June 17, 2025 • 48 mins
How often do we hear on this show that people never felt like they fit in with their families growing up? This week’s guest, John, reveals that he felt the same way, and even held onto some guilt around his feelings. Fast forward to a little over two years ago, when his daughter took a DNA test and unearthed a surprise for the entire family: John wasn’t biologically related to any of the family he grew up with, because he was adopted as a newborn.
John shares how this discovery has affected him and the steps he took to uncover more information about his origin story. While he hasn’t connected with his biological parents, and doesn’t particularly feel the need to, he also discusses why he’s open to changing his position, especially for his children.
Thank you for sharing your story, John.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Along the way, I, I, my wife andI would always say how different
I was and I would always say, I don't feel like I even belong
there. And I know I've listened to
quite a few of the podcast and people say that.
And it was really reassuring in many ways to hear other people
say that because I, I carried a lot of guilt for that through
(00:20):
the years of, oh, I just don't feel like I belong here.
What, what's wrong with me? You know, and I, I felt really
guilty about that. And I think had I known I was
adopted, that would have been such a help many years ago to
know, hey, it's OK, you're different.
There's a reason why you might feel or you think you're
(00:42):
different than us and behave differently and whatnot, because
there's a reason for it. But I didn't know that.
And then I, I carried this guiltfor years and years and years.
So it's not like I'm playing theresults now saying, see, I, I, I
feel like I didn't belong. I mean, I said that for years
and years. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a
(01:03):
podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.
In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out
that I'm an NPE, a person who has experienced a non paternal
event. In other words, my biological
(01:24):
father isn't who I thought he was.
Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees and
donor conceived people and theirfamilies.
Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin
with a simple DNA test. This is DNA surprises.
(01:46):
How often do we hear on this show that people never felt like
they fit in with their families growing up?
This week's guest, John, revealsthat he felt the same way and
even held on to some guilt around his feelings.
Fast forward to a little over two years ago when his daughter
took ADNA test and unearthed a surprise for the entire family.
(02:10):
John wasn't biologically relatedto any of the family he grew up
with because he was adopted as anewborn.
John shares how this discovery has affected him and the steps
he took to uncover more information about his origin
story. While he hasn't connected with
his biological parents and doesn't particularly feel the
need to, he also discusses why he's open to changing his
(02:33):
position, especially for his children.
Thank you for sharing your story, John.
John, I'm 60 years old and I'm from New Jersey.
It started innocently enough with my daughter taking ADNA
test. She did one of the over the
(02:54):
counter DNA test. And the reason she did it was
more of a kind of a joke, if youwill.
So my dad used to tease my kid, my children.
I have three children and my dadused to tease them saying yeah,
I'm from here, I'm from there. Because he didn't know where he
was from. He didn't know his ethnicity, so
(03:17):
every time he would talk to them, it would change because he
was just being silly. So as when my youngest got
older, she's like, well, I'm going to find out what the heck
we really are. So she went and and took a test
and it came back. Basically, she's 100% Irish,
which we had a lot of laughs about.
(03:38):
It was a lot of fun. And it was like, you know, we
knew my wife was Irish but neverthought we were Irish on my side
of the family. What did you think you were
before? My mom was half Italian, half
Polish and some other things, but she was basically raised
Italian. And then my father would
(04:01):
primarily say he was German, sometimes French and Austrian.
What you know that that neck of the woods?
But then my daughter came back like 90 something percent Irish
and it was like, what the heck is that?
So you all had a good, good laugh about it and and she's
like, dad, you got to go take this test.
Just find out what the heck you are.
(04:23):
So I'm like, sure, what harm could that do?
So who knew? This last word and so your
daughter, she told you, OK, go take this test, figure out
what's going on with you becauseobviously her mother, your
daughter's mother is obviously largely Irish as well.
(04:47):
When you saw her results did anything like Ping for you?
Were you like that doesn't line up with what my mom said she
was. Yeah.
And I, I, I think I have a good history now that maybe ignoring
red flags along the way, didn't really think too much about it,
to be honest with you. I'm like, my parents were not
(05:10):
very forthcoming with any information.
They're kind of secretive. So it was certainly surprising,
but kind of learning new information, par for the course.
And we really didn't pay any attention to like DNA
connections at this time. It was really more about the
ethnicity. It was right around or right
(05:32):
before the pandemic started. My, my daughter got the results.
So I'm like, all right, I'll go get a test and take it.
And so I, I took the test and then the results came back right
around the, the start of the pandemic.
And the reason I'm calling that out is right around that time,
(05:53):
my mother kind of had a breakdown and she went from very
early dementia to like full blown dementia where, you know,
it's kind of like as almost as bad as it gets type of thing.
