Before, After, & Now: A DNA Discovery Journey
March 14, 2019. That is the date that would forever define the “before” and the “after” for me. It also happened to be my birthday. I would not solve the mystery I discovered on that day until 16 sleepless nights later. I call the date I got the final confirmation of my discovery, March 30th, my “rebirthday”. I can still feel the emotions of those early days. I was so raw. There was also the endless thoughts and possible scenarios running through my head, the pit in the bottom of my stomach that wouldn’t go away, the feeling like I’m going to cry at any moment yet I never shed a tear, an odd sense of panic, and the confusion as to how any of this could possibly be real. I think I walked around in a daze of utter shock for at least the first few months. I had discovered through consumer DNA testing that the man who raised me was not my biological father.
The “before”. I had ZERO reason to believe my DNA test results would yield any surprises. My heritage results matched exactly to what I had been told through the years, so I did not question the unknown 1st cousin that popped up in 2018 on one testing site and the unknown “close family to 1st cousin” match on the other testing site a year later. I did the first DNA test in 2018 to learn more about my health history and to give my first born son, who was adopted, a chance to find me. The state he was born sealed his original birth certificate and there is no guarantee that the adoption agency would help him should he choose to search for me, so I felt the need to try to make his search maybe a little bit easier one day by doing a DNA test after seeing various adoptive reunion stories as a result of consumer DNA test kits. My brother and I tested together in 2019 using another DNA test site with a Buy One, Get One deal for Black Friday. We tested together for “fun” to work on our family tree. My mother knew we had purchased the tests and said nothing.
As I look back now having seen pictures of my biological paternal side I have no idea how she never looked at me and just didn’t know. The resemblance is there. I have his eyes. I was never Daddy’s Girl growing up and I am not close to the man I call Dad who raised me. Hugging him always felt awkward, almost forced, and we never seemed to have anything in common. I always assumed we just could not connect and he was emotionally unavailable. I was never a ‘Daddy’s Girl’. I was also told repeatedly that I was the “difficult” child and I challenged my parents unlike my brother. I was also the only girl on my birth certificate father’s side of the family in over 60 years- a family story I was so proud of growing up and is no longer true. I was a tomboy growing up and climbed trees and played in the dirt with caterpillars with my brother and neighborhood kids.
A majority of my childhood was not terrible, although it did come with some trauma I am now working through as an adult. Both of my parents worked full-time. My Dad would be the one to provide dinner and evening care as my mother usually worked late and had to take the train home as part of her commute. She’d kiss me goodbye in the morning when it was still dark out and our Dad would drop us off at daycare until it was time for us to walk to school a couple blocks away. Summers were spent alternating between our day care camp and my grandmothers’ houses. We took vacations to Florida and went to Disney where my Aunt and Uncle worked. We moved states when I was in the 5th grade and now I question the real reason as to “why” my parents took on such a large relocation. Did the affair, my parents marriage, my paternity, their past have anything to do with it? It did seem sudden and the excuse for such a big leap with young children was because they were done with winter. Plausible, but they moved us to a state that still had cold and where there was no family support. My intuition tells me that I’ll never know the real reason for the relocation, but it could have to do with the rocky start to my parents’ young marriage.
The “after”. March 14th, 2019 I learned what centimorgans are. A centimorgan is a unit of measure for genetic linkage. Based on the number of centimorgans you have in common with a person, a relationship can be determined such as parent/child/grandparent/aunt/uncle/sibling/cousin, etc. A mom friend of mine posted in a chat on Facebook asking how close of a relative you should research if you were using DNA results to locate biological family. I laughed off not knowing my close results because our extended family was not close and said I’d researched neither of them. The conversation flowed a bit more and then someone posted the number of centimorgans they matched to the person in question on their results. Something clicked and a pit formed in my stomach when the DNA Painter Tool that was linked revealed their match was most likely an Aunt/Half Sibling/Niece/Grandmother. I could hear my heart pounding in my head. I opened the DNA app on my phone and my breath caught as I saw the number of centimorgans that I matched with this unknown “close family to 1st cousin” match. It was VERY close to what my friend had shared. A quick demographic search led to my match’s age and approximate location and it was clear within the hour that she had to be a half sibling to me. I spiraled into a tunnel of shock at my desk. I no longer heard my coworkers surrounding me. How could this be?! Why would our parents keep a sister from me?!
