Have you heard about the Untangling Our Roots Summit?
Untangling Our Roots is a summit created for people impacted by
adoption, donor conception, misattributed parentage, and
unexpected DNA discoveries, along with therapists,
genealogists, and advocates who support them.
This is more than a conference about discovery.
It's about what comes after, how we process identity shifts,
navigate relationships, grieve what is lost, and build meaning
moving forward. Over 3 plus days, attendees will
engage in powerful conversations, practical
workshops, and quiet spaces for reflection.
Covering healing, mental health, genealogy, storytelling, ethics,
advocacy, and so much more, Untangling Our Roots offers
community, understanding, and tools without pressure to have
it all figured out. This year's summit is March 19th
through the 22nd, 2026 in Atlanta.
You can learn more and register at Untangling Our roots.org.
So that wrapped up the visit and what is so crazy to me now, I
look back on that and I didn't put too much thought or stock in
that. I was on such cloud 9.
I'm like, well, things are just going to continue how they've
been going and I was wrong. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a
podcast that explores the life altering world of unexpected DNA
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis Ourselt.
This show centers the stories of people who've experienced NP, ES
or non paternal events. In other words, people who've
learned that their biological father isn't who they thought he
was. We'll also hear from adoptees,
donor conceived people, and the families navigating these
discoveries. Get ready to follow the
incredible journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.
This is DNA surprises. My quest to find my past would
return again and again in the years to come, Like a lighthouse
beacon that flashes bright and then fades, only to return
again. This quote, written by Steve
Pemberton and shared by this week's guest, perfectly captures
the whole that DNA surprises have on so many.
There are periods of intense focus on our feelings, our
research, and our desire for connection.
These are sometimes followed by periods where thoughts and
feelings are fleeting, especially as time goes on, but
they often return again, just like a lighthouse beacon.
In this week's episode, Ellen shares how she learned the truth
about her paternity more than two decades ago.
Since then, she embarked on a quest to learn the truth about
her biological father. She's encountered acceptance,
quiet rejection, and obstacles that have prevented her from
fully connecting with her new found family, but she holds on
to her desire for truth and connection.
Thank you for sharing your story, Ellen.
I'm Ellen. I am in my late 30s.
I'm from the Midwest. I have known about my NPE status
for over 25 years now. I did not find out from ADNA
test, although I have done one as an adult.
I grew up pretty unconventionally.
I was the middle child of three children, had a mom and dad that
were raising me and I did not question their relation to me
biologically. But I wouldn't say it was an
easy childhood. My raised father was just very
eccentric, educated and very intelligent, but was never
satisfied with a job or career path.
And so that lack of stability, it took our family along for a
wild ride. In addition, there was a big
religious theme growing up in my home.
The best way I would describe it as my parents were charismatic
Christians, involved in different churches, small
groups. There were just always these
people in our lives that spoke this kind of charismatic
Christian language. So my parents would all often
share what they called their testimony.
What that means basically is you share all the tales of your
life, good, bad and ugly, and ultimately how that led you to
Christ. So I grew up feeling like it was
very normal for my parents to tell their testimony.
I was very familiar with their testimony.
And then one day when I was 11 years old, my raised dad asked
me to go in our backyard with him and he wanted to share his
testimony with me, which immediately felt bull and off
because I had heard it so many times and I just didn't know why
he was making it a point to do this.
So he's telling you the story. It's very familiar.
Essentially, he married my mom in their early 20s.
They had my older sister right away.
And then four years into their marriage, they got divorced and
he moved to a different state. And my mom was a single mom
raising my sister. And four years after their
divorce, they remarried. And I had always assumed that I
came along right after the remarriage.
That was the part of the testimony that I was learning
for the first time. So it was actually my raised dad
who told me that he was not my biological dad, that during my
parents divorce, the way he described it to me was it didn't
mean anything. It wasn't a big deal.
Basically, I'm not your biological dad, but your
biological dad was just a sperm donor and I'm your real dad.
And ultimately this crazy thing, you know, LED us to Christ and
LED us to getting remarried and then they had my younger
brother. So it is, it's it's interesting
being the NPE as a middle child. My older sibling and younger
sibling are full blown siblings and the middle one is the half.
I'm thinking about the fact that you've heard your parents share
so much of their story. So I imagine that you really
felt like you knew everything about them, even more than maybe
some, like other people whose parents don't, you know, share
their whole dark secrets and, and all of that as part of the
testimony as you're describing it.
So and then you're also just 11 years old and you're learning
all of this information. How are you feeling in that
moment? The best way I can describe it
is like you're about to go down like a roller coaster.
