00] Yvette: I do talk freely about the DNA test.

[00:00:02] Yvette: Because I think it’s an important conversation because there’s been just so much taboo with secrets and affairs. I think over the years we always look at the couple in question, but what about the child? You know, what about what’s going to happen to them? Like we’ve seen in Facebook groups, we’ve seen 67 year olds doing these DNA tests and then they find out that dad’s not their real dad.

[00:00:27] Yvette: Luckily I’m so strong and resilient to not lose myself in that anger.

[00:00:33] Yvette: Betrayal, hurt, where you can just fall down that rabbit hole even deeper. It’s given me a good perspective to open up because if you don’t open up, who are you going to invite in?

[00:00:52] Alexis: Thank you Yvette for joining me today. It’s good to see you again.

[00:00:59] Alexis: Thank you

[00:01:00] Yvette: so much for bringing me back what a journey, what a journey it’s been, what a journey it’s been just, just over two and a half years since we spoke and So much has happened and in that time,

[00:01:16] Alexis: It’s been two and a half years since we last spoke why don’t we just Pick up where we left off. What has happened since then?

[00:01:25] Yvette: So I have four older half siblings I never knew about. I’ve got two older brothers, two older sisters and I’m only barely in contact with the oldest, the one that I reached out to when I was on the path looking for my biological father and information about his family and I have not met them and, yeah.

[00:01:48] Yvette: That’s because that’s been my decision to not meet my older siblings. Predominantly, my reasoning for that is because I just don’t feel like I have a connection, unfortunately. We’ve had separate lives, we never grew up together. And I think, That the pain that they’ve known about me for over seven, just over 17 years and me only finding out three and a half years ago, I wouldn’t know what to say or do if I met them.

[00:02:24] Yvette: I think I’ve asked all the questions I needed to know about my biological father and his mother and his background they don’t know much about my grandparent, our grandparents I should say, and I’ve done a ton of research on my journey I just feel like, well, what have I got more to say?

[00:02:46] Yvette: What have I got more to ask? It’s just, it just feels like there’s just two different worlds. And that’s okay, that’s completely okay.

[00:02:55] Alexis: I think that’s something that we don’t, always hear about and I think it’s important to talk about, right? So many of us, we’re very eager to have this connection with our biological families and we’re really excited and sometimes they are welcoming and sometimes they’re not. And sometimes we talk about how it can be difficult to build relationships with them.

[00:03:18] Alexis: But I don’t know that I’ve talked to too many people who have ultimately kind of decided This just isn’t a fit. Can you talk a little bit more about how you got to that place?

[00:03:27] Yvette: absolutely, I think there’s, what I have found on my journey with my surprise DNA test is, to me, there’s this romanticised version where you do the DNA test, you get the shock, that, oh my gosh, I’m a DNA test. is not my real father. Who is my real father? And there’s this massive seven stages of grief.

[00:03:51] Yvette: And I think what I, this is what I have seen and read is that there is a union of meeting the other side and, you know, there’s a bit of, you know, pain getting to know each other, but then it’s all, you know, woven in that person’s tapestry. And it just seems to be a bit of a general story when it comes to that.

[00:04:18] Yvette: I don’t feel like that because so much pain has come out of my story. I have discovered so much more in the last few years than just the DNA test and things weren’t right. I know everyone is just, everyone’s different, everyone, everyone’s journey is different, and everyone, every healing.

[00:04:41] Yvette: process is different. Everyone’s processing is different with it all. And I just went, gosh, mine, mine isn’t written like that because I did hold onto a lot of anger and pain in the first few years. The deception from my mother. And then I have not spoken to her at all, at all. It’s been three and a half years since I’ve spoken to her. And because her mother, my grandmother, she knew the secret too and I confronted her and she denied it to me that she knew. I haven’t spoken to her since either, and that was Easter, just over three years ago.

