We all have different ways to walk this journey.
And I think if you're like for me, I've heard a lot of the
stories and I really, they've been really, really helpful for
me. But one of the things is what's
been said a lot in the NP community is like, you have the
right to tell your story, which I agree with, but it would I
also feel like is someone who's kept it a secret for I think
it's, I think I kept it a secret for just over four years before
I finally told all my siblings. And that was after my dad passed
away. But although I agree with with
parts of that, for me, I also feel like if you do your journey
a little bit differently, that it's OK.
Because I always felt like, yes, it's important to to protect
yourself and in your story as sacred.
But at the same time, I also, I feel like different truths can
exist at the same time. It's not only an individual
healing, but it's also the way you tell your story.
It also can be either harmful or healing for the collective.
And that includes not only the NPE community, but for me, my
family, the way it comes out is really important to me.
And so that's why I've kept it to myself for so long, because
at the time when I found out, my dad was already elder.
And I just, I just knowing that the heartbreak that it caused
me, I just couldn't, I just couldn't hurt my dad.
Welcome to DNA Surprises, a podcast that delves into the
world of unexpected DNA discoveries.
I'm your host, Alexis Oursalt. 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. It's your story, you have the
right to tell it. This is something we hear a lot
in the DNA surprise community. I say it a lot myself.
In this week's episode, Ruby shares a unique perspective on
this philosophy. Ruby took her DNA test expecting
to learn more about her Mexican heritage and instead uncovered
1/2 sibling. She goes on to learn that her
biological father is different from the man who raised her.
Ruby reflects on her childhood suspicions, her complex
relationships with her parents, and navigating the new found
truth. She discusses the impact on her
mental health and how she plans to incorporate her experience
into her work as an artist. Thank you for sharing your
story, Ruby. My name is Ruby.
I'm 53 years old and I'm originally from Salt Lake City,
but currently I have been living in Sacramento for the past 10 or
11 years. Shortly after I moved to to
California, I went to get my teaching credential.
I'm a professional artist. A lot of the people in my cohort
more interested in their DNA and what mixes they had on all of
that. And so I decided, oh, I'm a
little bit curious too. Let me see.
Because I, I mean, I know why I'm Mexican.
I know you know where my family originates.
I got a lot of the stories from my dad's side of just through
oral storytelling from what I knew, I was Tewa Pueblo Apache
and Spanish. I thought, well, I'd like to
kind of see, you know, exactly what that breakdown is.
And so I, I took the DNA test and got it back.
I have a cousin who also does a lot of our genealogy on my dad's
side of the family. I was thinking that when I got
my results, I had much, it's almost half and half Spanish,
Spanish and half native, but then like a small percentage of
different other areas, like mainly African countries.
And so I thought that was interesting.
But then I was looking for my cousin because I know that she
knew that she was on one of the DNA websites, but I didn't know
which one and I couldn't find her.
And so I was looking for other relatives and I saw a name.
It's a common name on my dad's side of the family.
And I thought, oh, yeah, there's a cousin.
But I thought it was, you know, from my dad's side.
I thought it was like one of my third cousins, but then I saw
some of my mom's relatives and then a bunch of people I didn't
know. But I know that like on my mom's
side of the family, I don't know all of her side of the family.
So I figured, oh, it's probably, they're probably distant
relatives that I don't really. I had I don't know yet.
You were not. You were not surprised by any of
your results. It all made sense to me.
I wasn't surprised. Almost a year later when I
started teaching, I got a message.
A relative popped up and said, do you know how we're related?
It says we're, we're highly related.
So I looked at it and it said, you know how to break down.
She's either a grandma, a niece or a half sibling.
And I thought, well, she was in my generation.
She was kind of my same age. I'm like, well, of course she's
not a niece and she can't be a, you know, so there's no way my
brother would have somebody that old.
So she can't be my brothers. So.
And I remember thinking, well, I know my dad used to have all
kinds of affairs on my mom when we were little.
So I thought, oh, it's probably one of my dad's probably a, a
daughter of my dad and she doesn't know it.
And so I called up my mom and I called up my dad and I said that
there would I got a match was from someone that could be my
half sister. Do you know, like, did dad get
anyone pregnant? And she's like, well, there was
someone who got pregnant by your dad, but he she had a
miscarriage. My dad didn't couldn't figure
out how either. How did you feel when you
thought that maybe your father had had another child outside of
the relationship? I wasn't really surprised
because there were a lot of affairs and, and actually it was
a little bit like kind of excited.
Maybe we have another sibling out there.
And so I called my sister up and I was telling her all about it.
And then while I was talking to her, I got another message and
the sibling said, well, I talked to my dad and my dad said he was
in Utah from 69 to 71 and I was born in 71.