So couldn't really even have a conversation with her during the
early part of the pandemic. We had to get her into assisted
living. She couldn't live by herself.
(06:13):
She needed full time help. So it was really bad.
But I call that out just from the standpoint of couldn't even
ask her any questions about any of the results.
So then I get my results back and you know, I still have some
of the Italian in there, but I'mlike half Irish, right?
(06:34):
Which kind of aligns up with my daughter's results.
Obviously, again, didn't do a whole lot with it.
Couldn't ask my mother any questions at this point.
So it just kind of kind of sat there for a while.
We had a lot of questions, but really couldn't ask anybody.
(06:56):
My mom has three siblings, couple of them are in their
80's, the ones in their late 70s.
So communication starting to getdifficult with that generation.
So we just kind of sat on it. Another red flag that I ignored
was the fact that I really didn't connect with anybody I
knew. Didn't have any any real close
(07:17):
connections save for one. And we'll get to that later.
But no, like, no names that I knew, but not anybody even close
in the family tree. So they were so far distant
that, all right, these names might make sense.
They're like second, third, fourth, you know, Cousins twice.
Removed So you're just thinking maybe nobody close to you took
(07:39):
the test so there was nothing surprising you didn't have a
sibling or a first cousin or anyone show up that you didn't
know. Exactly, exactly.
So there were other irregularities, if you will.
My birth certificate looks very different than my wife's.
We were born geographically close to each other, same
(08:01):
county, but our birth certificates look very
different. My wife's was issued, you know,
a month or two after she was born.
Mine was issued 14 months after I was born.
And they look different, but they both have our legal names
(08:22):
on it with our parents names on it.
So, you know, we always questionthat, but not too deeply.
You know, it's just one of thoseoddities.
Again, maybe another red flag that I, you know, conveniently
ignored. Fast forward to 2023.
My mom's been in a sister livingfor three years and she passes
(08:45):
away. A cousin of mine came up for the
funeral, stayed at our house. The day she was leaving was the
day after the funeral. I said, you know, just for
giggles when you get home, it just, her mom couldn't travel to
the funeral 'cause she's just, you know, too old at this point.
I said, when you get home to, they live in North Carolina.
(09:07):
I said, when you get home, ask your mom, you know, just for
giggles. It was I adopted, ha ha ha, you
know, type of thing. So she gets home two days later
and she calls my wife up. And my wife was at the store,
and she's like, give me a call when you get home, you know?
So my wife comes home, she callsup my cousin.
(09:27):
And it's like, yeah, I did talk to my mom.
And it turns out John is adopted.
So literally, you know, two daysafter my mother's funeral, I got
the news that I was in fact adopted.
So, you know, kind of like a bombshell going going off at
that time. Yeah.
(09:49):
So what part of you, I mean, youkind of said it as like this
throwaway comment. Hey, just just ask your mom,
like was I adopted? Was there some?
I mean, obviously there was somepart of you, but was that
thought coming more to the top of your mind or what made you
(10:10):
ask her that? Well, she was staying at her
house for a couple of days and we got to talking about, you
know, the family history and whatnot.
And then she mentioned she was in fact on Ancestry.
And I said, well, I took Ancestry and we didn't connect.
So you know why is that? You know so?
(10:32):
OK. So well, that's that's pretty
odd. You know what what's going on
here? So either there's a there's a
mistake here or, you know, there's something something
wrong. So, yeah.
So she went home. And, you know, at the same time,
my aunts and uncles, you know, they're calling me because, you
(10:54):
know, they're offering condolences about my mom passing
away. And then I'm using it as an
opportunity. Oh, by the way, let me ask you a
couple of questions about my. It became a whole different
conversation. So then I was scheduling time to
to talk to them, to just try andget some facts around the
(11:15):
situation and just 'cause I knewnothing, literally knew nothing
about anything about the situation.
And while I always may have had some suspicions or just thoughts
or questions, you know, once it once it becomes a reality, it's
for me at least, it was like, you know, a bomb going off.
(11:38):
Absolutely. So your cousin goes home, calls
your wife, says give me a call when you're at home, not at the
grocery store. And.
Drops this bombshell. What is your first thought
first? Of all, I was like, why I was
never told, You know why? Why didn't they tell me?
(12:01):
Why the secret it you know, I felt like I had a right to know.
Obviously now my parents were mylarge, very secretive people.
So this was their decision is not shocking to me that they
didn't tell me, but it was the not telling me and the fact that
OK, well, now both my parents have passed away, so I have no
(12:24):
ability to even ask them a question.