 I have been very bitter with, with that, a lot of resentment. My walls have just gone up. I don’t allow people into my personal circle as much anymore. And I’ve just really protected my heart through, through this process. It took me a long time to forgive my mother and my grandmother.

[00:05:42] Yvette: It took me a long time to forgive my father too, my biological father. But in saying all that, I’m not this hermit that has pushed my whole family away. This whole discovery has actually brought my stepfather and I a lot closer. Which has been quite beautiful, a very beautiful relationship between a father and a daughter.

[00:06:02] Yvette: He has just been so supportive. There’ll be times I’ll just call him and cry going, I can’t cope today with it all. I’m angry with mum. I’m angry with everything. And he’s just the most cool, calm, collective man. Bit of a voice of reason and helps me out and just listens to me. Since we’re talking about family, I actually did tell my son last year in October,

[00:06:26] Alexis: And how did he take it? What did he think?

[00:06:29] Yvette: When I told him, I said, Oh, Dimitri, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, and I said, Oh, I remember the DNA test that Mummy and Daddy did, and then Mummy was crying a lot, people were coming over to check in on me. Mummy was talking so much about her side of the family, and I told him, and he goes, Mum, He was like staring at me with the biggest, widest eyes going, Mum, this is such a crazy story, he said to me.

[00:06:54] Yvette: This is so crazy. But then he goes to me, because he calls him my father Papu, which is grandfather in Greek. He goes, but Papu’s your real dad. You know, your real father’s not your real dad. Papu’s your real dad. And I could not believe that he, like, no matter what, he still sees him as his real grandfather.

[00:07:17] Yvette: And I think that is just one of the most beautiful, mature, open minded things he has ever said to me.

[00:07:25] Alexis: And it really just goes to show, right, that kids can handle this information. We can tell children the truth, and they are wise, and they can take in information and process it and understand, and understand how it changes or doesn’t change their relationships. That’s really great.

[00:07:48] Yvette: And I think honesty is everything. I’m glad that I told him sooner rather than later, because I think if I kept that for another five years, because I thought he wasn’t ready. He could have turned around going, Mum, why didn’t you tell me sooner? And I thought it was really important because we did go to Sicily last year for a month.

[00:08:08] Yvette: He, Dimitri wasn’t as excited as most 11 year olds at the time are, entering preteen. He, I thought at first it was a bit of a boring trip, he just wanted to be back home in Sydney with his friends. But now it all makes sense why we went there, why I went to my great grandparents village to research my family and connect with the land that my Sicilian side became so disconnected when they immigrated to America 120 years ago.

[00:08:38] Yvette: So it was quite a lot for my son to tell him, this is Sydney. one part of your lineage, and this is their story, and this is why we’re here. But he’s taken it in very well. Really, I’m really impressed.

[00:08:54] Alexis: That’s wonderful. Let’s talk more about your trip to Sicily because when we last spoke you were really leaning into that part of your DNA surprise and learning more about your heritage and I remember you talking about how when you’re finding these recipes and cooking your recipes at home. But you felt a very deep connection to your ancestors as you did that.

[00:09:20] Alexis: So how is that going? And what was your trip like?

[00:09:24] Yvette: Yeah, so one of the main reasons I honed into my Sicilian heritage is because my biological father was a product of an affair as well, and my grandmother had an affair with an American soldier who was my grandfather, and he was first generation American Sicilian.

[00:09:46] Yvette: So I felt that there’s been a generation of disconnection from that line, that heritage, and Sicily, from what I’ve been learning, is such a rich culture. And I’ve really wanted just to delve deeper and connect Because my grandfather was such a mystery, and I found him. Out of all of my relatives, I look like him the most.

[00:10:11] Yvette: And his mother, my great grandmother, just looks like a blonde haired, blue eyed version of my son. So it’s just incredible I’ve got one photo of her,

[00:10:20] Yvette: and it’s amazing how my son and I just were just cookie cutters of my paternal lines, not just the Sicilian line. And I just really wanted to connect with, with that side and something inside of me, some fire was burning for me to go to Sicily. So I ended up. learning a bit of Italian because no one in Sicily talks English.

