Denying Reality

Our family had a very personal experience this week related to DNA that I won’t really go into with specifics here.

My point being that because of inexpensive DNA testing and the matching sites such as Ancestry or 23 and Me, pretending something that isn’t true is really a short sighted decision.

Because of my parents adoptions and this journey of discovery I have been upon, I have read more than one book about people who got unexpected and life-shattering discoveries when they had their DNA tested. Some of these persons had been adopted, one was believed to be the child who had been stolen from the hospital shortly after birth but was actually a child abandoned on a sidewalk. Another one had believed in a strong Jewish heritage from her father and discovered with feelings of betrayal that she was conceived by donor sperm.

Honesty is the best policy even when being honest is somewhat painful. That was something I learned from my own parents as a child.

I am also grateful for that inexpensive DNA testing. As I have uncovered genetic relatives who never knew about me or I them because both of my parents were adopted – our shared genetic heritage convinces them I am actually “who” I say I am.

It is a brave new world thanks to technology and families now can be created where they were impossible before. For that, I will always be grateful.

There Are Worse Things Than Adoption

Warning – this is not an easy story to contemplate.

38 years after the event, a combination of DNA and genetic genealogy located the woman who in some confused and frightened state, gave birth to a baby in her apartment, and then dumped the living baby with the placenta still attached into a ditch in freezing weather in Sioux Falls SD when she was 19 years old.

The baby was found about 24 hrs later by a man test driving a car. The coroner ruled that the boy lived for about two hours before freezing and bleeding to death.

The woman did go on to marry the baby’s father who seems to have been unaware of either her pregnancy or the birth. She and her husband have two living adult children.

Haunted by this story, I did think “there are worse things than having been adopted.” This man would have been 38 years old. What kind of life might he have had? Would the outcome have been different if this young, single mother had had the encouragement and support that would have made her willing to keep and raise the boy?

A Better Way ?

Will the business of buying and selling human beings
continue to be an option for those who cannot conceive children ?
~ The Baby Scoop Era

I really don’t expect it to end anytime soon. Having learned all that I have learned over the last year plus, I do not think that adoption is generally a good way to go. There are wounds inflicted on mother, child and even the adoptive parents.

Thankfully, medical science has progressed to the point that many couples who were previously unable to conceive are able to now with assistance. Single women who’ve been unable to find a partner to parent with them can still have children and raise them well.

Medical assistance comes in many forms and sometimes involves more than two people in the genetics and biology of a child. This is the real world we live in today.

With assisted reproduction techniques, babies grow inside their mother and have all of the advantages of natural conception. Therefore, there are no wounds, just a more complicated genetics.

With inexpensive DNA testing, those people who do chose to conceive a child in this manner would do well not to hide it from the child who comes into existence in this manner. Discovering such a reality unexpectedly can wound almost as much as separating a child from its mother can.

Why Anonymous Isn’t Anymore

There’s been a bit of controversy recently about assisted reproduction and the use of anonymous donors and previously created embryos. I’m quite familiar with the issues as it became a part of my own life.

I know of others who have gone down this path who I believe made foolish choices not to be truthful about what they did. There is a difference between not sharing private details publicly and not telling one’s own family members an important truth.

I have also been blessed by inexpensive DNA testing and the matching sites – Ancestry and 23 and Me – for revealing the truth that my parents were prevented from knowing due to closed adoptions and sealed records. It is hard to imagine being forced to live a false identity so that strangers can claim you as their own (changing birth names and certificates to fit a manufactured reality).

I am grateful we followed a path of our own making and have been honest about the details with our sons. We’ve not lied to them – ever. We’ve also not made a big deal about how their conception was different than the more common method. We are pioneers in a brave new world.

The Ties That Bind

This movie never fails to bring me to the verge of happy tears at the ending as the family is reunited by the music they all share, though differently.

We own the dvd but I had not seen it in some time, certainly not since I began to discover my family origins. The child knows that he has parents out there and remains convinced the music will help him find them and it does in a very beautiful way.

I also finished reading Dani Shapiro’s – Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love yesterday. She discovers thanks to inexpensive DNA testing that the father that raised her was not her biological father. Turns out she was donor conceived.

When she discovers her biological father all of the unanswered questions of her life are explained in their similarities.

There are many variations of children who are separated in one way or another from their genetic roots. We cannot dismiss the validity of those ties because they do bind the person.