I don't know, you know, how muchthey had to offer per SE, but it
just felt like I have no recourse now to get additional
information for my parents. And so that was probably what I
was thinking about. I was trying to think about how
can I get information elsewhere.It's one of the things I, I
(12:46):
found like very, very early on through all this.
It's like you want to take action.
You want to do something to feellike you're in control of it,
because you feel like you're outof control, like things are
beyond your control. So by taking action, you feel
like you're getting your arms around the situation, which may
or may not be true, but at leastI felt like I had to do
something. Were you able to learn anything
(13:09):
from the aunts and uncles and other family members that you
connected with? Yeah, so I talked to two uncles
and one aunt. My mom has two brothers that are
living and and one sister. Honestly, they didn't have much
much information other than the fact that my my mom and dad were
(13:32):
living with my grandfather at the time and my one uncle was
much younger so he was like 17 or 18 at the time.
When they brought me home from the hospital he said, you know,
they didn't really talk to him. He was like a 17 year old kid at
the time. But the one piece of information
that was useful was 60 years ago.
(13:53):
But he said, I remember them talking about Catholic
Charities. So that was very helpful.
What I did was I looked up Catholic Charities then on the
Internet and fired off an e-mailto the Archdiocese of Newark.
And they came back to me within an hour saying literally within
(14:13):
an hour saying you got to reach out to this person or here's an
e-mail address for someone that maintains, you know, all of our
archives. So send another e-mail out to
the archive place. And with an hour, I get a phone
call from some woman who managesall the archives for North
Jersey. And I, I tell her my story.
(14:36):
And she said, well, if they wentthrough Catholic Charities,
there's a chance that there's a file here.
It's $200.00 or $250 for us to research it, blah, blah, blah.
But she said let me do this. Let me go see if I could find a
file on you. If I find something, I'll let
you know. Then you can fill out the
paperwork, submit it, and we'll go from there.
(15:00):
Same day she calls me back. She's like, I found a file on
you and I read it and I think you should fill out the
application and send in the check.
So this was like March. So I did all that and then about
a month later I get a report back.
So what she did was she took allthe file and she typed up like a
(15:21):
two or three page report on the situation.
And it gives me the details of what happened, at least from
their perspective. And so apparently my biological
mother was a a sophomore in highschool, and I guess she went
(15:41):
with her parents to the church and talked about putting the
child up for adoption. The father's parents also came
in and there seemed to be, obviously, if you could imagine
a little tension there between the two families.
But the bottom line is, I guess it was decided that she would
(16:04):
have the child. She went into a convent
somewhere or a home for these type of situations.
But it sounded like some sort ofconvent, got taken out of
school, put into the convent andthen apparently had the baby.
And then my parents that adoptedme were able to Take Me Home
(16:27):
from the hospital. They took me home from the
hospital, you know, like to whatever it is back then two or
three days later. And then for the next year they
had follow up visits with the Catholic Charities to see how
they're doing and, you know, make sure there's nothing
nefarious going on. And then it looks like after a
(16:49):
year they were able to get titleto me, so.
Sure, hence the birth certificate.
Exactly. So that's when the new birth
certificate was issued a year, like 14 months later.
OK, well this is a lot for you to take in, I imagine, like
reading all of this and reading,you know how you came to be did
(17:10):
did the write up list your mother's name, your birth
mother's name? The woman who wrote the report,
she she rewrote it from the fileso she didn't have to redact any
information. She would only put the first
name down of the birth mother and first name of the father.
(17:30):
But what I was able to do though, I guess in the state of
New Jersey, you're able to applyto the state to see if in fact
an original birth certificate was created.
So I mailed away to capital, which is Trent and where these
records are kept. And there was in fact, I, I was
named and there was a birth certificate by the biological
(17:53):
parents. So I, you know, it was born
under one name. But then when my parents got me,
I guess three days later they name me something else.
And then fourteen months later, that was a second birth
certificate. So the original birth
certificate gave me the mother'sname, first and last name.
(18:14):
So I got the mother's name on the birth certificate and no, no
father's name. OK, so he was not listed once
you saw her name, did you want to find her?
So, you know, back to my earliercomment, like, yeah, I wanted to
do things. I wanted to take some action.
(18:36):
So between myself and then, you know, my kids are all like, I
have three children, 2 girls anda boy.
And the girls were very into like finding things out and
snooping on the Internet and doing all this research and
trying to find the biological mom and dad.
So part of me was was yes. But the longer I went on or went
(19:00):
through this process, the less Iwanted to do, if that makes any
sense. I, which seems to be a little
counter to some of the other people I've heard or listened to
on various podcasts that seem tobe more gung ho about finding
information than I. I feel early on, I feel like I
was being pressured and that might not be the right word, but
(19:23):
I felt like everyone around me wanted to know more.