[00:10:42] Yvette: So, that was really nice to learn that as much as I could and I just, there was just something in me. You need to go, you need to go to Sicily and I was getting reoccurring dreams to go there.

[00:10:58] Yvette: So we made a big trip of that. One of the big reasons was I wanted to go to my great grandparents village. I wanted to get some more research. If I meet relatives. Awesome. If I don’t, I understand because most of them. Are in America now But I did connect with a cousin from MyHeritage, another DNA testing site.

[00:11:18] Yvette: We got connected and he messaged me and I said to him, I’m actually going to Sicily, I’m going to stay near you. And he said, Oh, we’ve got to meet. And we met.

[00:11:30] Alexis: Oh, how was that?

[00:11:32] Yvette: it was so lovely, like, he’s actually from my great grandfather’s side of the family. When I figured it all out, and I didn’t tell him about my surprise DNA test.

[00:11:42] Yvette: And when, We were catching up for a coffee. He goes to me, why did you take the test? And so I sent him an article of mine that was published in Australia going, this will answer your question. It was just so nice to meet his little daughter. She was very excited to meet me. I’m very excited to have family in Sydney because they all assume that the family’s in America.

[00:12:08] Yvette: So it’s, it’s exciting to have someone new

[00:12:11] Alexis: Yeah.

[00:12:12] Yvette: and it was just really lovely, Someone I don’t know, but you feel connected, and it’s just so weird that I’ve got family on this little island in the Mediterranean and it, but it all felt so natural and normal. And that was a really lovely experience.

[00:12:29] Yvette: I’m, I’m so grateful, but I think I’ll tell a really short story. and sweet story, of when I went into my great grandparents village. So I was staying near there for a week and to get to our villa we were staying at, we had to drive through to get through there and check in and my husband goes, well why don’t we stop in your great grandparents village since we’re driving through?

[00:12:51] Yvette: I said let’s go to the street my great grandfather grew up in, because I had the street name so we got there. And so my first steps. In this tiny little village in the middle of nowhere in the countryside, was in my great grandfather’s street.

[00:13:05] Yvette: it just felt like I’ve been there a thousand times over for centuries. It just felt so right. And there was a group of people

[00:13:18] Yvette: And my husband goes to me, why don’t we go and talk to them and see if they might know if you’ve got any living relatives? I said, they don’t know English, how am I supposed to talk to them? He goes, I’ve got the Google translator in my phone, let’s go and talk to them. So he did it for me. Going, oh look, my wife is Sicilian.

[00:13:37] Yvette: Her great grandparents are from here. Would you happen to know anyone with these last names? And he rattled off my great grandparents last names and their parents. And one man just piped up and he goes, Look, let me help you. And then we got talking and then we knocked on a few doors asking, are you related to any of these people?

[00:13:58] Yvette: And they were like, no. And I said to him, look, It’s over a hundred years ago. You know, people have probably died, they’ve moved. It’s all good. And then he goes to me, Where are you staying and I’ll try and get some information on your family for you. I said, Oh, that would be great. And then he contacted me

[00:14:15] Yvette: We started talking on WhatsApp because, My Italian is horrible, so it’s just easier to use WhatsApp, use a translator, and he sent me a bunch of information on my great grandfather’s family. And he said, you do have a really living relative, but she’s not in the village at the moment, she’s on holiday.

[00:14:33] Yvette: But he goes, but don’t worry, I’ve booked an appointment for you to see the council because that’s where all the records are of, of all like birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates. And I said, Oh, that’s awesome. Like, thank you so much. A few years ago when I was looking for my grandfather, I reached out to a girl in the village on Facebook to see if she knew anything.

[00:14:56] Yvette: But at that time I had a fake name of my grandfather because he gave my grandmother a different name. Because what soldiers do, they give false names so they don’t get trapped down by their lovers that they’ve hooked up with in the war.

