I really felt like it was a gift.
She was a gift. It was super special.
She was somebody that I always wanted, always had dreamed.
Especially being an only child, I'd always dreamed of having a
sibling of and now I have one. 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. It's usually the father's.
When people open up their DNA results, it's the dad's side
that doesn't line up and the DNA surprise experience begins.
But sometimes it's the mothers. In this week's episode, Robin
shares how she uncovered A shocking secret after taking
Ancestry and 23 Andme tests. Her story highlights the impact
of family secrets and the power of learning the truth.
Thank you for sharing your story, Robin.
My name is Robin. I am 4849 in 2 days and I live
in Dallas, TX. My DNA surprise story actually
starts back in 2022. I matched with a guy on Ancestry
DNA as 1/2 sibling on my dad's side of the family, which I
never knew my father growing up. The last time I saw him I was
maybe 5 or 6 years old and so we never had any contact further
than that. And so to find out I had a
brother that was really cool. He had been put up for adoption
at birth and probably about 10 years older than me, and we've
met once and that was really cool.
He lives out of state, so we don't have the opportunity to
meet up a lot. I was the first family member
that he met, you know, actually face to face.
So I'm sure that was really cool for him.
He just being older than I am. We're in different phases of our
lives. He's so nice and his wife Emily
is just wonderful and they're the nicest people.
And I wish they lived closer because we would have a closer
relationship. But with me having a young son
and he having grown children and aging into retirement and it's
just hard to find things in common when you didn't grow up
together. And I live in different states.
But the big DNA surprise for me really happened in the summer of
2023. So I had also done the 23andMe
kit long time ago when they first came out in the hopes of
finding some of the parental side of my family.
Because I I've been raised by my mom for the most part as a
single parent and alone I was an only child.
I didn't have any contact with my birth father.
So I obviously had questions and really wanted to know.
And the only way at that point that I knew to find out those
answers was this awesome new thing.
DNA test. What did you know about your
biological father? I knew his name was Robert.
I didn't know his birth date. I didn't know how old he was.
I, I knew he liked fish 'cause he always had fish tanks in his
house when I would go to visit him when I was a little kid and
he worked as a shoe salesman. Last I remember.
I didn't know very much and just being a small child, you know, I
was probably 5 or 6 the last time I saw him.
And do you know why your relationship with him sort of
ended? When I was 5 or 6, my mother
remarried and when she remarried her husband, she and her husband
decided it would be a great idea for him to adopt me.
My father Robert, who I was named for, is out of the picture
and like I said, I was about 5 or 6.
So he respected that and he left.
I don't know why he relinquished custody.
I I don't know. He has since passed.
Those questions are are not going to be answered for me, but
but yeah, I was adopted. I actually took both tests.
I took the Ancestry and the 23andMe just because both
databases are so big. I thought maybe I would be
missing something and it's good that I did because I found my
brother Michael on Ancestry and my Sister Nancy on 23andMe.
Fast forward to the summer of 2023, I get an e-mail early in
the morning that I have a message on 23andMe and I go and
I click and it's a message from someone that I find out later is
a female and she is saying that we have matched as half siblings
and her e-mail is really really short.
That's all it says. And I wasn't even sure whether
she or he was male or female because they just signed the
e-mail with initials. So even emailing back, I was
like, I don't even know what to say because it was so short.
And I figured for sure this is another one of my dad's kids
because, you know, men. And it was, you know, that's
just how things roll. And so, you know, I'm like, OK,
cool. I've got a sister now too.
So I go and I look and I dig a little deeper and from what I
can find, this child, this little girl was born to my
mother. So my mother had custody of me
the entire time I was a child until the time that she I grew
up and she passed. And so in emailing with this
woman, Nancy, I find out that she was born in 1981.
Well, in 1981 I was four years old.
In 1981 my parents were still together but she registered as
1/2 sibling and she was placed for adoption at birth.
Oh my gosh, so it's interesting, like where our minds immediately
go with things. So first thought right, is it
must be your father's child's because as you say, men, right?
And also you didn't know, you didn't know him.
So whatever life he may have had after you lost touch with him.
And then the next thought I would assume might be that your
mother maybe had a child before you were born is I mean, not
after. Yes, before would be my
assumption. How did you figure out that it
was your mother, not your father?
I figured out that it was my mom because the way that at least
the latest update at the time had done it on 23andMe, it had
separated the parents and you could see one side versus the
other. And I was able to then go look a
little deeper and see which family members she was matching
with from that point forward. And I, my heart was in my
stomach. I couldn't believe it.