So I felt like I was being pulled into this.
We got to get more information. We got to find out what's going
on. And while I would like to have
maybe more data, I'm very uncomfortable.
And maybe it's just my personality, but I'm very
uncomfortable continuing to pursue it.
So as time went on, I, I, I kindof pulled back from doing a lot
(19:46):
of that. That's totally fair, right?
Because it's your life and it's your story to kind of try to
navigate and get more information or not.
So you said your daughters were very sleuthy and trying to find
information. Did they identify the biological
(20:08):
mother or did they stop at your request?
Both so there was the only like kind of close connection.
There was a half connection or ahalf sister on ancestry.
So early on I, I sent an e-mail to this person like, hey, looks
(20:29):
like we might be half brother and sister.
Do do you know anything just, you know, kind of left it wide
open for whatever information you want to get back to me.
And what came back was lukewarm at best.
I'm paraphrasing now, but it wasn't like, hey, I've been
(20:49):
looking for you my whole life. We can glad to hear it wasn't
that. It was.
No, I really don't know anything.
It looks like I might be your niece, but if you find anything
out, let me know. I mean it.
It was like short, sweet, very cold, and it felt unwelcoming.
Now, I could be reading it totally wrong, but I took it
(21:10):
that way and I was like, well, you know what?
I'm not going to, I'm not going to pursue it.
But with that information of theconnection, my daughter's used
that to kind of keep their sleuthing going on.
And they found the biological mother, the woman of Catholic
Charities. She was wonderful in dealing
(21:30):
with me. She couldn't have been nicer.
And she would periodically call me up to see how I'm doing
because she knows, you know, this is a lot.
And she really went out of her way just to be nice to me.
And I can't say enough nice things about her, you know?
And so she asked me how things are going.
And I kind of told her this story.
And she said, you know, if you find your biological mother, we
(21:55):
could serve as an intermediary if you like.
We, we would reach out to them if, if you're so inclined, if
you're uncomfortable doing it. And that appealed to me more
than me reaching out because I am by nature a little bit shy
and I, I would have been very uncomfortable calling up and
say, hey, mom, Remember Me. So she offered to write the kind
of a generic letter saying, you know, would you be interested in
(22:19):
connecting type of thing and sent 2 certified letters and
basically no response. OK, Now, could it could it have
not been received? Possibly.
But I will say my, you know, my daughters and my wife feel good
about their sleuthing skills. So they think they had the right
address. So at that point, I kind of told
(22:42):
everyone, listen, I, I don't want you reaching out.
If anyone's going to reach out, it's going to be me.
Stand down. If someone's going to reach out,
I'll do it when I see fit, how Isee fit.
But I don't want you guys, you know, kind of stirring up the
pot right now. And they respected that.
So, so that's kind of the end ofthe story, if you will, as far
as researching people and, and trying to find out anything.
(23:06):
How did you feel when you didn'tget a response?
Were you hoping for a response? Were you sort of OK and
accepting of whatever outcome? Yeah, maybe a little of both.
You know, part of me wanted to know, but part of me like, do I
(23:26):
really want to get in? Do I really want to do this
where I know I've heard other people like they're so excited
and can't wait to meet biological mom and sister and
this and that It were. I was more scared, afraid of the
unknown. You know, I don't have
tremendously close relationshipswith my my sisters.
(23:46):
So how many other bad relationships do you need?
You know, so, so, you know, partof me was like, yeah, if, if I
knew it was going to be wonderful, I would jump into it.
But that hasn't been my experience per SE.
So maybe a little disappointment, but a little
relief at the same time did. You know anyone who was adopted
(24:10):
or you know friends, family, or was this all new to you?
Because like you said, you uncovered you could do a request
for your original birth certificate in the state of New
Jersey and you found Catholic Charities and you're doing all
of this research. Did you have anything to go off
of when you were starting this? NO0II.
(24:31):
And I may be missing a lot that I don't know about, but no, I
don't. I didn't know anyone who was
adopted who went through this who could provide any, any
guidance. It seemed to happen fairly
easily, finding some of this stuff.
But yeah, I really didn't know what I was doing.
I'm looking into this and I had no help, you know?
(24:52):
So your sisters, you mentioned that you have sisters.
To your knowledge, are they the biological children of your
parents? Yeah, so it this is a like a
little weird 1 So my parents were married in 1958 and then
they adopted me in 64 late 64. So, you know, 6 plus years later
(25:17):
and then I have two sisters 17 years younger and the other is 8
years younger than me. So big gap between us.
The youngest 1 is a bit estranged, but the, the older of
the two, we communicate a littlebit.