I have no idea why (because the age differences made no sense), but I immediately assumed my Dad had gotten a girl pregnant really young and may never have known as the girl was probably hidden away until the baby was born. He was not a popular guy in high school, so it didn’t completely make sense, but it was all I could justify in my head. I messaged my husband I had found something huge and he immediately replied, “it’s your mother.” How?! How could she possibly have had another child and not told me when I had given my first born up for adoption?! How could she have been okay with me going through that pain after doing it herself?! No way. It had to be my Dad. I just could not comprehend that it was also ME. Over the next 16 days I tried to justify how this half sibling was connected to me. I wrote her a letter and mailed it to her and reached out through the DNA website to try to figure out the “how”. The waiting and silence was unbearable. I slept very little and when I did sleep it was fitful. My husband didn’t know what to say to me. I was a terrible employee as I tried not to spiral into the never-ending scenarios of dread running through my head. I became distant to those close to me. One sleepless night, I decided to dig some more and I was able to find my new half sibling’s Facebook profile and that elusive 1st cousin from my first DNA test was in her friend’s list with the same profile photo.
The “now”. Through the mutual 1st cousin I was able to put the pieces together (my biological Dad and I are puzzle aces- one of many nuances and similarities that I’ve learned since my discovery) and I was finally able to accept that my husband was right. It WAS my mother. It was ME that had half of her identity shattered in the blink of an eye. Where did my eyes come from? Did I have his hair? Who even am I? I would discover that I had HIS eyes the day I stared into my biological father’s eyes for the first time. I stared long enough even I felt uncomfortable. My eyes change color and one is darker than the other and we have the same darker outer edge to our iris. How could my mother not see it?! Half of my medical history was wrong, my birth certificate was not correct, even my own children now had new medical history. This discovery did not just impact me…it impacted my husband, my marriage, our children, and extended family on all sides. When I chose to be honest to my own children it caused a tension between the parents who raised me and myself that still has not been resolved. They refuse to talk about any of this with me anymore. It’s been over four years now and I still suffer from incredible anxiety when I have to see them. Trauma therapy has helped. My children will never have to go through a traumatic discovery like this and that gives me some peace.
I have met my biological father once in person, but it will likely be our first and last encounter as his wife still does not know of my existence and he is older now and less likely to travel. At the moment we still try to speak on the phone weekly or every other week, but it is all in secret. I’m forever grateful to the 1st cousin who helped me discover the truth and then shared her knowledge and pictures of my paternal biological side with me. I have connected and speak and visit with one of my four new half siblings. It took her a month to see and respond to my message through the DNA consumer testing website. She did get my letter, but it went to her ex-husband and she initially thought it was not legitimate. Our similarities and nuances are exciting and yet unsettling at times considering we were not raised together. We are still new to each other (she just stayed at my house for the first time last month!), yet it seems like we have always known one another when we are together. She has been a bright light in all of the hurt.
Many people have asked if I regret my decision to do consumer DNA testing because it has been a struggle for me. I do not. Despite how hard the last four years have been and the things I’m still struggling with and processing, I am relieved to live in my truth and so glad I was able to stop the cycle of lies and trauma in my family for my own children. They will never have to carry this burden and can freely live in their own truths. To them, we just have more extended family and that is as it should be. There is no anxiety or fear of rejection, they do not know the work “bastard” as I do. To them it just is. I have two Dads and a Mom and that is my story in their eyes. My daughter’s initial reaction was to be jealous that I have a sister and she never will!
I still have days where I think it is all just a dream and someone will pinch me and I’ll jerk awake. This year I have finally spent many days finally grieving what this discovery means to me and shed my first tears in four years. I grieve what could have been, the lost time, the loss of what I once knew, and how my parents treated me post discovery. Many people in my shoes, including myself, hear “but you have a family, be thankful for what you have, why does it matter?” And I could go on… Genetics matters. Other NPEs have had unnecessary invasive medical procedures due to false information on parentage. It means something that my sister and I have similar hobbies, looks, mannerisms and yet we only met four years ago in person. There is something indescribable about the first hug I had with my biological father. I will never forget that my immediate thought was that “this is what it is supposed to feel like.” That hug- it felt like home. My body, my genes, remembered.
Special thanks to Heather C. Resto for sharing her story.
