Those Pesky DNA Surprises

In this age of inexpensive DNA testing and matching – it happens. In The Guardian’s advice column by Annalisa Barbieri, a woman notes and then asks LINK>”I just found out who my real father is. What do I do now?” To which the columnist offers some reasonable advice – “DNA tests can reveal some huge hidden secrets. Take time to process your own feelings before coming to terms with your new family tree.”

The woman writes – I’m happily married with adult children, and grandchildren. One of my children bought me a DNA testing kit and when I received the results I was taken aback to discover that the man I thought was my father was not actually my biological parent.

She further adds these details – My parents were married for some years before I arrived and I have no siblings. My mother was a loving, kind person and growing up I was surrounded by a loving maternal extended family. My father was a “difficult” character, emotionally abusive and distant. He never told me he loved me and I know he made my mother’s life hell at times.

Adding some more details, she continues – I’ve discovered that my biological father was a work colleague of my mother’s. At the time of my conception he was also married with a 10-year-old daughter. We lived in a rural community and I met him and his wife on many occasions. He seemed to be a kind, intelligent man. Both he and my mother died a few years ago.

My mind’s in turmoil; I have so many questions that I know can’t be answered. I’m frustrated that I will never know the truth of the situation. Did other people in the family know when I didn’t?

I’ve told my husband but I’ve decided to not tell my children – I don’t want to upset their memories of a loving grandmother but I don’t know if this is the correct thing to do.

The other issue is his daughter, my half-sister. I’m sad that I’ve never had the chance to have a sibling relationship with her and never will because I will not tell her of my discovery.

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Annalisa Barbieri begins her response compassionately – “What a shock for you. I hope you are taking time to absorb it because this is seismic news. And it’s becoming more common now that DNA testing is so readily available. Lots of secrets that were once thought buried are being exposed. It makes it even harder when the people involved are dead and you can’t ask questions.”

A family psychotherapist, Reenee Singh, acknowledged – “it’s so de-stabilizing to realize the reality you grew up with isn’t what you thought.”

Both the advice columnist and the family psychotherapist agreed – she really should tell her children. The rationale was “Your children are adults and there’s a natural ‘in’ there as your daughter bought you a DNA test. what you don’t want is your children or grandchildren discovering this one day when they may take a DNA test.”

It’s always a good idea to process your own initial feelings first. You may wish to avail yourself of therapy. When you tell your children, you want to be neutral and factual. After you tell your own children, leave it to them to tell your grandchildren.

It was not clear whether this woman already had contact with her half-sibling. So, it was suggested that after she’s told her own children, to post the results on the genealogy site that processed her DNA. The half-sibling might then find that result and make contact in the future.

They emphasized that coming to terms with an unexpected surprise is a process. The advice columnist notes that “there’s a lot for you to work through, not only a new father figure but a whole new family story.” The psychotherapist wondered if this news doesn’t provide a sense of relief, as the father the woman knew as such was a complicated relationship for her. Going forward, in order to resolve her feelings towards her deceased mother, she should try to understand the situation that her mother lived through. This revelation certainly doesn’t mean that she still doesn’t love her mother.

Bribing DNA Test Sites ?

I do have my doubts about the bribing but it is a real concern for the adoptee in today’s story.

I have semi-recently remembered that I am adopted, something that my parents hid from me and still do not admit. So are my siblings, but all of us are not related to our parents and each other. Certainly, not as closely as immediate family. We started to guess that we were adopted when we were children. Our allergies were very different. And for me again in 7th grade, when we did a genetics unit. My siblings and I don’t talk about it now as adults. When I was in college, I hired a private investigator and he unearthed so much that everyone was lying about, including this. I’m really wanting to do so again, but can’t afford it. A DNA test isn’t a given, because my parents have money (I don’t) and they can bribe the testing site to give fake results, it’s happened before. I did get real results when I was an adolescent, but I can’t remember what they were except for a few parts. I don’t know what happened to the test result papers. I had wanted to keep them forever.