So I, I told her the story and you know, her first rejection is
(25:39):
like, Oh my God, I thought I wasthe one who was adopted, you
know, because she, she's got blonde hair that, you know,
everyone else had dark hair. She had blonde hair.
But I, I actually remember my mom being pregnant with them.
So, so I, I, you know, they're biological children.
(26:00):
Growing up, did you ever feel like you didn't quite fit in?
You know, we hear that a lot, right?
But for some people, they reallydidn't know.
Yeah, 1000%. That's something my wife and I
talked about even for years and years, how I felt like I did not
belong. And maybe part of it's my
(26:20):
personality. Very, very different than my
parents. Especially my dad was very
gregarious. He walked in the room.
He was the loud one, the funny one, but a totally different
sense of humor than myself. I couldn't be more different.
My father like basically built an addition on our house and I
can't even screw in a light bulb.
(26:41):
I mean it's just night and date different.
He must have been so disappointed.
In fact, I couldn't help him with it, couldn't even deliver
the right tool when he asked me for it.
I mean no exaggeration. I just had no inclination.
To this day, I, so along the way, I, I, my wife and I would
always say how different I was and I would always say I don't
(27:02):
feel like I even belong there. And I know I've listened to
quite a few of the podcast and people say that.
And it was really reassuring in many ways to hear other people
say that because I carried a lotof guilt for that through the
years of, Oh, I just don't feel like I belong here.
What, what's wrong with me? You know, and I, I felt really
(27:25):
guilty about that. And I think had I known I was
adopted, that would have been such a help many years ago to
know, hey, it's OK, you're different.
There's a reason why you might feel or you think you're
different than us and behave differently and whatnot, because
there's a reason for it. But I didn't know that.
(27:46):
And then I, I carried this guiltfor years and years and years.
So it's not like I'm playing theresults now saying, see, I, I
feel like I didn't belong. I mean, I said that for years
and years. Did you have any anger towards
your parents for keeping this from you or empathy?
(28:08):
Yeah, so, and this is something my wife and I talk about a lot.
She's angry, but my wife is angry about it.
And we've been together since I'm 17.
So we've we grew up together essentially, right.
She's angry from, I think being protective of me standpoint, you
know, so and I get that, but I'mnot angry.
(28:29):
And I don't know if that's the right emotion or wrong emotion,
but I, I know, I know my parentsloved me.
It wasn't that they didn't love me.
So I think they came at it from,in their opinion, they, they,
they felt that was the best choice not to tell me.
They didn't want me to feel different.
They wanted me to feel like I was, you know, just theirs,
(28:52):
period. And I, I'm speaking to my uncle
who was living with them when hewas 17.
You know, they all disagreed with my parents not telling me.
But there's one thing he can sayabout my father's You couldn't
change his mind. If he felt like that was the
right decision. No one was going to change his
opinion and he just in his opinion was he did not want me
(29:16):
to feel like I was different or not loved.
So so because of that I'm not I don't agree with their decision,
but I don't I don't have any anger over it.
So. Yeah.
And I, you know what? I get enough poems.
I don't need anger, you know, so.
Yeah. And I mean, hey there.
There is no right or wrong emotion.
(29:37):
I do think it's really interesting that even back then
the consensus from the family was you should disclose because
we hear sometimes for adoption and especially donor conception
that the advice was if you don'thave to tell them, don't you
know, just let them think. So it's interesting that the
(30:00):
family was encouraging them to to disclose to you.
Yeah. And one of the other frustrating
things about all this is, you know, as I've talked to
different cousins, it's like, yeah, everyone knew but me, You
know, like, even though it was supposed to be this big secret,
right, people tell their own children.
(30:22):
They don't have to keep lies up for other people.
So in speaking to my cousins, they're like, we thought you
knew or. Yeah, yeah, we all knew.
And everyone knew but you apparently.
So that's that's it. That's annoying to me for sure.
That's one of the things I was probably most annoyed about from
(30:42):
the standpoint of, as I mentioned earlier, I think I'm
accused and I think it's true that I'm shy and I don't want to
be the maybe center of attention.
And now I feel like I'm the story, like, and maybe most
people don't care. I get it.
But it feels like I'm the story and I don't want to be the
story. Like, oh, here's the adopted guy
who just found out what an idiot, you know?
(31:02):
And you know, you just feel stupid.
You really feel stupid. I've heard that a lot.
You're definitely not alone in that feeling.
I've also talked to people who they don't really tell other
people about their story becausethey don't want to be the
subject of gossip essentially, right, Like, oh, did you hear
(31:24):
about this or that? You know, even among sometimes
they're friends, they they don'ttalk about it a lot because they
don't want to be the center of attention or, or have the focus
of this on them. Yeah, that's a good point.