Like my stomach dropped out from within the shock.
I still don't think I'm over the shock.
I feel like a lot of people when they find out or like there had
been all these signs all along. I don't want to say that I knew,
but I can remember the day I found out.
Not immediately, but very soon after.
Feeling like this just makes so much sense.
This makes so much sense. But what was different about the
time versus if I had found out today is there was there was no
Internet. There was no I basically was
given this bombshell with no details attached to it, and I
was just sort of left with my own imagination.
Did you you didn't get like a name.
You didn't know who he was. It was just this was somebody
who was a quote sperm donor, which we hear yes, sometimes,
which I'm assuming when you're dad said it, he did not mean it
like truly your mom went and found a donor.
It was the more like derogatory sperm donor.
Exactly. He was emphasizing the fact that
this isn't an important person, this isn't someone you need to
worry about. I'm your dad, but you just need
to know the logistics kind of a thing.
Another thing I now realize as an adult, it's strange that my
mom wasn't present with him to tell me and she didn't even know
that he was doing it at that moment.
She has since told me that they knew they were going to have to
tell me because so many people knew and they had talked to
someone at their church who told them that like 11 was the
perfect age to find out. I don't believe there is a
perfect age to find out. I generally speaking think the
earlier the better, but this is a time.
I mean, this was I, this was a season of my life when I was
going from actually, it was puberty.
Basically, you're going from a kid and you're transitioning
into a teenager. And it was an interesting time
to find out. And I remember basically kind of
just carrying this news silently that whole day, just wanting to
cry. But I learned quickly that I had
to be careful with my raised dad's feelings.
Basically, I didn't feel free to ask questions or talk about it.
Later that evening, my mom had a chance to get me alone.
She made it clear right away that it she was a safe space to
ask questions to. And I got a totally different
picture from her that night. She said, essentially, this was
not just a sperm donor. This was someone she was engaged
to. This is someone who was excited
to learn about my mom's pregnancy.
This is someone who was devastated to be cut out of the
picture. And I was given a name and some
general details like his age, you know, roughly his location.
And that really, I mean, to this day that information has changed
everything. I don't think it would be easier
if he were a sperm donor or a one night stand or someone who
wanted nothing to do with me. That would be a different kind
of hard. But it was certainly hard to
hear that this is someone who wanted me and it's someone I
don't even know. She offered to connect you to
him. Did she know where he was or or
was that even a conversation at that point?
No, absolutely not. And in back to the fact that my
raised dad was very unconventional, my family was
getting ready to pack up and move overseas at this time.
We actually spent a year living in a third world country, which
I already felt like I had this news and I had no way of
connecting with it. Like now as an adult, I would,
you know, Google things. I would go on an information
hunt. That just wasn't an option back
then. I didn't even have a picture.
My mom had not saved a single picture of him.
So then we moved to this third world country, and it just felt
like I was even more detached from being able to obtain
anything, any of the information that I was just so hungry for.
And I kept waiting for the day that I wouldn't think about
this, that I wouldn't obsess about this.
And it just never came. So we moved back to the States.
We move an hour and a half away from where we had been living
prior to living overseas. I enter high school, I do high
school very normally and we manage to stay, stay in the same
spot for four years. And as I was approaching the end
of high school, one of my friends at the time encouraged
me to take action on this. She said, it's been 7 years that
you've known, so it doesn't seem like your fascination and
interest in this is going to go away.
She's like, just reach out and see what happens.
So at the time, with just the knowledge of his name and
roughly his location, I paid $35 back then.
This was how you obtained an accurate address.
And that was a lot of money for a senior in high school back
then. But I paid the $35.
I got his name and address, and I just sat on it for a while.
And then I wrote a handwritten letter.
I included a few pictures. And I was just so terrified to
send the darn thing. And I think the main reason I
always suppress this so much, my desire to know him, my desire to
reach out, it always went back to my raised dad.
I just knew it wouldn't go well. So my friend takes the letter
for me. She uses her own address as the
return label. And she's like, I'm not going to
tell you when I mail this. I'm just going to mail it and
we're going to see what happens. So the letter is in her hands
and the weeks and months start rolling.
By during this time, what are you hoping once that letter is
sent and reaches your biological father, I could.
Not picture what I wanted or how this would work out or what it
would look like as that was my hesitation in reaching out.
I couldn't picture how this was going to work, but I just knew
that I couldn't keep living feeling so unsettled about it.
So I really went into it blindly, just hoping for
basically internal resolution. I just wanted some sort of peace
with it. Resolution.