So my heart just sank. And I told my sister, Oh my God.
Oh my God. And and I told her what she
said. And she's like, well, maybe
there's a a glitch, maybe it's a mistake.
And I was thinking, yeah, I think, I think maybe you're
right. Maybe I but let me call you
back. I'm going to call mom and see
what because I think it's probably a mistake.
And so I called my mom. I said, well, this person said
that her dad was in Utah from 69 to 71.
Are you sure? Like you didn't you?
I don't you didn't have an affair with on dad or Are you
sure? And she said, Oh no, no, you
know, he was always stepping out on me.
I was always home pregnant and because my mom had six kids
back-to-back and I'm like, but why did she say that?
Mom, Are you sure? Please just tell me.
Finally, she's just like, well, there was this one time, you
know how your dad's always cheating on me?
We separated and I met this guy from Mexico and my mom wanted me
to marry him. And he was really smart.
That's probably why you're so smart.
And he was a really nice guy. And but then I ended up just
getting back with your dad and she's like, I'd always just get
pregnant right away. So I just figured you were your
dad's. And so I just like fell apart.
I didn't really want to tell say anything to anyone because I was
really, I had a lot of things that I worked through with my
dad because as I was growing up, I always used to ask if I was
adopted, like why am I treated so differently?
Am I adopted? And my mom would say, of course
not, you're not adopted, don't be silly.
But then at the same time, my mom would always tease me and
say, your dad's actually from Mexico and and then I would
start crying and then everybody would tease me.
And then she like, no, just kidding, just kidding.
Your mom did hint at it or did think that maybe it was a
possibility. You did.
And then she used to when I was a child, that my grandma, her
mom, I used to hold me and say, oh, Borosita mejita, like my
poor little, my poor little dog, my poor little baby, my porks.
She'd say that I didn't really think about it.
But then when I found out I had this different biological dad,
it kind of clicked like, oh, my grandma knew.
My grandma must have known that she got pregnant by this other
guy. You said that growing up, you
speculated that you were adopted.
What? What was it like growing up and
was it something that was always at the forefront of your mind or
is it something that really came back once you got these test
results? It was always in the forefront
of my mind until I started healing my relationship with my
dad, which was when I was an adult because my dad left, he
left us when we were just children.
And, and because, I mean, it was very, there was, it was very
tumultuous relationship with between my mom and dad.
I know there's a lot of intergenerational trauma and
then there was a lot of intergenerational poverty.
So that comes a lot of, with that comes a lot of chaos, a lot
of a lot of things that like unhealed people like my dad and
my mom, they just, they weren't, they didn't have the luxury of
therapy. And he wasn't a very
affectionate person in general. You know, he could barely say I
love you or hug you. But because I was so close in
age with my younger sister, he really favored her a lot.
And he wasn't, he didn't favor my other siblings either.
He favored my younger sister. But I was like in a year and a
half older than my younger younger sister.
We were the babies, but he always favored her.
So I always thought that he just didn't love me and I wasn't.
Maybe I just wasn't his daughter.
Yeah. So you got your results and you
did not. I was going to ask, did you tell
your dad after you talked to your mom?
No, I didn't. And he actually recently passed
away in February. And that's why I actually, I
wanted to tell my story because I kept it a secret for a long
time to protect him and protect my mom too, but mainly to
protect my dad and also kind of to protect myself as well.
Because I just after doing all that questioning whether he was
my actual, actual biological dad, I was, I was a little bit
afraid that he would not accept me as his daughter because I
always felt that way, you know, but I don't feel like he, he
would have done that. When I told my mom and she
admitted it, she also at the same time said, you know, don't
tell, don't tell anybody. People are going to think I'm a
whore. And, and I know my mom had told
that the story, the story all our lives that well, at least
we're all from the same man. And because my grandma had
children from different men, because she had different
marriages and my mom took pride in having us all from the same
man. But I think that's probably why
she kept this a secret. And also she's from a very
different generation. She's 84 now, so you know, she's
from a very different generation.
I don't feel angry about her for keeping that secret.
And in fact, I think if she would have told me sooner, it
would have been way too much for me.
And so I think timing the way it's happened for me, I feel
like it happened for a reason, so.
You talk to your mom, you get this clarification from her, and
you finally get the truth and she asks you to not tell anyone.
Do you tell anyone be aside from your mother?
Because I know you didn't tell your father.
Did you tell your sister? Anyone else?
No, my sister knew because she was finding out with me and so
she decided to keep her too. I did tell my best friends.
Of course I had to like share it with my friends.