I, I mean, I'm not listen, I'm not going to perpetuate their
lie of not of keeping it a secret per SE.
I don't tend to be the center ofattention telling stories about
(31:47):
myself. So, you know, close friends I've
told, but, you know, it's not something that we've a flag
saying I'm an adoptee or something, but I'm not hiding
it. I don't feel like it's an
embarrassment or I'm ashamed of it.
So, so yeah, I, I'm, I'm comfortable with it from a
standpoint of talking about it, but it, it's not something that
(32:09):
it kind of raise up proactively,you know?
I'm curious how discovering thatyou were adopted has played into
or affected your identity. And the reason why I'm asking is
because I noticed that when you were telling your story and
relaying what you learned, you refer to your biological mother
(32:31):
as the birth mother and you refer to yourself as the baby.
So have you internalized the story?
Like do you think of yourself asbeing part of it or is it kind
of, I don't want to say detached, but is it something
maybe that you haven't integrated into who you are?
(32:51):
It's a good question. I'm not sure I have a good
answer. I feel like I've integrated and
accepted it at this point. Sometimes it gets confusing
telling the story on like Like how do I identify each each
person? Sure.
No, that's fair. Yeah.
But I feel like as much as I've can come to terms with it, I
feel like I, I got it at this point.
(33:13):
It is what it is. It's, it's not going away.
It's just part of my story now. Although, you know, a lot of
people don't even ask me about it.
Like people that I've told they,it's like for them, it's no big
deal. You know what I mean?
Like no one, no one's ever askedme like a follow up like Hey,
(33:36):
how you doing outside of my wife?
Like so for them it's just no big deal.
Like it's it's hey, you told us you're adopted.
We still love you move on type of thing where meanwhile, my
whole world's blown apart and atleast the first year and a half
were quite a struggle. So it's it, it's funny where
(33:57):
people came to would, would say when I told them the story, they
were like, oh, but you're still family.
We love you. And that's like kind of the end
of it in their mind. Meanwhile, internally, you're
you're you're a basket case. You know, sure, Yeah.
Without connecting with your biological mother, have you been
(34:18):
able to learn anything, maybe just from like a family history
or medical perspective that can maybe inform some of who you are
with this new information? No, really, really nothing.
I mean, the only thing I know isnow I'm Irish.
I mean, when I grew up, we were raised Italian and like, in our
(34:39):
neck of the woods, the Italians don't like the Irish.
So like, I couldn't even wear green on Saint Patrick's Day and
now suddenly I'm Irish, you know?
How do you come to terms with that?
Like, do you still identify strongly with your Italian, I
mean adopted, but you know, yourItalian heritage that you were
raised in, Is that still a big part of who you are?
(35:01):
Well, we eat Italian a lot, but other than that, like, yeah, no,
I guess not really. I mean, it, it's kind of funny.
We we, we, we joke a ton about it.
Suddenly I'm Irish, you know, mywife's family's, they're like
Irish Americans and they, you know, all wave the flag.
And now suddenly I'm on the team.
But before that I was on the wrong team.
(35:22):
But now, now that I can play nice with them.
So yeah, it's it's comical to mein that, that regard.
But I don't have any inkling to,you know, anything about my
family or medical history or anything like that.
And that, that, you know, that'sa little frustrating, obviously,
(35:42):
but I, I, you know, it, it is what it is at this point.
Yeah, you took 23andMe, so perhaps you got some medical
insights from taking that. Otherwise, how have you kind of
landed to a place of acceptance with the gaps in your
understanding of your background?
(36:06):
Well, I mean, I'm just like I said, the first year or two were
tough, right? It's just like 2 years now on
top of like grieving for a parent who dies after having
three years of dementia. And you know, that's not a fun
road to travel. That was a very difficult
period. And then, you know, the passing
(36:28):
of my mom and then, you know, I was the executive of the state.
So he had all that stuff going on and then at the same time the
adoption stuff going on. So it was just busy craziness
for like, you know, six months there.
Once the dust settles and then you start thinking about it, you
know, I, I guess time is the only thing that that heals it,
(36:49):
right. It gets a little bit easier
every day. And and, you know, I think, you
know, maybe after a year or so, I I came to grips with, you
know, this is what I know if I learn more or meet anybody along
the way, OK, but I'm more than OK not meeting anybody.
I got enough people that love mearound me.
(37:10):
My wife is been like the most amazing resource through all
this. You know, she couldn't have been
a better support system through all this.