[00:15:12] Yvette: So this girl and I, we stayed in contact because she said to me, we could be indirectly related, but you look like one of us. But then I eventually told her who I was and who my great grandparents were. We didn’t meet, unfortunately, and Cicely, she was. out of the island at the time.

[00:15:29] Yvette: But she said to me, Yvette, have you gone to the council yet to do your research? And I said, Oh, I’m actually going tomorrow. She goes, Oh, wonderful. And when I got there, there was these two men standing outside and I waved to them and they came up to me and it turned out to be my friend’s father and his friend.

[00:15:47] Yvette: And we just got talking. So we went upstairs to do the research and I got my second great grandparents in. marriage certificate. And I’m looking at it and then he goes to me, my friend’s father, he looked at me, he goes, Yvette! We’re cousins! And I went, what?

[00:16:06] Yvette: And he explained to me how we’re cousins. And all I remember was we were just looking at each other with tears in our eyes. And I just could not believe it. And then my new friend that organized the appointment, he came running upstairs. And he looked at my cousin and he looked at me.

[00:16:23] Yvette: And he’s like, how do you two know each other? And he explained it, like the whole thing. few years in a nutshell. And my friend just looked at me going, you found the right people. And I sure did because in my journey of researching my family this Sicilian historian published two books on the genealogy of the villages in this village.

[00:16:47] Yvette: It’s from like the 1600s to 1990. And it’s like, Oh my gosh, I need to get ahold of these books. I could not find them anywhere. I was looking at Italian forums, Facebook groups. bookshops in Sicily. They were like, no, no, sorry, it’s sold out. Nah, it’s out of publishment. And he gifted me these books. That was his parting gift for me.

[00:17:08] Yvette: I just could not believe it that my journey of pain, deception, betrayal has become a romantic Sicilian story of connecting with not just the land, but with relatives and making friends. Like I have never felt so home in a village. And I am saying this with like so much assertion because I have been to Greece as my husband’s, Greg, my, my son.

[00:17:41] Yvette: It’s of, you know, half Greek heritage. And I fell in love with the islands when I went there. And I’ve been to Croatia, because my mother’s Croatian. And again, I felt connected, but it wasn’t the same level of, like, feeling home in Sicily. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve not known about it for 35 years.

[00:18:03] Yvette: And I don’t know if it’s, it was something that was missing from me that’s always been there. But walking through the village I was looking at everyone and I’ve never seen so many little girls and women my age that look like me. I have never had so many people come up to me. Just asking who I am, is your family from here, what are their last names, and then they start going on the phone, talking to their friends, to find out if they know anyone.

[00:18:32] Yvette: It was a real homecoming for me, I just can’t wait to go back, especially with the friendship I made with this particular man,

[00:18:43] Alexis: Are you still in touch with him?

[00:18:45] Yvette: yes, yeah, we’re in touch, he’s like the uncle I never had, who’s waiting for us to come back, and he took time out of his day to help me out, and that’s something that people wouldn’t really do.

[00:18:59] Yvette: Yeah, no, I mean, that’s just incredibly generous and, you know, to your point, it is this beautiful story of, you know, you searching for the truth and, and not getting it from the people that you’re closest to. And then finding it from strangers like across the world who just welcomed you with open arms.

[00:19:23] Alexis: That is so. Incredible. When are you going to go back?

[00:19:29] Yvette: I want to go in a couple of years time. I, I just fell in love with the island so deeply, just those little pockets of moments. When I was in Western Sicily, I was in a beautiful little village called Marsala, and my husband and I went to the beach for the day, and I went for a swim on my own. I just remember floating in the ocean, and I just started crying, and it just felt like this baptismal, like the, the, the ocean was just embracing me, like finally you’re home, you’re here, and It was just like everywhere I went, because I saw most of the west coast of Sicily and then I saw a few places in the south coast and then we went to one city in the east coast and every place just felt So, just right.