And then because I live in California and a lot of people
don't know my family, I felt OK sharing it every now and then
when it came up with people. But when I was in Utah, I didn't
share it with anyone except for people that were closest to me.
And then about a year or two later, two of my newer sisters,
one moved to Washington. I'm at at the time my brother
lived in Washington state and they wanted me to go down there
and hang out with them. And I said, well, I can't really
go there and not say hi to my brother.
And I can't lie to him. So I'm just going to tell him.
He just like said, how are you keeping it together?
I could tell he was upset, but he doesn't, he doesn't really
show it, but I could tell he was and he was wondering how I was.
And he's like, well, do I say when he when we were talking
about our dad and he's like, do I say our dad or do I say my
dad? And I'm like, no, you say our
dad. He's still my dad.
That's awesome that that he was supportive.
I wanted to ask you, once you got clarification from your
sister and you mentioned you have two sisters now on on your
biological father's side, did you go back to her and say I got
the truth from my mom? Like what happened next on that
side? After she's just started telling
me stuff about him. Apparently he also was somebody
that had affairs too on his their mom and there were two
other brothers that outside their mom as well.
And so for her, it wasn't really that big of a surprise.
So I asked her, what do we do now?
What made me want to meet her was that she left everything up
to me and she was very sensitive about it.
She's like, well, it's really up to you if you want to meet or
not. I, I'm really guess we'll do
whatever you want to do. So I told her, OK, well let's,
let's meet. I would like to know more and I
pretty much, I think I expressed to her that I didn't really want
to meet her dad because at the time I felt loyal to my dad and
which I still kind of do. We just started spending more
time together and she started telling me stories and about
him. And I remember going to coffee
with her at one point and I put honey in my coffee and she asked
me, does anybody else in your family put honey or your
siblings or anybody put honey in their coffee?
And I thought about him like, no, I think just me.
And she's like, because my dad is the only one that does that.
Or she would say our dad. And then she's like, is there
anybody else in your family or any of your siblings artists
other than you? And I'm like no because my other
sister likes our like we all are into art and our dad really
loves art. How did it feel to get some of
that confirmation of maybe these traits that you were born with
and not something that you learned or developed on your?
Own it all started to make sense also the other thing was is that
I nobody in their family was it had any addiction problems.
I have two siblings that died from heroin and you know, my
other sisters now clean and sober from, from heroin and I
have another sister that's still struggling.
But then finding out that my biological dad's side of the
family, there was nothing like that.
I remember asking one of my new newer sisters, does he even want
to meet me? Like does he?
You don't even, you don't mention whether he wants to meet
me or not. Like, does he even care?
I mean, because you don't say anything about it.
And she said, well, we were just waiting for you to be
comfortable because I he, he really does.
But we all, we told him to not reach out to you until you were
ready. So I ended up meeting him first
on Zoom and then I met him in person.
And then since then I've met him.
But he lives in Mexico too. He's very, very different from
the father I grew up around in the sense that he's very
nurturing. Like he wanted to hug me, he
wanted to talk with me, but there's a there is a language
barrier because my father's generation, they punished for
speaking Spanish. So he insisted to my mom that he
spoke to us. They speak to us only in
English. But with my biological dad, I
can speak some Spanish but I'm not 100% fluid.
So it was very difficult to ask him questions.
But I know one time he tried to call me, but we could barely
have a conversation. But one of the things that I did
find out is that he grew up really poor and that he pulled
himself out of it and that he ended up with his own business.
And they like they had their own house and they had they even had
cleaners. I probably, I used to go help my
mom clean people's houses. I probably would have been there
made, you know, when I was in high school.
And every time he would get jobs when he was young, they would
want to get make him a manager. Well, the same thing was with
me. I pulled my, I, I pulled myself
out of a lot of things too. And I when I was in high school,
they always wanted to make me manager.
He used to ride his bike everywhere.
He loved right? And he was very active and he
liked to explore and see things. And, and I used to, I've, I'm a
cyclist and I used to ride my bike exclusively for, for 10
years. I rode my bike exclusively
everywhere. And none of my family is that I
grew up around is anything like this.
I'm the only one with a passport in my family, my family that I
grow up around. I'm the only one that travels.
And then I, you know, I was always just growing up because I
did all these things outside the norm from my family.
I was always told, well, you're just different.
You're just not like us. You're just different, you know?
Yeah, it's, it's amazing how DNA works and these things that we
kind of wonder where did this come from?
Did come from somewhere. So you're navigating all of this
while also keeping it a secret. How did it feel to be learning
all of these new things about yourself and connecting with
your family? Wow, not disclosing to your
father and some of your other family members.