Even him just telling me like acknowledging that I was there
and you know, saying I don't want to meet you or whatever,
even that would have been enough for me.
It would have been just been resolution.
The whole thing always felt so open-ended and it's hard to live
with that. But my mom really assured me
she's like, he's not going to not want to meet you.
She's like, I know this man. She's like he's probably thought
about you every day since you've been born.
And so your mom knew that you were sending a letter to him.
Yes. OK, Did your dad know?
No. OK.
So you said you graduated high? School, yes.
I graduate high school, I start college.
I pretty much lost touch with that friend and I don't remember
exactly how long. It wasn't a full year, it was
like 9-10 months, something like that.
I get out of class one day and see I have a voicemail from her
and I instantly knew what it was about.
And she's like, Yep, you got to come to my house.
You got to pick up this letter, drive out to her house, pick up
this FedEx looking envelope. It was not handwritten like mine
was, but there was a single photo of him.
And so this is the first time I had ever laid eyes on his face
after, you know, 7-8 years of carrying this knowledge.
The letter was pretty, wasn't super lovey dovey.
It was pretty professional, informative.
I mean details I had always wondered about.
Is he married? Does he have any kids?
What does he do for work? All of that was disclosed.
He was married. He had one daughter who's
surprisingly was not much younger than me.
That was very interesting thing to learn.
How close were you in age? Three years.
He is, I would say, significantly younger than my
mom. He's about 7 years younger than
my mom. So he was very young when this
happened. And so it was a little
surprising for me to learn only three years later he had another
child, but that was his only other child.
So he ends the letter with here's my e-mail address.
Let's move this conversation to e-mail.
So we e-mail back and forth for a few months and then he
suggests meeting. So I had to move back home.
This is in between my freshman and sophomore year college.
I had to move back home for the summer, terrified of what my
raised dad will think and handle this news and everything.
But now that we're getting to the point of me meeting my bio
dad, I just felt like I can't. I can't not tell him I'm living
in their house. So I told him and it did not go
well, but I just somehow had the courage to keep moving forward
with everything anyway so. What was his reaction?
What did he say? He said something and it's going
to sound like I'm making excuses for him, but I do know the one
thing I do know is he did love me.
I, I believe he still loves me and he just has this personality
and this impulsivity that he can tend to say pretty damaging
things. And so he said something I will
unfortunately never forget. And it was, well, go spend the
next 20 years with your real dad then.
I knew he didn't mean it. I knew we'd get past it or
whatever. But it's still to this day just
that was a very hurtful thing to say.
So. That's that's a lot, especially
when you haven't really connected even and this is the
only dad you've really known so. Yeah, the adults in my life just
approached this very Gray situation so black and white.
And I have learned as an adult myself and a parent myself, me
knowing my biological dad did not mean that I could not have a
great relationship with my raised dad.
In fact, it probably would have been better because this big
thing wouldn't have been suppressed and associated with
so much guilt. So meeting my biological dad, so
he picks the perfect middle location, 'cause, you know, at
this time we're living an hour and a half away from each other.
I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my entire life.
I was 18 years old. I'm driving this beater car.
I'm meeting him in a big city with my MapQuest.
With my printed out MapQuest. My hands were.
Yes. Yes, shaking and sweating.
And I can't believe I'm doing this huge thing.
We met at a coffee shop and I remember walking up just like,
my heart is racing so fast. I'm like, how am I even gonna do
this? Like, how do I bring myself to
do this? Because I just have never been
so scared my whole life. And the coffee shop is busy,
very busy. But the front of it is glass.
And before I'd even opened the door, I spotted him.
I immediately became completely calm, like instantly calm.
Open the door to the coffee shop, go sit right across from
him. And all nerves and anxiety and
everything vanished. And it was absolutely that
feeling of this is a person I have known my whole life that I
am just now meeting. I look a lot like him.
We have very similar features, mannerisms, and I just felt like
the chemistry was there instantly.
We hung out that day for like 5 or 6 hours.
We went to a restaurant for lunch, we got ice cream.
We were walking all around this city.
I think we both kind of felt like, how does this end?
We don't want this to end. Like we've waited 18 years to
know each other. It's finally here.
I remember feeling like just this relief of like, thank God I
I don't have to live with this big question mark in my mind
anymore. I know who he is.
He's going to be a part of my life forever now.
It felt so. I don't even know how to
describe it. It just felt so just like things
finally becoming complete. Yeah.
I was concerned about my raise dad, but it just felt so like a
coming home moment. We departed that day and it did
kind of feel like, well, what? Now I'm in college, You live far
away. Where do we go from here?