I was absolutely in shock. I was floored.
I was just like, wow, this is just crazy to me.
To think that my mother had a child come to find out after me
that I did not know about. Did you respond to your sister
and is that one who found out when she was born?
And more specifics. That's what happened.
I responded to the e-mail immediately and asked more
questions, asked when she was born, asked her name, asked if
she was male or female and just got a little bit more
information on on her. And at that point we exchanged
emails, legit emails, private emails, so we could start an
e-mail relationship there and and ask a bunch of questions.
And it was definitely hard for me because Nancy gets migraines
and she unfortunately got a migraine around this time and
around like her second e-mail before I got really any more
information than she was born a little after me.
And where she was born, she was born in in Indianapolis, but my
family is from Evansville, IN which is just South of
Indianapolis. So she came from the same area
that we were from even. Did she know that she was
adopted? Yeah, she was placed for
adoption at birth. She knew that she was adopted.
She had also had to younger siblings, two brothers that were
biologically related to her parents, her adoptive parents,
and they lived in Indianapolis and they're still all up there.
My family is still in Evansville.
But it was just funny to me that that's where all that happened
because I was raised in Houston, TX.
And so I was raised with my mother and the occasional
stepfather and no other family around.
And I had these friends and playmates that all had their
cousins to play with and would go to their auntie's house and
just big extended families, grandmothers, grandfathers, all
of these people around. And I had none of that.
All of my family was far away. And as a young child, I didn't
understand why. And I'd asked my mom, why, why
are we in Houston? Like, I don't understand, why
are we in Texas? And she said, well, Robin, you
know, back in the early 80s, jobs were hard to come by,
especially good jobs. And there were a lot of jobs
down in Houston. Houston as a ship channel is a
major port. There were just lots of jobs.
And so when you were little, me and your dad decided that we
were going to move down to Houston and start our lives
there. Added on to that, my mom passed
away in 1995 unexpectedly and my grandmother, her mother also has
since passed in 2015. But after my grandmother passed,
my aunt Vicki was cleaning out her house and found some old
letters and pictures that my mom had sent my grandmother over the
years. Well, she sent those to me and
I'm so grateful that she did because I got a few answers out
of those letters and those pictures because one of the
letters that she sent me was a card.
And I'm going to get into some dates here, but it was dated
1981, April 16th, 1981, postmarked Houston, TX.
And it states that she and Bob, my dad, had come down to Houston
for a two week vacation around mid March and decided they liked
it so they were going to stay. And here's our phone number and
here's our address. And I'll write more.
I'm on I'm rushing to work. I'll write more when I can
later. Well my sister was born April
3rd 1981 and they literally picked up and moved two weeks
before this baby was born. Nancy was born in Indianapolis
so my mom went back to Indianapolis.
I'm sure she had intended adoptive parents waiting to
receive their baby. Gave birth to this baby and was
right back to Houston, TX by the 16th of April 1981.
Did your aunt know anything? Did she know about your mom
being pregnant or so? Come to find out, yes, this aunt
did know. I ended up finding out that 2
aunts and my grandmother knew of this pregnancy.
My aunt Vicki that I've been Speaking of that sent me the
letters that I'm so grateful to for sending that those to me.
She was about 18 and she overheard some conversations and
she was says she was just a kid. She didn't know much.
She couldn't ask any questions. She just knew that my mom was
pregnant, knew that she was going to give the baby up for
adoption. My grandmother was not happy
with that decision and that was the end of that.
When I asked her why she didn't tell me after all these years,
especially after my mom died in 1995.
Her mom died in 2015, and at this point it's 2023.
Why did you not tell me? And she just said that we just
didn't talk about those things back then.
And I just said to her, Vicky, well, those times are a long
time ago and this is now, and we talk about things.
And it would have been really nice to know because I've been
alone for a really, really long time and spend a lot of lonely,
lonely days. And it has really sucked a lot
of years, a lot of Christmases alone.
That sucks, dude. And to just have the knowledge,
whether I could have done anything with it or not, just to
have the knowledge that there is somebody else out there, that
would have been amazing to me. And I feel like it was my right
to know and it was my story, especially when everybody else
was gone. Like, who are you protecting?
I don't understand that you're protecting a dead woman.
That's just doesn't make sense to me when there's living,
breathing humans in the family right here still being affected
by other people's decisions from 40 years ago.