That's a good question. I felt, I really felt like I was
living 2 lives, like two. I was living in two different
worlds and I really wanted them to come together because my
family that I grew up with. I'm super close with, but
couldn't be, couldn't have lived in such a different experience
than the family that I just discovered.
I eventually did introduce my sister with my one of my new
sisters. And it's just, I don't know,
it's just there's just not any sort of bridge.
It's just feels like two different worlds that I'm
navigating, you know, that can never come together.
In some ways I kind of feel like, well, that's kind of the
life I've lived my whole life anyways.
How have you been navigating this?
You know, balancing the secrecy, but also just the the mental
health toll that adna surprise can take on someone.
I did. Seek out therapy.
When I found out again, because I hadn't had therapy for a
while, because I had worked out a lot of things through my 20s
and all I had to really navigate was my own were my own issues.
And so for me it was yeah, it was super hard.
And I still feel like sometimes alone on this journey because I
don't feel like anybody will really understand what this is
experiences is except for other NPS.
But I at least have my son's grown up, at least have the
luxury to be able to have get therapy and not have to worry
about taking care of children. And well, I mean, I'm a high
school teacher, but I, I can leave them at, you know, behind.
Sure. After work what?
Is what is next for you on your your journey?
I'd like to bring this into my work.
What usually happens through my work is it takes me a few years
to really grieve and process and then create about it.
That's what it does. And since my dad just recently
passed away and I was able to be free of the secret, so to speak,
I feel like it's time for me to start creating about it because
I didn't feel like I could without keeping it, you know, a
secret. And to be honest, I feel like
art has been my saving grace through my whole life.
It helped me through childhood, it helped me through adult,
young adulthood, and I think it's going to help me again
through this. Whole thing that's amazing.
How is your relationship with your mom now?
My mom's, my mom, like you know, it's good.
We had we had some hard times through the process, but we've
come to terms and I actually made her after my dad passed
away. I had found out that she had
told a few people and it was coming out and I started to feel
like I do not want this to come out like gossip.
It's just not like no, this it's already I'm already feeling pain
from losing my father and then knowing that she's telling me to
keep it a secret, but she's telling people.
So I told her, you know what? You were going to tell the
story. You're going to either tell the
story with me. We're going to tell the family,
my immediate family, or are you going to I'm going to tell them
myself. She's like, no, no, no, don't
tell any. I didn't tell anybody.
I promised who and I'm like you did because it's come out to me.
And so I made her make a choice. You can tell it with me or I'm
going to tell people myself. Finally she agreed to tell us.
So we sat my nieces down and my, all my siblings and we, I just
told them and then they, some of my nieces had questions and, and
they're all like, you know, they said the typical things.
Well, none of this matters. You're still, you're, we love
you anyways. You're still our aunt or you're
still my sister, doesn't matter, you know, But other than that,
you know, it's been, it's been fine.
I did tell one cousin, I haven't had the really the bad emotional
bandwidth to sit, to call every single cousin yet because it's
just a lot. It's heavy, it's hard, you know
so, but I wanted to be able to tell people myself rather than
it come out from somebody else. Yeah, for sure.
What advice do you have for a parent who's keeping a DNA
surprise from their? Child, I know you asked this
question and I always feel like I wouldn't know how to answer
it. I know personally I wouldn't
keep this a secret from my child, just knowing how painful
it is. But then I think about the way I
grew up and I think the way it came out was when I was ready
and needed it to be. And I just feel like everybody
has a different context and experience of how they live.
So I wouldn't want to assume that I know what would be best
for every parent. I would say mainly to take
everything into consideration and do what you either tell your
child out of love or tell them at the right time, whatever that
may be. Yeah, no, that's totally fair.
What advice do you have for someone who just uncovered Adna
Surprise? I just want to give you a big
hug and tell you it's going to be OK eventually and you're not
alone. Look for resources, look for
podcasts like these because I don't really know a lot of
people personally who've gone through this.
Just surround yourself with people who understand because I
think that's what in the beginning, that's what really
got me through. I would say find your community
that supports you. Ruby, thank you so much for
coming on the podcast and sharing your story.
Like you said, everyone owns their story and they can tell it
how and when they want to. And I think that that's an
important message to share. So thank you for being
vulnerable and sharing your story, and I hope that you
continue to learn more about yourself and make peace with
this experience. And I look forward to seeing
your art. Thank you.
Same to you. Thanks again to Ruby for sharing
her story. If you have Adna Surprise that
you'd like to share, please submit your story at
dnasurprises.com and remember to join me over on Patreon for AD
free listening, early access to episodes and more.
Learn more at patreon.com/DNA Surprises.
Until next time, this episode of DNA Surprises was hosted,
produced, and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.