One suggestion – Once you do an Ancestry or 23 and Me test, I suggest joining DNA Detectives and ask for a search angel. Search angels are volunteers who help you find your biological family for free, if you are interested in that.

Someone else pointed out – Ancestry, 23andMe etc have very strict rules and I very much doubt that they could be bribed to give you false results. You wouldn’t even have to get your parents to test. With a bit of detective work and some close enough matches, you can prove if you are related to your parents or not.

Yet another person notes – you’d probably be disturbed to learn the extents small local places are willing to go to protect recipient parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if a local facility was supportive and even somehow involved with misinforming the adoptee. Something can be illegal, yet people/businesses can still (and often do) break the law. “Illegal” doesn’t mean “impossible” or even “unlikely”.

More than one expressed this thought – now is NOT the time to tell original poster to seek mental health help. Dissociation is a trip. It’s not surprising someone would suppress or dissociate away from the information that they’re adopted. Imagine finding something like that out after being lied to. People are going to process something like that at their own speed and seek help when they feel ready.

One adoptee added – don’t we all need some professional mental healthcare for our adoptions and lifetimes of traumas!? The lucky few have access to those resources.

And something like this DOES happen and so someone shares this story about a person that didn’t find out he was adopted until he was 40. His sister said that they tried to tell him when he was 6 years old and he got really upset – so they decided to just not bring it up again. He was very different looking to his parents. He finally got tested. It took him a bit to be ok with it all but now he is.

Swapped at Birth

Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose

It may not appear to be an adoption story but it is. The story of two men living alternate reality lives. Both of the men ended up in foster care as children. Richard Beauvais, 68, believed he was Indigenous. Eddy Ambrose, who shares the same birthday, always understood that he was of Ukrainian descent. I learned about this story this morning in LINK>The Guardian by Leyland Cecco. After a series of DNA tests, the two men learned they had been mistakenly switched at birth.

It is expected that today, the two men will receive an official apology in Manitoba. The painful saga highlights the fragile nature of identity and the complex meaning of family as well as embodying the damaging effects of Canada’s colonial policies.

“To have the core understanding of who you are – and who your parents were and who your siblings were – taken away from you, is a shattering experience,” said Bill Gange, the Winnipeg-based lawyer who represents both men. “But this apology is also for the siblings who didn’t grow up with the brother they should have, for the parents that never knew their own child. I don’t think either man knows what it will fully mean for them down the line, but hopefully it will help them.”

In 1955, the staff in a newly-opened rural hospital gave each of the families the wrong baby.

Eddy Ambrose was born to a Cree mother and French father, would spend his youth in the farming community of Rembrandt, oblivious to his Métis roots. The parents who raised him taught him Ukrainian folk songs. They died when he was young and in the years that followed, he was cared for by other family members until he was placed in foster care with a family he came to love immensely.

Meanwhile, 60 miles away, Richard Beauvais life experience reflected the pernicious nature of Canada’s attempts to break Indigenous families and culture. He grew up on the eastern shore of Lake Manitoba speaking French and Cree. His father, Camille, died when he was three years old. His mother, Laurette, struggled to raise Richard and six other children.

Beauvais recalls foraging in the dump to feed siblings. He was barred from speaking Cree and French while attending a residential day school. When he was around eight or nine, he became one of the thousands of victims of an episode which became known as the “Sixties Scoop”, in which the government forcefully removed thousands of Indigenous children from their families and placed them in the foster system. Officials entered the family’s house, striking Beauvais’s sister when she could not stop crying, and then herded the children into a car.

He was teased as a child for being Indigenous. “I saw what the government did to Indian kids because they thought I was an Indian kid. Not many white people have seen what I’ve seen. It was brutal and it was mean.” But he was eventually adopted into a family that he came to love immensely.

In 2020, Richard took a DNA test – a Christmas gift from his daughter – to learn more about his father’s French heritage. Instead, the test suggested he had Ukrainian and Polish ancestry. “He thought it was a scam, one that didn’t even acknowledge his Indigenous roots,” said Gange. Richard believed he ran the only fully Indigenous fishing crew in the region.