[00:20:22] Yvette: Like everything just made sense.

[00:20:25] Alexis: That’s so beautiful. I brought tears to my eyes

[00:20:28] Alexis: when you said that.

[00:20:30] Yvette: I’ll never dismiss my, my, my, my biological paternal grandmother’s heritage as well. She’s got, uh, Czech Jewish and Middle Eastern heritage. And some people go to me, Oh, how come you don’t price the Czech heritage? You always talk about the Sicilian.

[00:20:48] Yvette: I said, because when I found out I was part Czech, I was at peace with it straight away, because my favorite author is a Czech, and the Czech, you know, is a Slavic culture and heritage, which is very similar to Croatian, the South Slavic heritage. If I want to look up on, you know, like Slavic gods and goddesses and mythology, it’s, it’s the same.

[00:21:12] Yvette: I’m already connected. Like it’s, it’s already there. I don’t have to go, Oh, what do I need to know about the, you know, Czech history or, What do I

[00:21:21] Alexis: as stark of a shift as

[00:21:24] Yvette: exactly, exactly,

[00:21:28] Alexis: I was gonna ask you I think for some people,

[00:21:31] Alexis: There is a bit of guilt with maybe not feeling that instant connection with the family and not wanting to pursue a relationship or maybe even wanting to but it just not feeling right.

[00:21:44] Alexis: How did you How did you come to terms with that and feel okay with it? Because you seem, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be like, you know, it’s on me and this is what I’ve decided and this is what’s right for me. How did you get to that place?

[00:21:57] Yvette: I think, when we did our DNA tests, and it was a massive shock to our system our way of life, how our life has been narrated for decades. You, at first go, like there’s this, there’s a lot of anger, like a lot of, piercing, burning anger where you go, how could our mothers do this to us?

[00:22:23] Yvette: How could they deny not only of us, of our biological father, but our ethnicity? Because we’ve got a bit of layers, you and I Alexis, it’s not just

[00:22:33] Alexis: Yeah.

[00:22:34] Yvette: we’ve got a different father, we’re, we’re connecting with ethnicities that could have been Buried and we would have never known and our DNA, our spirit inside would have been screaming for it until the day we died.

[00:22:49] Yvette: And there’s that first, space we’ve got to move into with this anger, rage. There is victimiser. How could they do that to me? What have I done so bad in this life to do, to get through that?

[00:23:01] Yvette: And I think I realised I had to take accountability of my actions and choices. Because when I got to the point, look, what happened 39 years ago, because I’m now 39, I could never have controlled the narrative. I wasn’t even born. I didn’t make that choice to cheat. and, you know, have a child and, hide that from them when the child was questioning it.

[00:23:29] Yvette: That wasn’t my choices and decision. That was my mother and my biological father and my grandmother. And I had to come at pace with that going, I can’t change what happened. I can only change my outlook on everything. And what will bring me peace from all this?

[00:23:48] Yvette: And what can, what joy can I get out of all of this? With the whole decision of not wanting to be in contact with my immediate family,

[00:23:57] Yvette: there were some things that were said, and I didn’t like, but obviously I didn’t express it going, hey, I don’t like that, but I internalised it, and it just didn’t sit right, like, something, it’s like, what, if I met up with my siblings, what can I possibly say and add value to this new relationship?

[00:24:18] Yvette: It took a lot of you know, toing and froing like a pendulum. Even my husband will question it going, what, why, why you want to be in contact with your extended family and not your immediate family? And I said, because I want to know more about my family my siblings can’t, they can’t offer that to me.

[00:24:37] Yvette: They wouldn’t be able to.

[00:24:38] Yvette: I think there’s still a bit of pain as well because not only do I look so much like my biological father we have a lot in common and that really pained me. We basically studied the same degree. And when I finished my degree, I wanted to be like a diplomat, like I wanted to get into that avenue.