We tended to e-mail a lot in those years.
That was just how we kept in touch.
And my older sister, who keep in mind is 8 years older than me
because she, you know, came around so early before that
divorce and everything, and also an incredibly supportive person
from day one with this. And also what's so interesting
is at the time that my mom was with my biological dad, which
was really, I've learned as an adult, only one year, it felt
like they were together a lot longer, but they were really
only together one year. My sister was 7 at the time, and
she remembers him. She remembers that whole year.
She also has nothing but positive things to say about my
biological dad. And she also had to carry this
knowledge and the first, yeah. 7:00 So she remembered, yes.
And the 1st 11 years of my life she had to carry the knowledge
knowing I didn't know. She was always afraid of me
finding out because she wanted a wholesome family and she knew as
soon as I found out that it would basically change me
forever. And she wasn't wrong.
But she's just been incredibly supportive and there for me from
day one with all of this. So at the time that I'm in
college and kind of dealing with this long distance thing with my
bio dad, my sister lived near him.
So she was always a landing pad for me.
I would come stay with her, I would see my bio dad and she was
just supportive of it and it was great.
So the second time I see my bio dad, it's only a couple maybe a
month later. And it's this side of town which
is where my sister lives. This is close to where he lives.
This is where his whole relationship with my mom
happened. And the second time we got
together was the best time of connection and just kind of
opening up of this thing we both carried for so long.
And the bond was really solidifying and it was just a
beautiful, beautiful time together that I will truly
remember forever. The get together was kind of
wrapping up. And he's like, hey, I would love
to drive you by the home I grew up in.
And I'm like, I'd love to, you know, I am on cloud 9 at this
point. And so we're driving by his old
home. I'm looking at it and all of a
sudden he's like, Ellen, I'm really sorry.
Like I gotta pull over. I got to get out of the car for
a minute and I'm like, what on earth?
And it was his wife. His wife had shown up at our
second get together. And it became clear to me pretty
quickly that she was not happy about things.
So again, I'm on such cloud 9 and and so young at the time
that I on your podcast, I've heard so many people mention how
they considered the families before reaching out.
I, I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't, I hadn't even factored
that in, but I was so young. Now I would factor that in, but
he also he had not mentioned that his wife might be having an
issue with this, so she not. Shows up.
She just shows up during. She shows up, yes, OK.
And I and her tone was harsh, like it became very clear right
away that this is not a situation where she's totally OK
with this and supportive and whatever, but clearly he's been
going along with it anyway. So that wrapped up the visit.
And what is so crazy to me now, I look back on that and I didn't
put too much thought or stock in that.
I was on such cloud 9. I'm like, well, things are just
going to continue how they've been going.
And I was wrong. So the third time we got
together, his wife was there when I showed up and he didn't
mention that she was going to be there.
The tone, certainly she was softer, she was working harder
to be nicer to me this time, but it was still clear to me that it
was not OK. And the conversation was very
different. It went from these meetings were
about me and my dad getting to know each other, talking through
a lot of these painful things from the past to just small talk
with me and her. And she did talk quite a bit
about their daughter, which again at this time it's this is
such a big mental thing to carry that I didn't.
Now I have the bandwidth and have put in a lot of thought
about my half sister, but at the time I had not.
And the way that they were talking about her, it seemed
like she knew about the situation.
So I'm in college, I'm living far away.
This goes on for about 3 years where I'm seeing him and his
wife two to three times a year. It's very small, talky, it's
very kind of controlled, formal. And in the chaos of my college
years and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my
life, I didn't really stop to think where is this going?
What's going to become of this? I was just kind of trying to get
through college and figured out what I was going to do after
that. In hindsight, I'm sure I was
talking to them about possibilities I saw for myself.
Like at one point I thought I was going to join the military.
I had talked about the Peace Corps.
I had talked about moving to different states.
But as college came to an end, I had no plan.
I had no job. I had no money.
My older sister so welcoming and supportive for me was like just
come live with me for a little while and you can figure out
what's next. So I'm getting together with my
bio dad and his wife about a month before I'm moving in with
my sister. So now the plan is clear.
Or it was like oh she might do all these different things but
now we see what the next step is.
And I for the life of me cannot remember the full detail of this
get together. I don't know if it is a a trauma
response, something in my mind trying to protect me.
All I remember is that a confrontation started out of
nowhere. I remember thinking this came
out of thin air because I am just about the most non
confrontational person ever. So is my bio dad.