I'm comfortable with it. The one thing I'm evolving my
position on is I think if my children want to reach out, I'm
(37:32):
I'm now of the opinion, listen, they they have a skin in the
game here. Even though it's my life, It's
unfair. I think for of me to say,
listen, don't, don't do anything.
If they want to find out and learn more, have at it.
But just don't expect me to jumpin and start meeting people like
that's not what I'm going to do.But I do think it might be
(37:54):
unfair of me to say, listen, don't reach out if if in fact
they want to. I I like that you acknowledge
that your position is evolving on it, and also that you are
thinking about your kids and howmaybe this would affect them as
well because it's their genetic history as much as it's yours.
(38:15):
I think it's important, but to recognize what you said, which
is that you work in the midst ofgrief.
And, you know, with dementia, it's a long grieving process
too. So it's a lot that was thrown at
you to then learn that information in a situation that
would have been a lot for anyoneto manage without finding out
(38:37):
that they were adopted in the midst of all of that.
Yeah, the timing could not have been worse, you know?
Yeah. It just wasn't the best time to
learn that because you were already upset.
I was just, there was so much going on.
Your, your nerves are frayed. And then you get this phone
call. Are you sitting down?
And it's like, Oh no, you know, it's like it, it was just not
(39:00):
good. Have you connected with anyone
in the adoptee community and hasthat been helpful to you at all?
The best thing that ever in in this whole process.
I was on a work trip one day up in upstate New York and I
happened to overhear a a Co worker telling someone about
(39:20):
being adopted. And I had known this person for
15 years, never knew she was adopted.
And I literally, literally overheard it, heard like telling
someone else. So when she was finished, I
walked over to her and said, hey, you have a minute, can I
pick your brain about something?And she's like, yeah, sure.
So a little while later, we wentinto a conference room and I
(39:41):
said, listen, I just, I apologize, but I overheard you
Speaking of so and so saying youwere adopted.
And I went on to give her my tale of glow.
And we talked for about an hour and a half.
And it was the most cathartic thing for me in this whole
process, being able to talk to somebody who went through
(40:01):
something similar. And what was it really
interesting was she had the sameopinion of me of really not
wanting to really meet the biological parents.
And she, too, felt like she was being pressured to do that.
So I don't know if it was MiseryLoves Company or two minds
thinking alike, but it was very nice to hear someone else have
(40:23):
the same process as you. And just talking to her for that
hour and a half was was really, really helpful to me.
That was one of the reasons whenI saw your group that you have
on those Thursday nights was probably the main reason I
joined that because I found thatthe conversation listening to
someone else's story so helpful.And likewise, when I I listen to
(40:48):
your podcast and listen to the folks on the call echo so many
things that I feel and say that you think you're on an island.
You think you're guilty for feeling or having certain
feelings and certain thoughts that it was very helpful to hear
other people share their story and makes you feel like you're
not in this alone and you're not.
(41:10):
You don't feel bad for having certain thoughts.
So you, you asked me earlier about, you know, feeling like
you don't belong. You know, I hear that so often
now, but you know, I went, I went 59 years of feeling like an
idiot for having that thought. And here's how all these people
out there that have the same feeling that I do.
And it it just, it, it's very helpful.
(41:31):
I'll just leave it at that. Good.
I know you kind of for now sort of have like a period on the end
of the sentence with this, although you are open to what
your children may want to do in the future.
What's next for you in this experience?
Where would you say that you arenow?
(41:52):
I think I've come to grips with it certainly still have
emotional days and it's not likeI'm even thinking about the
adoption, but I think since the my mom passed away in this have
become more emotional. So I'm hopeful over time I'll be
less emotional, but I can cry atthe drop of a hat these days.
(42:15):
In speaking to people going to some therapy, they they see that
as a good thing where I struggleto see that as a good thing
sometimes. But, you know, I think just the
more time or water that goes under the bridge, the, the, the
more I'll feel better about the whole thing.
I mean, I've accepted it, but it's still, it's still a lot and
(42:37):
it never goes away. I've become better at
compartmentalizing it. It's always going to be there
and I and that's OK. If, in fact, my children do
reach out and make any connections, that's going to be
difficult. If I don't get involved, it will
bring a certain amount of stressthat I'm probably not looking
(42:59):
forward to. What advice do you have for a
parent? Maybe if you could go back in
time and talk to your parents who are keeping adna surprise
from their child. Yeah, so my wife and I have
spoken about this and, and we we've debated what would be the
right time. So originally I was like, well,
(43:21):
I know 59 is not the right answer telling them.
So I was saying, well, they should have told me when they're
18 and or 21 or whatever. But my wife's opinion, and I now
fully agree with her, I think isit it should never be a
surprise. So from day one, be open and
(43:41):
honest about how you came into our life, right?