[00:25:00] Yvette: And I found out my father was a diplomat. That was his career when he immigrated to Australia. And I was just like, is this a sick joke? And then I learned more about him. He knew five languages and I’m up to my fourth language, learning a language. His favourite food was goulash. That’s my favourite food. How can I have so much in common with someone I didn’t know?

[00:25:28] Yvette: I still sit there and I spin out sometimes going, we’ve got so much in common. And I’ll share a story. Why I’m still so horrified. When I was emailing my sister in the early days to find out about my family and get some photos and, you know, asking all the general questions like medical history and things like that.

[00:25:49] Yvette: She sent me an email that he sent to her when he was dying of lung cancer and it was. About a book by Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis. Have you read that book?

[00:26:04] Alexis: haven’t.

[00:26:05] Yvette: in the book, it’s about a man that morphs into this really ugly insect. And he was describing that in his email to my older sister.

[00:26:17] Yvette: When I read that email, I had a nervous breakdown reading it. Because

[00:26:24] Yvette: 10 years ago I had severe postnatal depression and I tried to take my life from the severity of it and I got put into a psychiatric ward and there was two things I brought with me to the psychiatric ward. One was a notepad and pen and I brought one book from my whole book collection and it was Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

[00:26:47] Alexis: Oh, wow.

[00:26:49] Alexis: Oh, that gives me chills.

[00:26:51] Yvette: still shatters my bones to this day and I’ve only told a few selected people and they can’t believe it. They’re mortified. Like, how do you have so much in common with him? And there was missed opportunities to meet and ask him a zillion questions about my family

 I think for me, I just kind of checked out when my older sister started asking me questions like, because my father was a practicing Jew and she said, I wonder where the Jewish is from.

[00:27:26] Yvette: It’s like, I don’t know. I didn’t grow up with him. If you had that cute, curious questions and you had him in your life, I’d be asking all those questions. Like I, maybe I just think differently. I just don’t understand why are you coming to me when I just found out?

[00:27:44] Yvette: But I did my work. Like, I would, I used to ring up synagogues going, Hey, I’ve got a few questions. Like, about the

[00:27:53] Alexis: that. I remember when we, when we spoke, we talked about like Judaism 1 0 1 or something, just so that you could get like the basics because you were curious about that part of

[00:28:04] Alexis: you.

[00:28:04] Yvette: And I think that’s just been part of my, personality. If I want to know something, I just ask. I found out from my great grandmother’s side that none of the women lived until, I think they all lived until their early 60s.

[00:28:19] Yvette: They all died of heart attacks and strokes. That’s so important to know those little things because my whole life I thought I was going to live until 100 because on my dad’s side there’s longevity. It’s a lot to take in

[00:28:35] Alexis: yeah. And we’ve kept in touch, you know, through few emails here and there over the years. And you mentioned that you’ve been on like a really emotional journey. Is some of that that finding even more parallels between you and your father a big part of that?

[00:28:52] Alexis: Is there anything else that’s been difficult for you?

[00:28:56] Yvette: My mental health has been horrible. I think that’s something we don’t really talk about because of that journey. The, you do the DNA test. It’s all shock, anger and stuff. But then some people connect with their family and then it becomes, like the healing journey can happen. And I don’t have that, unfortunately.

[00:29:19] Yvette: All I’ve got is. emails and books and you know, photos and stories and clippings from ancestry and I can’t ring up my grandma and go, Hey, can you tell me more about the Jewish side and the Middle Eastern side? Tell me more about that.

[00:29:38] Yvette: I can’t, I’ve mapped out her father’s side, the Czech side. I’ve mapped that out until the 1600s, that family. And it’s just like, you, you, you go into these deep spells of trauma. And that’s not something that you choose to do, it just happens. For example, like, everything was all fun, like I was on a high from my trip in Sicily last year.