Gange is trying to work out a settlement agreement. He suspects there are more cases that will be revealed as home DNA tests become more and more common. “None of this would have happened and nobody would have known if they hadn’t taken tests. The challenges they faced in the child welfare system, especially Richard, are problematic,” said Gange. “But the redemption of both men, who ended up with beautiful foster families who loved them so much, is also a powerful testament to what family can mean.”

3 Branch Tree

Symbolically, I like this tree showing 2 strong and closely linked branches with a 3rd one sort of off to one side. Donor Conceived Persons have a 3 Branch Family Tree. When a child is conceived via donor egg or in surrogacy, there is by reality some contributions made by the gestating mother, though difficult to pin down with any accuracy. I would not expect similar physical contributions when there is another father raising that child in the case of sperm donors. So, just my opinion on that situation.

I know that discovering my roots was an experience that has helped me understand how my ancestors, and myself as well, fit into American and world history. Some date their arrival in the United States to pre-Revolutionary War time. Others were immigrants not even naturalized yet. Feeling my Danish, Scottish, Irish and English roots, as well as wondering where that smidgeon of Ashkenazi Jew or Mali came from, these just add spice to my genetic mix.

So while pondering on such facts today, I tumbled on this man, LINK>John Vanek, who found out at the age of 28 that he had been conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor and what little documentation ever existed had been destroyed. He had been interested in genealogy and DNA since the 6th grade in public school.

Using all of his genealogical and historical skills to work, he reconstructed the blank half of his family tree from the trees of distant 3rd- and 4th-cousins and, by this method, managed to identify the anonymous donor. He has since met his biological father for the first time, that was in early 2016, and has subsequently developed a relaxed friendship with that man.

Because there are lots of people out there looking for unknown or anonymous parents, grandparents, or siblings, but very few with the skills and experience he possesses, he started LINK>GeneaLOGIC Family Research Services with the primary goal of helping such individuals. John regularly helps adoptees identify their genetic or biological parents and the children of sperm or egg donors identify their genetic parents (or other close relatives).

John describes 2 of the situations where he has assisted a client – One client was conceived in an adulterous relationship, in which the father never knew the affair had led to a child. (Blogger’s note – my dad was conceived in such a situation, when his young mother had an affair with a much older, married man – she handled the pregnancy without ever telling him.) Another was looking for information about her father, who had been abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn.

He reassures those seeking with this – “Whatever your circumstances, there is still hope.” (Blogger’s note – I agree from my own unusual experience of being the child of 2 adoptees that died knowing nothing about their origins. Within a year of their deaths, I knew what they never did, who all 4 of my original grandparents were.)

John notes his ethical core. He realizes that there are always possible risks and rewards of searching for one’s unknown past, through DNA testing or otherwise. You never know who or what you will find. Therefore, when appropriate, he is happy to refer clients to a family therapist or a law firm specializing in adoption, donation, and surrogacy.

He ends his “About” page with – I am here to help you.

Intrusive Questions

Long ago, in my early twenties, I learned not to ask intrusive questions. My operative mode is if someone wants me to know “whatever”, they will tell me. It does keep me out of awkward situations but not everyone has the same standards. Therefore, I can relate to today’s story. We have been honest about our sons’ conception – especially with them. In my mom’s group, some were “don’t tell”. I do wonder with inexpensive DNA testing and matching services, how that is working out for them. None of my business really but I have been on the receiving end of intrusive questions of all kinds over the years.

Here is the woman’s story – My 4 month old was conceived using a known-donor embryo. We often get asked (as many parents do) “who does she look like” or some variation (e.g. oh she has dark hair like mum or where do her beautiful brown eyes come from?). I feel torn on how to respond, our family and friends know about our baby’s conception and often we have conversations about how much our baby resembles one of her genetic siblings and parents. When unknown people or acquaintances make comments I usually just say thank you or agree, e.g. “she has your dark hair”, I’ll just smile and say yes but when they ask questions, I’m never sure how to respond. Would you feel it is most appropriate to just “lie” e.g. “where do her lovely brown eyes come from?” So, I respond “her uncle has brown eyes” or should I just tell the truth ?- “her genetic parents have brown eyes”. That would probably just prompt questions regarding her conception that I don’t feel it is appropriate to discuss in the elevator or with the sales assistant at a store.