Something started with his wife and like I remember pulling away
in my car kind of in a frenzy, like my dad and his wife were
arguing. I I don't know.
I got in my car, I drove to my sister's house.
I was crying. My bio dad started calling me.
My sister remembers me talking on the phone with him and I
apparently on that phone call I said to him, could we start just
getting together? You and I?
I think this is something I had been thinking for a long time.
Like us meeting this late in life, Like it is not out of the
question to ask for a few get togethers where we can just kind
of get to know each. Like almost like a, a therapy
session where we deal with some deep stuff, share some stuff,
you know, And we just three years of knowing him had gone by
and we just weren't getting that opportunity because I felt like
I had to keep his wife happy and keep things small and light and
whatever. So we have this phone call.
I'm honest with my feelings about that.
I'm crying, whatever. The call ends.
Then I'm thrown into the chaos of packing up my college life
across the state, moving in with my sister, finding a new job.
And during that time, he was sending me very long emails and
I wasn't giving them my full attention.
I remember at this time feeling like I just got to park this for
a minute because it doesn't seem like there's a resolution and I
got to take care of like my basic needs like moving and
finding a job. We've always communicated
through e-mail, sometimes slow, sometimes fast.
A lot of times they were long emails and so a couple months go
by and I really start to give those emails my full attention.
And this is what is so annoying about the time that this
happened. Nowadays you have the same phone
number and e-mail address for multiple decades.
Back then, like as the tech boom was happening, like millennials
didn't know what they were doing.
We had like 6 different e-mail addresses and then.
AOL. Yeah, Hotmail is the offender
here. And Hotmail is like notorious
for people not being able to get back in and all this stuff.
So this, these, these intense emails were happening on Hotmail
of all accounts. And so I cannot access that
account anymore. I can't remember what these
emails say. I journaled cryptically about
them. The one clue that I had to go on
is that I journaled at this time.
I'm plagued with thoughts of my bio dad.
I really need to reply to his emails and I do remember at one
point I did reply and then I didn't hear anything.
I'm like, it's OK, you took a long time to respond.
He's going to take a long time to respond.
Well, a full year goes by and I'm now living locally to him.
At this Phase, I started to figure out that I could do some
online researching sleuthing if you will.
So I start looking up his daughter on Facebook and
certainly was seeing pictures and clues and all this stuff.
Signs of life, I guess is one way to put it.
And so all of a sudden, and I wasn't again, this is such a
there is this book I read and there's a quote from this.
It's a book written by an NPE. It's an amazing read.
It's called A Chance in the World by Steve Pemberton.
Oh, I haven't heard of that one. Oh, you will read it in like a
day. It's not very long and it's
riveting. And he has a quote from his book
that has just described to AT what this has been like carrying
this news for so many years. And it's my quest to find my
past would return again and again in the years to come, like
a lighthouse beacon that flashes bright and then fades only to
return again. So this is how this has felt
like I, I have gone through phases where I'm thinking about
this a lot. I'm researching it online and
then it fades away and I'm not really thinking about it for
several months, years, whatever it is.
And then it comes back again. It always comes back.
So that quote, so descriptive of what this has been like.
So as it pertains to the the looking up online and stuff
every couple months, years, whatever.
So I'm randomly looking up my half sister on Facebook and I
see that we have a very familiar mutual friend.
And what I mean by that is at this time this was someone I had
loosely known my whole life, but I had moved back to this side of
town and I was trying to make friends and stuff and I was
hanging out with this person. We had recently at this time
gone to a wedding together and I see that he is a mutual friend
of my half sister. And I'm like, I just have to
know how they know each other. I didn't think the situation all
the way through. And I just like a reaction,
called him and I'm like, before I get into anything, I have to
express the confidentiality of what I'm about to tell you.
He's like, what the heck? Like what?
So I'm like, do you swear to me that you will keep this
information to yourself? And he swears and I'm like, OK,
how do you know so and so. And his immediate response is
she's my cousin. And I'm like OK well we've been
hanging out. I have to tell you I am related
to this person and I explain how And he is mind blown.
He has known my dad, his wife and their daughter his whole
life. Come to find out they are not
biologically related. But he had always referred to
her as his cousin because their moms are best friends and all
this stuff. And this was so just insane to
figure out and learn. As the call is wrapping up, I'm
like just a reminder. This is so confidential.
But also at this time I had not heard from my bio dad in a year.
So couple months go by. He's like Ellen, sorry I
couldn't keep the news to myself.
I I told your half sister that was how I learned that.
So up until that point, she didn't know about my existence.
She had no idea. So she had no idea.
What was her reaction. I have no idea.