[00:30:04] Yvette: I was on a high from it for months. And you know when you come back from a vacation, you go into that depression for a couple of weeks and it takes a while to get back into, your normal state. It took me months. I felt like I left a lover, you know, I’m pining for him, I’m pining for this island, and, so everything was great, you know, I told my son the truth, and it just dawned over me, over Christmas, depression, I went into this state of, you know, the running of the old movie, in hope that my, my biological father was going to knock on the door on Christmas day and say, I’m here.

[00:30:43] Yvette: And it just was so painful. It’s like, how do I get out of it? And it’s so frustrating because I’ve been to therapy and I’m the first case of this surprise DNA test for them. So they can help me with my childhood traumas. They can help me out with identity, But not this, event that I went through and it was just, I just felt so alone.

[00:31:08] Yvette: I just felt really really, really depressed and anxious it wasn’t the feeling I had when I had my PND. It’s a totally different feeling, it’s like your soul gets put into a different dimension, and you’re looking back at your journey and it’s like, what am I doing?

[00:31:28] Yvette: Am I working too hard on this, on my research? Am I pushing the healing too fast? And then it affects me as a mother, as a wife, it affects all of those relationships, because my husband’s probably thinking, why is she like this, she’s, she’s gone to Sicily, she’s learning the language, she’s cooking, she’s connecting with relatives.

[00:31:49] Yvette: But it’s, it’s a really, it’s a really lonely journey, last year I did connect with someone in real life in the flesh that’s had a similar journey to me. We met at work and she found out she was, when she was 19, her dad wasn’t her real dad, like one of her siblings told her. And so she’s in her mid fifties now.

[00:32:15] Yvette: And she’s been my rock. So when I do go through these spells, I go to her, Is this normal? She goes to me, Yvette, it’s only been three years, three and a half years, like, give yourself some grace.

[00:32:28] Alexis: Yes.

[00:32:28] Yvette: Just everything I say, like, Oh, I don’t want to meet my siblings, or I’m still angry, or and she’ll go, that’s okay. That’s okay, like she gives me the validation. I’ve already given myself, but I needed to hear it from someone else who’s gone through it in a similar sense.

[00:32:46] Alexis: I’m so glad that you were able to connect with someone in person. It really does make a difference. You know, there’s so many wonderful online spaces, and, I’ve connected with so many people through the podcast, but the people that I’ve met in person, it’s just a totally different kind of experience to like share space with somebody who’s gone through it.

[00:33:09] Alexis: So I’m really glad that you found that. so much.

[00:33:12] Yvette: Yeah, because it’s not so common, like it would be common here in Australia, but there’s no like resources, like there’s no convention, there’s no big things that is happening, and maybe I should start that, but I’ve just been so deep in my healing, and I have been greedy in that sense, because I, I need it.

[00:33:36] Yvette: I need that time out. I need the time to cry if I need to, or if I want that joy, I’ll crank up the Sicilian music in my lounge room while I cook. And I’m just forever discovering things.

[00:33:53] Alexis: What is

[00:33:53] Alexis: next for you? I mean, you, your three and a half years were, were almost the same. We’re about the same time. So I feel like we’re, we’ve been kind of going through this on the same timeline, similar timelines. What is next for you as you move

[00:34:09] Alexis: forward?

[00:34:10] Yvette: I want to learn more Italian so I’m more proficient when I go next. I, I do want to go to America one day. To find out a bit more information on my great grandparents because they worked in the cotton fields in the turn of the century when they arrived and then they moved up to New York.

[00:34:30] Yvette: Buffalo in New York state, and I heard there’s a big Sicilian community there, so that would be really cool to go up there, pay homage to their resting places. But I don’t know when that trip will be. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next I am studying counseling now and doing my counseling course too, because I wanna help people.

[00:34:58] Yvette: With their surprise DNA tests here, because there’s a massive gap. There’s no one here that specialises in it. And I think that’s really important. If I can get through these next few years and heal a bit better, then I can definitely give back to those who are struggling. I don’t know, I’m such an impatient person, Alexis, that I just want everything to you know, fall into place and I just want things to make more sense.