What did she say to that? She got really defensive and
wanted to agree to disagree. So I don't agree to disagree.
I could have understood my aunt coming to me saying I didn't
know how to tell you. I wanted to tell you I didn't
know how to tell you. How do you bring that up?
I get it, girl, I get it. But just to be met with what I
was, met with, excuses and defensiveness, it just did not
sit well with me and it just hurt my heart really, it hurt.
I think that that is an experience a lot of people feel
right in this community is usually the the fallout relates
to the reaction, not necessarily entirely because of the secret.
It's it's the reaction following the revelation.
Right. And so you know, I mentioned I
have another aunt that also knew my aunt Aubrey.
It was pretty pretty soon after I'd gotten one of the first
emails I called Aubrey. She lives out in at the time in
the Virginia area. I called her and I said, hey, I
got a match on on 23andMe for 1/2 sister that is my mom's and
she was born in 1981 and put up for adoption.
Do you know anything about this? And she said to me her exact
words. I'll never forget it Were this
is the phone coggle that I've been dreading for the last 40
years. That's what she said to me.
Yeah, she knew. She knew, She knew.
We've never met in person. She has been in my life,
especially since my mom died along the way, here and there,
from afar, from a distance, but in my life.
And wow, I was again shocked and floored.
And I couldn't believe that again, this woman had another
one had chosen to not tell me. Let me add that this aunt, she
was also my mother's sister, my Aunt Vicki's sister.
They are not close and do not speak.
So it wasn't like they teamed up and just decided, hey, let's
not, let's not tell Robin about this.
It was obviously independent decisions throughout the years.
Everybody was keeping this under wraps.
Was that kind of how your family was like?
Was your mom really open with you?
I mean, obviously not about this, but you know, how would
you describe your relationship with your mom?
My relationship with my mom was definitely, at the time of her
death, strained mom when I was about 12.
Mind you, she was a single parent at this time.
She decided that she wanted to be a long haul truck driver and
deliver chemicals to chemical plants and leave me back at home
to be raised by the occasional nanny, a friend's parents.
I'd sleep in like the top bunk of a friend's bedroom whenever
she was out of town for a week or so at a time.
And then my mom would come home and she would, especially in my
teenage years, try to parent me. And that teenage angst and all
of the back and forth to God only knows who's home I'm going
to be at now. Because the situation, being a
teenager hadn't worked out with one family.
So you have to go stay with another family and then thrust
back home to your mom wanting to parent when she's gone. 90% of
the time thinking that she could parent me while she was gone.
I just basically laughed in her face.
Well, then at 17, I moved out because at that point she had
remarried another man and he was crazy and demented and had
something seriously wrong with his brain.
I don't know. I'm not a doctor.
I don't know what was wrong with that man, but it was not a good
situation for me to be in. He was fine to my mom, but my
mom was gone a lot and he was around and some really, really
messed up stuff went on in that house when that she wasn't
around that she didn't find out about when she was alive because
to a child. The alternative to what's going
on might be worse than what's going on, so let's just keep
this under wraps and not tell anybody and hope that it just
all smooths out. So at that point I was old
enough to get a job and get out of my own.
It was the mid 90s and I luckily was able to get out and get my
own apartment in a rough part of town, but I had my own place and
I had a job and it was safe. So my relationship with my mom
was not great. Unfortunately, she did not live
long enough for us to be able to at least attempt to mend things
and grow and learn together. Yeah, I'm sorry.
That's hard. Thank you.
Yeah, it it is hard. And the lack of closure to
things. My mom died of a sudden heart
attack and she was actually out on a delivery out in New Mexico
when this happened. And I was already out of the
house. And I'm grateful for that.
I had moved out at 17, but she died when I was 18.
So I had been gone a little over a year.
And I think that that helped that definitely soften the blow.
I mean, even though we weren't close and we didn't have a tight
relationship at the time, it was still devastating.
She was all I had, no brothers, no sisters.
My extended family is all spread out through the US and mostly in
the Midwest and, and, and separated from me and I wasn't
raised around them. My cousins, half of them are
doing their own thing and the other half of them have been in
jail and doing meth and doing all sorts of other things.
We just don't match, like our lifestyles are not the same.
I have nothing in common with these people.
I don't know these people at all.
I they could almost be strangers to me, so I don't have anybody.
It was devastating to have that safety net taken so suddenly.
Yeah, I don't know what's worse, have knowing somebody's ill and
then them passing or it being so sudden.
But definitely my youth, it was super hard.