So, and I think again, I can't remember the details of this,
which is so unlike me, but I was so angry at this person that I
was expressing my anger and he kind of instantly shut me down.
He blocked me on Facebook. He stopped talking to me.
So I got no details. All I knew is that he had told
her. And I'm like, well, this is
really going to seal the coffin of like, I don't think I'm going
to hear from my bio dad now really any anytime soon.
And that was 15 years ago and I still have not heard anything.
So like this lighthouse, it's come and gone, but I have gone
through, especially in the last 15 years, big things in my life.
My career, getting married to my husband, having children,
becoming an adult. The last time I saw him I was
this college student. And now I'm this full grown
woman with a life. So this summer, and this is
after a phase of not thinking about it, not researching it for
lots of years. I don't even know how it was
like osmosis out of thin air. I find myself looking up my half
sister on Facebook and that started the I'm still in it.
It has started the biggest, deepest dive I've ever gone into
this. There's someone that I she's not
a therapist, she's a life coach, but I feel very safe with her.
I've been working with her for the past decade.
She's really familiar with this situation and the way she
describes what I'm going through right now is an excavation.
I'm examining the whole timeline of everything that happened even
before I was born. I did an ancestry DNA test and
honestly the DNA test itself didn't really tell me anything I
didn't know. It has been the the way you can
put your family tree together and figure out who is who and
whatever. That has been the most mind
blowing and I have gone so much deeper than I ever thought
possible on my paternal side. I almost feel like I question if
I know more about my lineage than my bio dad does because
it's just it's been so deep. So back to my half sister.
Her Facebook profile picture looked very bridal.
And so I'm thinking to myself, oh she got married.
I'm sure she had a wedding website.
Whatever I Google that wedding website pops up right away.
At this point she hadn't gotten married yet.
I saw the details, the date, the location, everything.
It was that very same date I was going to a wedding in that very
same city and it ironically or not so ironically it was for a
relative on my raised dad's side.
It just kept getting weirder and weirder.
I couldn't stop researching things.
I just kept digging and digging and digging.
Side note here, one of the last things I remember my bio dad
saying to me is my parents want to meet you.
And my last grandparent that I knew died when I was 15.
So I have spent a lot of my life without grandparents.
Something about that really, really appealed to me.
Like I would love to meet my biological grandparents, but
then obviously this long period of whatever you want to call it,
ghosting, separation, whatever has gone by.
In 2020, when I was going through one of my periods of
looking up my bio family, I came across my grandfather's
obituary. He lived to a good age and
something about it was just very, very hard to see that
final like I had carried it in my mind.
He wants me to meet his parents. And then it was like, Oh well,
that opportunity is gone. But I knew my grandmother was
still alive this whole month. It was this summer that I'm
discovering things about my half sister's wedding and everything.
I started to feel this real urgency of, I don't know how to
reach out. I don't know how to insert
myself but I kind of feel like I got to meet my grandma now or.
The opportunity is going to be gone.
And so I became obsessed with this idea.
My dad is one of five siblings. And I'm like, maybe I just
contact one of the other siblings and say, could I meet
the grandma? You know, whatever.
Well, like a month into this journey, I her obituary pops up.
Crazy or not so crazy. The day that this all started
for me, and I know the exact day because I have screenshots in my
phone of just stuff I was finding, is the day that she
died. And so part of me feels like I'm
not very religious, but I am very spiritual and I'm like, did
she get to the other side? See the situation for what it
is. And now she is.
She's present with me. And This is why I have not only
the obsession with resolution and what happened and peeling
back all the layers. I have never had an interest in
my genealogy the way I have this time.
Never his siblings. I want to know everything about
his and beyond as far back as it will go.
And I've learned countless interesting things.
And there's just a big part of me that wonders, is this my
grandmother on the other side giving me a push like, 'cause
just the timing is just so ironic.
The day she passed is the day this all started for me.
That's incredible. Yeah.
And I'm sorry that you didn't get the chance to meet her.
Thank you. Your grandfather.
Thank you. Yeah.
It's been 15 years or more now at this point since you've heard
from your biological father, Do you think that like he tried to
reach out to your old e-mail? Does he have your new phone
number? I mean, have there been any of
those what ifs of like does he have your latest contact info?
I assume you've gone down that rabbit hole and and there's been
opportunity, but I'm just like the fact that he just completely
dropped off is so. Crazy strange, yes, I'm
wrestling with these things myself.
And the communication was certainly messy.
You know, the finicky emails and the change in phone number.
However, the thing I always come back to is I googled myself.