One suggestion that I agree with is – a generic type answer or deflecting answer. Another option is simply not answering. I liked this one – I have heard some say “genetics are wild aren’t they?” Blogger’s response was – We stayed with age-appropriate answers but were always honest with our egg donor conceived sons. I have been on the receiving end of some intrusive questions. It all depends on who and the circumstances but mostly it is instinct. Not everything that someone wants to know are they entitled to know. This is how I probably responded most of the time – keeping it real and vague.

Someone noted – it’s just a cultural habit to ask these questions, people are trying to be friendly, not nosy. Blogger’s note – And I do think a lot of it is that. Very often, people will note the oldest boy looks like his father and the younger one looks like me – which I always find very funny because I know the truth. People see what they want to see and it is usually well meaning.

I do agree with this perspective – that being defensive around relatively standard small talk could make our kids uncomfortable about the topic. Of course, that is the last thing any of us who are part of this brave new world want. There are so many neutral, friendly phrases you can keep in your back pocket that aren’t lies but also aren’t too much information either. A relaxed, friendly, low-information response will convey to your child that you aren’t uncomfortable with your family’s truth, while also modeling healthy boundaries and being a good neighbor to the well-meaning strangers we interact with every day. This is the bottom line truth – you don’t need to explain every detail of your life to random strangers making small talk.

Wanting Limits To Discoveries

I am a fan of the two big DNA testing and matching sites – Ancestry and 23 and Me. As a child of 2 adoptee parents who died knowing next to nothing about their origins, both have been important for me in putting back together the threads of our broken family.

An adoptive parent writes – A few days ago my 13 year old daughter asked for a DNA test to determine her ethnic history. Though she was unaware of it, I have had a 23andMe collection kit on hand for her to submit if ever she wanted. She was excited, and collected the specimen yesterday.

The service that I originally purchased offers several components in addition to a basic ethnicity report. One is a health risks evaluation, the other is a match with likely relatives. She is considering whether or not she is interested in this additional information.

While she was interested in a birth parent search when she was younger – and we support this 100% and laid the groundwork then – she has switched positions as she has grown. She is currently adamant that she does not want to know about relative matches, but she is interested in knowing if she has siblings. Obviously I cannot limit the matches from the company to just siblings. So, she is asking me to gatekeep here, but I want to make sure that the information is easy for her to access if and when she wants it, if something happens to me or my husband, or of she doesn’t want to ask us.

As it is, I have set up the relevant accounts and told her how to find the login information. We logged in and toured the site together.

She has a safe deposit box at a local bank with her adoption information that she goes through whenever she wants. Should I keep a hard copy of all the results and matches in this box? Or is that violating her wish not to be told? Should I share sealed copies of the information with a family member or attorney? How do you suggest that I honor her wishes without pushing her (even by accidental discovery) to know more than she wants to, while still allowing her the freedom to access the information without me if she wants it?

I am a firm believer that knowledge is power, but knowledge is also something that cannot be undone. How do I minimize anxiety while keeping the information available to her?

There were many responses and I won’t try to share all of them as I am short on time today. One of the wiser persons wrote – I would not assume her telling you she’s only interested in siblings is accurate. My guess is she’s dealing with adoptee loyalty and can’t tell you otherwise. She’s 13. She should have access to all of it on her own without you involved. If she matches, Don’t read her messages and communications. It’s her family. If she wants to talk to you about it then she will.

blogger’s note – My sons are egg donor conceived. Our donor did 23 and Me. I bought a kit for my husband, then kits for each son. I do not gatekeep. It allowed us to fully discuss our reasons for conceiving them the way we did. The egg donor is willing for contact – if they chose – and 23 and Me offers them a private communication channel.