Yeah. Very, very, very, very hard.
And lots of struggles during that time, yeah.
Yes, hearing you say that it's like, and I know and it's true,
you may not have been able to do anything with the information
that you had a sibling out there, especially at that time,
but maybe it could have brought some comfort or maybe you would
have reached out earlier or taken a test earlier.
You know, all of the the what ifs.
So you aren't able to ask your mom and figure out what
happened, I assume because you were so young.
Do you feel like you have any memory of her being pregnant or
the only? Memory that I have from from
that young about my mom is that I remember that she was fat.
She was she was chubbs, she was she was robust, she was rotund
She, she had some girth. And I think back to that time
and I think, well, if, if I were in her shoes and I was pregnant
with another man's child and still with my current partner
and I had this little girl and I knew that I was going to give
this baby up for adoption. I'm not going to be talking
about there's a baby in mommy's belly.
There's going to be no talk of that.
I'm just four years old. I'm not going to understand.
And at four years old, I didn't understand what a pregnant belly
looked like versus a fat belly. You know, they were just all
bellies to me, all that, you know.
And so I don't remember her being gone for any length of
time around that time. I don't, I don't remember
anything else other than her being fat.
That's that's what I remember thinking when I was a kid.
And then her being a little bit more slender as time went on, a
little bit more body weight, proportional.
Yeah. OK.
When you talk to your aunts, did your mother know that your
sister was not her husband's child?
Or I mean, I assume that that is why she was put up for adoption,
but did she know? She had to have because the baby
was being put up for adoption. If I think that if it were my
father's child, it she they would have kept it.
They were still together. So my Aunt Aubrey says that my
dad and mom were separated by the time my mom got pregnant and
that he found out, yes, that he found out through like a letter
that came from the insurance. Like, I guess she was still on
his insurance and a letter from like the maternity ward hospital
had come and he was like, hey, Paula, you want to tell me about
this? You want to explain this?
But if that's the case, that doesn't explain how I found that
letter dated April 16th, 1981, that she and Bob had moved down
to Houston. And here's our phone number and
yadda yadda yadda like. Maybe on again, off again kind
of thing. Or it was during a time of
separation. Maybe so like, like that's,
that's all the information that I got out of my aunt.
Yeah, that's all. She said that does happen.
That does happen. And I have in fact, you know,
interviewed people where the parents were separated and
during that time the mother got pregnant with baby.
And in these cases that they kept the baby raised as an NP E.
But you know, so it's like that's either path, right?
As they could have kept your sister and raised her either
knowing or not knowing the truth about her paternity.
But I understand that you you'll never likely get a clear answer
on exactly what happened around that time.
So so OK so you've connected with your sister and she shared
that she's younger than you and you're putting all of these
pieces together. Is she interested in building a
relationship and learning more about you?
What happens? Next.
What happened next was she and I shared several emails back and
forth and got to know each other that way.
She asked if I would be interested in meeting which I
was so excited. First of all to find out that I
had a sister that was close to my age that wanted to have a
relationship that wasn't cuckoo crazy, that wasn't a crazy
different political belief system that I had and wanted to
visit. Now she come to find out she
doesn't have kids, she's married and she has pets.
She has four legged kids and so she can travel a little easier
than I can with my little 8 year old.
So she asked if I wanted to meet and I said yes, and she booked a
trip down to Dallas. I want to say it was October of
23. She came and she visited and it
was absolutely surreal meeting this woman in the flesh and
seeing how much we resemble each other and see how much she looks
like my mom. She looks a lot like my Aunt
Vicki, which was interesting to me.
Definitely resembled my mom's side of the family.
And just the way she's built, the way she carries herself, the
way she speaks, the way she laughs.
Yeah, yeah, she's. She's one of us.
It was really cool meeting her. The first time we met in a
restaurant and I almost couldn't eat.
I was so nervous, you know? Yeah.
But. But happy but so happy to to
finally be meeting my sister and someone I have always wanted.
Absolutely. Especially a sister.
Are you kidding me? A girl?
It's a female sister. I mean, this is awesome.
Yeah. I really felt like it was a
gift. She was a gift.
It was super special. She was somebody that I always
wanted, always I dreamed, especially being an only child.
I'd always dreamed of having a sibling again, and now I have
one. How is your relationship?
Today, a relationship today is wonderful.
We have seen each other I want to say 4 Times Now.