I googled him, it's very easy to find both of our contact
information. In addition, I have sent him
emails as recently as like 2013 with my current e-mail address.
Now I do question though, did those reach him Because the
e-mail address I was emailing him it was like a cable e-mail
address. So if he's not subscribed to
that cable anymore, he probably doesn't have that e-mail
address. In addition, I know his wife's
not happy about this. So is something getting lost in,
you know? Yeah.
I'm telling you, it's becoming more and more difficult to live
with these unknowns. And I never thought the pain of
the what I have perceived as a ghosting from him has been so
intense at times that I've just convinced myself, like, I'm
done. I'm never reaching out to him.
But the deeper and deeper I get into this excavation, I don't
think that's going to be an option.
I think I'm going to have to reach out in some way, if
nothing else but foreclosure. And I do have to say the wedding
thing with his daughter got weirder and weirder.
So about a month before the wedding, I visited the wedding
website again and it had been updated.
And the ceremony, the address to where the ceremony was, was on
the same complex as the ceremony I was attending at the very same
time. So obviously I knew like I'm
probably not just going to see my bio dad standing in the
parking lot or anything like that.
But the irony, the parallels, the fact that I knew about it,
you know, my husband has even said to me, if you had not gone
through one of your periods of discovery, we would have just
gone to that wedding and you would have had no idea that that
other wedding next door was your sister's.
There was a special moment after the wedding that we attended.
I'm like, come on, Hon. We got to take a ride around the
block. I just got to see what I can
see. And the things on their side of
the complex look pretty wrapped up.
A lot of cars were gone. There weren't people outside but
I did manage to get a really cool glimpse.
It was like a party bus and my half sister, her brand new
husband, their whole bridal party was standing.
They all looked so relaxed and calm.
They were taking pictures. My sister and her husband had
two dogs on leashes. She looked the most stunning
I've ever seen her. As someone who's randomly looked
her up online for years, I managed to get this image that
day that I will have forever so. That's such a kind view of it.
You just sound really happy for her.
I do, I do. And as painful as this whole
thing has been, because a question that comes up a lot
when I'm talking about this is, does it bother you that your
sister learned about you and you've never heard from her?
And it did for many years. And I was convinced she doesn't
want to know me, she's an only child, blah blah blah.
Well in this period of excavation called up the person
who told her. We also had not talked in 15-16
years. But I'm like I need some
resolution with him because I also had gone all this time
without knowing the full details of how he told her how she
reacted. It was so much worse than I
could have ever imagined. He texted her from some app
where it was some unknown number that you didn't know who it was
coming from and you couldn't respond to that number and he
wasn't sure if she was getting them.
So for a period of months, over and over again, he was texting
her. You have 1/2 sister on your
paternal side. Like how creepy.
What a weird way to find out. And then eventually they did the
work work to figure out who it was.
She sent him a Facebook message and said, I know it's you.
Stop sending me these texts. They blocked each other.
Her mother called him. They had a confrontation, had
words. They blocked each other.
So he also has had no communication with them for all
this time. But learning the specifics of
that was pretty eye opening. She knows nothing about me.
She could think that I am a part of this creepy way that she
found out, you know, So I'm also like, I have now looked at
myself and been like, well, you have not reached out to her
either. Sure.
And I mean, that's I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm feeling a lot of
empathy for your sister right now because what a horrible way
to find out and then have to confront your parents with that
information. And and then, yeah, she doesn't
know anything about you either. Like, really at all, except for
maybe what her mother has shared, which her mom is not
happy about the situation. So yeah, that's a really
compassionate view of her. And so do you feel like you're
going to reach out to her, or do you feel like you're going to
reach out to your biological father first?
If you do, it's I'm. First of all, the idea of all of
it is so terrifying because as far as I mean, as far as I know,
the situation hasn't changed on their end of things.
As far as my bio dad is still married, I still want him to be
married. I don't want to carry ill will
toward his wife or anything at this point.
Even if we could just have like phone conversations, like if I
could just talk to him on the phone, that would be so much
better than nothing. What's really interesting, and
again, I just feel like this is some spiritual thing going on
with my deceased grandmother. When I get the guts to reach out
to someone, I believe it's going to be my aunt, my dad's sister.
I want a layer of separation, protection, whatever you want to
call it. And I think I'm just going to
say to her, like, first of all, it's so cool to talk to a female
from that side of the family. Have never done that before.
I've seen you in photos. I feel a fondness towards you
that I can't put into words. Would you please communicate to
your brother that the door is open with me now or in the
future? It will never be closed.