A Black Hole of Identity

Today’s story is very much like my own dad’s perspective –

My Dad is an Adoptee (from birth). I knew this growing up and he knew his whole life as well. I know as much as he does about the circumstances of his adoption. And I never thought too much of it until I was older (teens) and he made a comment to me about me being his only blood. He never met his Parents, he never had a desire too (as he has stated). He was not kept from doing so and knowing my grandparents they do not seem like the kind of people that wouldn’t have allowed him to, if he had wanted.

As far as my Dad’s side of the family it was filled in with his Adoptive parents and adoptive family which made sense to me (and him). Here is where I am struggling. For a few years now, I’ve been very curious about my actual bloodline and where I’m from essentially. I know nothing about 3/4 of my ancestry/bloodline. Is it weird to have such a desire to know? I mean I can respect not knowing or seeking out people my parents have no desire to know themselves but I’d love to know where I’m from (I hope I’m saying that right). I’ve considered doing an Ancestry DNA type thing. Not sure if it would fully answer my questions and satisfy my curiosity. Am I being selfish being curious in the first place? I in no way want to disrespect my parents or trample on any trauma they have…which is why I haven’t yet to express this curiosity/desire to either of them.

Does anyone who is the child of an Adoptee or Adoptee with children have thoughts on this? Would it be wrong even bringing this up to them? Would it be wrong to do something like Ancestry DNA (should I tell them or just do it?)

blogger’s note – I responded. This is as close as I’ve gotten to anyone with a family history like mine and none yet with the same circumstances.

I am the child of 2 adoptees and my dad was a lot like your dad. It is not weird to want to know your heritage. After my parents died and I was already well over 60 years old myself, I finally uncovered ALL 4 of my original grandparents identities. I have connected with a few genetic cousins and one aunt. It has been an odd journey that did affect how I felt about my adoptive relatives. After several years, I believe I am somewhat reintegrating who they were during my childhood with the complicated understanding that I was never genetically related to any of them. HUGS. I do hope you find the information your heart is wanting to know. Regardless of how it has complicated my feelings, I am grateful to finally feel whole, without that black hole of not knowing anything about our heritage, just who my parents were.

PS I did BOTH Ancestry and 23 and Me. They were very helpful in my own journey. Go for it. You don’t need anyone’s permission.

Family Secrets

Kerry Washington recently learned that her father, Earl Washington, is not her biological father. It’s news that sent her on her current journey of self-discovery. “It really turned my world upside down,” Washington tells LINK>People.

As she began to record an episode of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots” with Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., her father began experiencing panic attacks. Having held onto the secret for decades, Washington’s mom, Valerie, a professor, and dad, Earl, a real estate agent, had a private conversation with Gates, who told them it was always best for families to discuss such revelations privately prior to filming. What came next, says Washington, was a text message from her parents inviting her to a family sit-down in the spring of 2018.

“When I got this information, I was like, ‘Oh. I now know my story,'” says the star, who recalls feeling a sense of relief at the news after long feeling her parents were keeping things from her and that something was missing. “I didn’t know what my story was, but I was playing the supporting character in their story.”

Washington says she kept her calm and asked a lot of questions while trying to give her parents grace in what was clearly a difficult moment for them. She learned that they’d opted to use an anonymous sperm donor to help conceive after struggling with fertility issues and they didn’t know – and didn’t want to know – anything about the man except that he was healthy and Black. They admitted they had all but decided never to tell her.

“I think that dissonance of like, ‘Somebody is not telling me something about my body.’ made me feel like there was something in my body I had to fix,” she says of struggling for years with anxiety, self-esteem issues, and an eating disorder when she was young. She now feels those might have been symptoms of subconsciously sensing her parents’ secret.

“My parents were not thrilled about me writing this,” she notes, though the couple grew supportive throughout the process. But, says the star, “this really is a book about me. I now get to step into being the most important person in my life.” The experience ultimately added a new layer to Washington’s bond with her parents.