[00:35:30] Yvette: But I know that’s not the reality. I think, you know, we just want to be healed so quickly from it. As in, like, we want that pain gone. We want those tears to go away, but they never will. It’s not like, you know, a family member or a really close friend passing away. and you go through those motions of grief of losing someone and longing for them and then over time, you know, their anniversaries might be, teary or you might remember a fun memory and you laugh and cry at the same time.

[00:36:04] Yvette: This is just so different for me because I’m grieving, I’m grieving for, you know, the lost time with things. I I grieve that I never knew who I was. on a, ethnicity basis, but then I didn’t know my father, I didn’t know my grandparents, and I feel like that’s all been robbed and taken away from me, even not knowing my siblings.

[00:36:28] Yvette: People will go to me, well then why don’t you connect with them? It’s like, I don’t know what to say.

[00:36:32] Alexis: I really want to just thank you for acknowledging kind of the range of feelings that people have as they move through this because, you know, like I said earlier, not everyone maybe will. feel that bond with their newfound family and, and that’s okay. You know, we’re all different and it’s okay for us to just honor how we feel as we move through this.

[00:37:00] Yvette: We know who our friends are, we know who our family is, and family’s not always blood.

[00:37:06] Alexis: That’s true, right? We definitely learned that through this experience.

[00:37:09] Yvette: I like to see everything at it as a case study and go, Okay, what’s going to bring me joy?

[00:37:15] Yvette: Because if I start holding onto this hate, toxicity, That’s not going to be good for my journey in healing. That’s going to put me back to square one. The first week of opening the DNA test, you know, and then descending into not just the rabbit hole, but the, you know, the steps of hell, like it’s just, you can’t it’s okay when you feel that pain, let, let it out, but I’m not going to be the same person I was three and a half years ago.

[00:37:45] Alexis: Yeah. You’re not going to be the same person, right? We’re not going to be the same people that we were when it started. And I think a lot of times we hear, you’re still you, you’re still you. And yes, we are. We are. Who we are

[00:38:00] Alexis: and who we are is changed,

[00:38:03] Alexis: Yvette, thank you so much for joining me again and sharing

[00:38:07] Alexis: an update. Again, I, I can’t say enough. I have so much gratitude for you trusting me with your story when I was, It’s just a fresh DNA surprised person, NPE, reaching out in Facebook groups going, does anyone want to tell me your story because it really has helped me feel so much less alone in my journey.

[00:38:29] Alexis: And I know, like I said, you have helped thousands of people with your story. So thank

[00:38:35] Yvette: Oh, thank you so much for allowing me to share my story on your platform, on your space and giving this opportunity for us. DNA test people because we’re not just from an affair, we’re from a donor can see, we’re from adoption, one night stands, you name it. And it’s just a very, very different. We, we, we see the world very differently.

[00:39:08] Yvette: We’ve got a different lens and what’s the one thing that connects us humans is storytelling and the lessons from these stories and we need that. We need to make sense of it somehow. So listening to these episodes from time to time gives me fresh perspectives too.

 I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[00:39:31] Yvette: What advice would I give to the Yvette back in October 2021? The best is yet to come and don’t beat yourself up with how little you think you have come, because in fact You have come such a long way with all the research, asking the questions, reaching out to people, you know, for the answers that you have been seeking for.

[00:40:02] Yvette: I just want to let the Yvette of 2021 that I am so proud of her, and just to keep going. Don’t let anyone dictate how you should be handling this, how you should be healing. Everything you are doing is just, the best you can do. And there’s no textbook or rule book to say what you are doing is wrong, or you should be taking it out of the way, or reacting how you have been reacting, because I can tell you something that there’s just so much more you are going to discover over the next few years.

[00:40:45] Yvette: It is going to blow your mind away and It will all make sense. Trust me.