Because another thing I fear is that so much time has gone by.
I think he a possibility, thinks I've shut the door on him
because he's ghosted me for so long.
I want him to know. Yeah, that was a crappy thing,
but the door is still open. And the door is still open to my
half sister now or in the future or never, honestly, if it's
never, it would also be really helpful to know that if they
were to just say we don't want to know.
You have a nice life. Really knowing what it's been
like to carry this for so many years, even closure would be so
welcome at this point. So I do think I'm going to reach
out to the bio Ant at some point.
It's just working up the nerve to do that.
Yeah. And that that sounds like a
smart approach because, you know, I've talked to a lot of
people for the podcast and it does seem like having that
layer, an aunt, a cousin, someone who's a little bit more
removed can help facilitate connection.
It's been a really long time since you first learned this
information. I'm curious if you could talk
about what it was like to learn at an age where you couldn't
really do much with that information.
And how the waiting and the the periods of, you know, either
being powerless to do any research to now kind of this
period of distance and no communication has played into
your experience of your DNA surprise.
Oh it's so challenging. I don't think there was a
perfect age for me to learn really with my situation
specifically what I really wish that the adults had done from
the onset. Work out a Co parenting plan.
My bio dad did want to be involved even after my mom had
broken up with him. He wanted to know me and I do
think that for his spouse, for my mom's spouse, it would have
been a lot easier for everyone. Just me growing up with everyone
knowing me. I respect that my parents knew
they had to tell me and did it at a relatively young age, but
they're just in my situation there wasn't a good age.
There just wasn't because it was the hardest part of this has
been that my bio dad wanted to be involved in was basically
kind of shut out so. What is your relationship like
with your parents that raised you now well?
They are now divorced again for the second time.
I do still loosely keep in touch with my raised dad.
He now lives in a different state though, and I, I feel very
sad for him because he's reaching an age where I think he
realizes that he's made a lot of poor choices through the years
that but I, again, I will never be like, I'm not going to talk
to you. I'm going to shut you out.
We don't have much of a relationship.
But again, I just know that the, that the whole ghosting, no
contact at all, like there's no need for that.
So that's what that is. My relationship with my mom is
really good. She is remarried to someone
different now. Very happy.
She's always been supportive of this.
She's always let me talk about it, cry about it.
Relationship is good there. That's amazing.
And you've mentioned your husband a few times.
I assume he's been a support to you.
What has helped you over this long period of discovery and
just navigating your experience? My husband who had the most like
cookie cutter normal upbringing ever.
There are times that especially when I'm going through right
now, I feel like it's just, it's got to be so much for him.
But he's he's strong enough to handle it.
He is so supportive and loving. And a husband is not a
replacement for a father, but my husband has done a phenomenal
job loving me unconditionally and being stable for me and
being there for me. And I can't imagine what my life
would look like without him. And also my sister, I'll bring
up again, has just she's been a pillar in this decade long
journey. And I I also can't imagine where
I'd be without her support and like willingness to listen to
this and everything so. What advice would you give a
parent who may be keeping adna surprise from their child?
Stop it, you cannot carry this any longer.
We live in a modern age. Your child at any time could do
adna test. You do not want them to find out
that way. It will be so much more freeing
to you to be honest with them. What advice do you have to
someone navigating adna surprise or who just found out that
they're. Happy peace be with you.
It is such a, it's such a mental load to carry and wherever
possible. I mean, I spent so many years
thinking I was the only person in the world with this
situation. That's false.
There are so many other people, so look for a community.
Look for, even if it's someone that is not an NPE, if they feel
particularly supportive or compassionate or willing to
listen to you, like lean on that person.
It's too heavy to just carry a loan.
Ellen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
sharing your story. You have been going through this
for such a long time and you still have so much compassion
and love and empathy for everyone involved, which is
really admirable. I hope that you get contact with
someone from your biological father's side soon and can maybe
get even more peace. Yes, thank you so much, Alexis.
And honestly, thank you so much for the work you're doing this
for me to learn that there is a whole community of people after
spending so many years not knowing that it's just been it's
been an incredible resource. So thank you so much and like I
hope you never stop. So thank you.
Don't plan on it. OK, good.
All right. Thanks again to Ellen for
sharing her story. If you have Adna surprise that
you'd like to share, please submit your story at
dnasurprises.com and for AD free early access to episodes, join
me over on patreon.com/DNA Surprises.
Until next time. DNA Surprises is hosted,
produced and edited by Me Alexis Hour Salt.
It is mixed and mastered by Josh Auersault of Siren Recording
Studios.