“I really started to have so much more love and compassion and understanding for my parents,” she says. “Taking this deep dive into our family history made me put myself in their shoes and think about the things that they’ve had to navigate and what they’ve been through and what they’ve sacrificed. And it really made me feel closer to them.”

“Writing a memoir is, by far, the most deeply personal project I have ever taken on,” Washington told People in January. “I hope that readers will receive it with open hearts and I pray that it offers new insights and perspectives, and invites people into deeper compassion — for themselves and others.”

It Actually Is A Big Deal

I have seen the impact – in my mom and in my niece – both adoptees. Body image issues where the adoptive mother is determined to be thin and the adoptee has a body that is naturally larger. This can set up issues related to self-worth in an adoptee.

I belong to a mom’s group – all of our children were born within a 4 month period back in 2004 and were donor conceived. Many are going off to college now. Our family will relocate once our property sells because we have become aware and have accepted that there is a lack of social, educational and employment opportunities that match the interests and needs of our two sons. They are both egg donor conceived. They have the same genetic sources and so, are mirrors for each other. Their dad is also genetically related and I do see specific traits from him mirrored differently in one boy or the other. Because college is an issue right now among the other mothers in my group, I was attracted to this article today in Severance Magazine LINK>An Adoptee Confronts an Empty Nest by Sarah Reinhardt. Do take the time to read this well-written piece. I will only excerpt some thoughts from it.

What I had not considered until I read this story is the impact on an adoptee who finally has a genetic mirror in her own biological, genetic child and then, that child leaves to go off to study for their own higher education. My husband and I will likely experience this with our sons soon. They are ready to test their independent wings and fly off to their own separate futures. Many adoptees have deep abandonment issues and I can understand how these could be triggered when their own genetic, biological child leaves home, leaving behind an empty nest. My own parents conceived me when they were very young (it’s a miracle I didn’t end up adopted). It was always a given with them that they expected us to “leave.” With my sons, because my husband and I are older parents, I never cared if they didn’t leave but now I am facing that inevitability myself but without pushing them out the door. My heart knows the time is right for them to fly.

Sarah writes – “Sure, intellectually I’d known it was coming. In fact, I’d encouraged him to apply to out-of-state schools because he could ‘always come home,’ but I hadn’t truly emotionally prepared for the actual leaving piece of it. The unslept in bed that took my breath away the morning after I got home. Seeing the lone t-shirt that hadn’t been packed on the floor of his closet. Not hearing Spotify during his long showers or staying up until he was home from a night out with his friends, waiting to start a new show until he had a night free, or any of the myriad things that made up our routine.”

“His going had been, until this moment, just a concept—part of the plan when you have kids, or a kid, in my case. They graduate high school and they go to college—or at least that’s what I understood. And as other parents have throughout the course of history, I wanted better for my son in every area of his life—a better foundation of love and self-worth than I had, better opportunities than I had, better exposure to whatever it was he expressed interest in.”

“So I drifted through his childhood, showing up in the way I knew how, by being available and loving him and laying the groundwork for him to live out his dreams. But I forgot about me. I forgot to plan for me.” Sarah notes. blogger’s note – they really grow up so fast !! One day they are little tikes and the next they are large, young adults.

More from this blogger – Hmmm. I know this is what my husband is worrying about now. This is going to be a radical change for him, as he has had this wild forested environment of hundreds of acres of trees to care for. It’s not just our boys going off on their own as happens in so many families – we are being uprooted with them. We do intend to buy another house, once we relocate, and think of it as a “safe harbor” that the boys could return to if they needed to. But we do know they will probably leave and find a place to live independently – probably sooner than later – but one never knows. The older one is very ready to do that as he is now 22 and looks forward to having full control of his own living space. They have made our life much richer by making us a family. Both have been educated at home and both want to experience going to a traditional kind of schooling – so both expect to attend community college when we move. Still, for my husband, the property we will be living on will be a lot smaller and he’ll lose so much of what he spends time doing. He is a doer so I’ve no doubt he will find his way into doing something with his “retirement” years.