We took a little girls trip to Memphis back in the fall and
that was a lot of fun. Just a little weekend getaway
and our relationship is good. You know, I wish that it was
even closer than it is, and maybe one day it will be.
But that's just something that takes time to build and just
just going to take time for us to get to know each other.
I mean, we were both in our 40s whenever this was discovered,
and it's only been a couple years since we've been in each
other's lives. And not being close in proximity
is is the hardest. And having to make a conscious
effort to to be in each other's lives and to see each other.
Yeah. If you could ask your mom
anything about this, like what questions do you have?
So many, so many questions. You know just what, You know
what, what was going on, what in the world was going on.
I mean my mom just knowing her history, fancied men very much
and I just. With all the ways to prevent
pregnancy, I just don't understand how this could have
happened. What would.
I would love to know the circumstances surrounding it,
but to be honest with you, I don't know that my mom, which if
she were around, would have even ever told me unless she had to.
Just like my aunts. I would definitely have
questions about what happened. And then I also would want to
know, like, why did you choose adoption?
Like you already had one child. Like why didn't you raise this
child? Did my dad say that he wouldn't
raise this child with you or wasn't going to get back
together if, like you said, maybe they had been separated
and reconciled? Like what, You know, just more
context to what was going on. And as strange as my
relationship was with my mother, you know, I do have compassion
of of the woman inside of her and the woman inside of me for
having to carry this baby and not having to choosing to carry
this baby and give birth to this baby and then hand hand it a no,
no, that you can't care for this baby or can't won't.
It's not a good situation. Whatever.
You know, I have compassion in my heart for her being there in
that position. How have you or have you made
peace with the unknown? Not getting those answers.
No, I think that you just got to let some stuff go.
You just got to let it go when there's things that you're never
going to get the answer. These are questions that are
never going to be answered. And I've scoured through all of
the paperwork, all the pictures, all the everything that I can
find in my archives. And I've asked all the questions
to everybody still around. And some things just aren't
meant for this lifetime. Most of the people that I talked
to on the podcast discovered that one of their parents isn't
their biological parents. But in in this case, you
uncovered a family member that you didn't know was out there,
but you still did discover very big secret about the people that
raised you because they both knew this, but especially about
your mom. How would you say that this has
impacted you? Well, initially it impacted me
by amping my anxiety level up to about a 300 and sending me into
talk therapy. I immediately found a therapist
and because I didn't I, I had so many thoughts just racing
through my head. I almost didn't know what to do
with it or even how to wrap my head around.
It was very helpful. She was very helpful in in
getting my mind straight and being able to calm down and
relax and realize that, you know, this is a good thing
should we want. It what's next for you and your
sister or just yourself as you continue to navigate this?
Well, we, Nancy and I are having a meet up.
She's coming back to Dallas the end of February, the beginning
of March for I think her third trip.
And she really likes it here. So that's good.
And we're going to, I don't know what we're going to do yet.
I need, I guess I need to start looking at some restaurants.
She likes to eat like I like to eat good food.
She likes to eat good food too. So I need to do a little digging
and see what I can find over a Food City, you know, Alexis.
Yes, yeah, well, that's it's so cool.
And I can just see how you light up when you talk about the
similarities that you have with your sister.
And I'm so glad that you were able to find that.
That's really special. What advice do you have for a
parent who may be keeping Adna surprise from their child?
For the parent man, you're, you're in for it.
If the kids find out and you didn't tell them, that's some
serious, serious therapy bills for you.
So you should just go ahead and just be honest and tell them and
be honest from the beginning when they're little if you can.
What advice do you have for someone who just uncovered Adna
Surprise? Yeah, therapist, find a
therapist. If you can't find a therapist,
get a good, find a good friend, somebody who will listen to you
and, and, and help you manage and help you navigate this new,
this new sibling hood. Take it slow and know that you
know you're just now meeting, but you have the rest of your
lives to build a relationship and get to know each other.
And it's a really cool experience that I never thought
that I would experience. Robin, thank you so much for
joining me today and sharing your story.
It's so cool to hear how much you've embraced this newfound
relationship with your sister, and I'm excited to hear how it
continues to grow as time goes on.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks again to Robin for sharing her story.
If you have Adna surprise that you'd like to share, submit your
story at dnasurprises.com and for early add free access to
episodes, join me over on patreon@patreon.com/DNA
Surprises. Until next time, DNA Surprises
is hosted, produced and edited by me, Alexis Oursalt.
It is mixed and mastered by Josh Oursalt of Siren Recording
Studios.