Sarah notes that as an adoptee – “Beker was the first person in my life with whom I shared blood. And that might seem like no big deal, but for adoptees it’s a profound experience. You grow up with no mirror, no explanation for why you shot up to 5’10” and have blonde hair and green eyes, a gap in your teeth and long arms and legs, or no reference for why you twirl your hair or dislike certain foods that the family around you loves. And later, when you’re older, you wonder where your penchant for pairing vintage and new clothes, alternative music, and your pursuit of a creative life originated. And on a cellular level, never feeling ‘quite right’ with the people around you. There’s no real way to understand it—you’re just… different. And awkward. And everyone knows it but no one says it.”

She later adds – “From that point on, Beker became my focus. . . . I thought . . . the right way to parent—undivided devotion to my child.” blogger’s note – It appears that is the kind of parents my husband and I have been. It has often been about the boys – the zoo, the circus, etc. Following my oldest son around taking directions as his camera person because he showed a strong interest in telling stories through a visual medium early on. Just one example of many I could cite. My genetic, biological daughter calls my husband and I “doting parents.”

The Unthought Known

My mom was full of sayings, actually my dad too. “Honesty is the best policy” was one. I guess it was a deep one for me, for I’ve always tried to be what I refer to as a “straight” shooter. I have a friend who says somewhere deep down inside, she always knew, even if what she deeply knew could not be fully articulated. Eventually, the truth came out. It usually does.

So, maybe I also knew that secrets never keep very well. As ignorant as we were, we never kept the truth of how they were conceived from our sons. Following advice I had seen offered, we told them abbreviated origin stories when they were yet very young, even if these were stories they were too young to fully grasp. After I learned our egg donor had done a 23 and Me test, I bought one for my husband and then test kits for both boys. They were older now and we could honestly discuss the whole situation with them and they could comprehend it fully. 23 and Me gives them a private channel of communication with their egg donor (genetic mother), if they chose. They have also spent time with her and her youngest son, when they were yet very young, though they’ve only seen photos of the other two. Distance and financial constraints negate our having very much contact.

Since learning my adoptee parents’ origin stories (they both were adopted), I’ve also learned a lot about all things adoption and that extends into donor conceived persons’ stories, as well as what is referred to as a non-parent event – meaning that someone discovers that at least one (or sometimes both) of the parents they thought were theirs – were not. This can be painful and difficult for one to wrap their mind around, especially if this knowledge comes late in life. That is what happened to Jon Baime when he was 54 years old.

His subsequent documentary is available at LINK>video on demand. This can be rented from the Microsoft Store, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play Movies, YouTube, or Spectrum On Demand.

Baime shares his journey in the interview with LINK>Severance Magazine. It is this interview where I got the title of today’s blog. It begins with this background – Imagine yourself in this scenario. You tell your 92-year-old father that you want to take a DNA test to learn more about your heritage. Your father says, “I don’t want you to take that test until after I’m dead!” You ask why, and he can’t or won’t tell you. What do you do? Naturally, you take the test, and your father says, “Fine, piss on my wish,” and you spend weeks waiting for the results and wondering what’s the big mystery.

That’s what happened to Jon Baime when he was 54-years old. You might think he shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the man he believed to be his father wasn’t related in any way, that he was in fact donor conceived, that his parents had been keeping a secret from him, about him. But even if you were raised in a family that keeps secrets, as he was, where children were often told that certain matters were none of their business—and even if you’ve always known that something in your family wasn’t quite adding up—it’s always a shock to find out your identity is not what you’ve always believed it to be, that your relationships changed in the moment you received your test results, that your whole world flipped upside down and there’s suddenly so much you don’t know that your head spins.

During the four years after his DNA surprise, he used his professional skills as an Atlanta-based producer of non-fiction projects, to unravel the family’s secrets and lies -researching and scrambling through a trove of family history in the form of photos and home movies, and traveling the country to interview his older brothers (also donor conceived with mixed reactions) and his new siblings (who had appeared as DNA matches). One sees why genetic mirroring can be important to a person in the photo below.

Baime and his biological father, Harrison.