Babies can come into families indifferent ways and you came in
through adoption. And this way, it's never a
surprise. You know, you you may have to
tell them more or add to the story along the way more facts.
But if if you start on day one or you know when they're, you
(44:02):
know, two years old or whatever and explain, Hey, you were
adopted, like and just make it as part of the family story from
day one, then it's never a surprise and it's just, it is
what it is. There's because it when I think
back about it, even if my parents told me at 18 or 21, I
(44:23):
still would have been crushed. You know, I still would have
been like, why didn't you told me at 16 or 15?
You're like, it's going to be a bomb whenever it goes off if
you're doing it like a surprise.So I would just, and I have to
give my wife credit, it's not myidea, but I would do it from
from the start. Yeah, I like your wife's
perspective on that. Just because it becomes part of
(44:46):
your identity, like you said, just from the beginning.
And it doesn't shift your identity at some formative age
or later after you've had a family and been married.
And yeah, just is a part of you.It's always a part of you.
Yeah, and, and, and part of me is like acts of omission are
lies, you know, just tell me thetruth.
(45:08):
Just be honest, open. And, you know, you don't have to
lie if you're not telling me something that's a lie.
Just be be transparent, you know?
Yeah. And what advice would you offer
to someone who just uncovered ADNA?
Surprise, like finding out that they were adopted.
(45:30):
I think just be true to your emotions.
Everyone around you is gonna have a different opinion or
maybe an opinion that's different than yours.
But I would say, you know, you have to do what's right for you
at your own speed and it, you know, your own time and just,
(45:52):
you know, it's not gonna be easygetting help or, or finding a
sympathetic voice or someone to help you, at least for me, was
very helpful. So having my wife was very
helpful. You know, I probably couldn't
have gotten through this withouther.
But also finding outside resources and people that have
been through this, you know, it's amazing once this happened
(46:16):
to me to realize how many other people have stories like this.
I just never realized there's somuch of this out there.
And because of that, there's support for you.
And I think, you know, sometimespeople might be ashamed to reach
out. But at least in in my case, even
if you just sit back and listen to other people's stories to
(46:38):
know that you're not in this alone and there's other people
like you out there. Like I said earlier, maybe it's
misery Loves company, but I found that very helpful.
Time will make it hopefully a little bit better, but you have
to just do it what you feel is right.
There are resources and there's groups out there and they are
(46:58):
very helpful, so don't be afraidto ask for help.
John, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today
and sharing your unique story. I really appreciate you sharing
your perspective and how findingout that you were adopted
affected you. Like we talked about it, it
affects everybody differently, and it was nice to hear your
(47:20):
perspective as well. And I just wish you the best as
you move forward and continue tonavigate this.
And thank you. And I really want to say thanks
for what you're doing with your your podcast and the support
groups. It's been immensely helpful for
me. So for that I want to thank you.
Thanks again to John for sharinghis story.
(47:40):
If you have adna surprise that you'd like to share, please
submit your story at dnasurprises.com.
And if you'd like to join us at one of the third Thursday
meetups that John referenced in this episode, you can find more
information at dnasurprises.com/events.
Finally, be sure to join me for early access to AD free episodes
(48:01):
over on patreon@patreon.com/DNA.Surprises.
Until next time. This episode of DNA Surprises
was hosted, produced and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.
Along the way, I, I, my wife andI would always say how different
I was and I would always say, I don't feel like I even belong
there. And I know I've listened to
quite a few of the podcast and people say that.
And it was really reassuring in many ways to hear other people
say that because I, I carried a lot of guilt for that through
(00:20):
the years of, oh, I just don't feel like I belong here.
What, what's wrong with me? You know, and I, I felt really
guilty about that. And I think had I known I was
adopted, that would have been such a help many years ago to
know, hey, it's OK, you're different.
There's a reason why you might feel or you think you're
(00:42):
different than us and behave differently and whatnot, because
there's a reason for it. But I didn't know that.
And then I, I carried this guiltfor years and years and years.
So it's not like I'm playing theresults now saying, see, I, I, I
feel like I didn't belong. I mean, I said that for years
and years. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a
(01:03):
podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis ourselves.
In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out
that I'm an NPE, a person who has experienced a non paternal
event. In other words, my biological
(01:24):
father isn't who I thought he was.
Join me as we explore the stories of NP, ES, adoptees and
donor conceived people and theirfamilies.
Get ready to unravel the astonishing journeys that begin
with a simple DNA test. This is DNA surprises.
(01:46):
How often do we hear on this show that people never felt like
they fit in with their families growing up?
This week's guest, John, revealsthat he felt the same way and
even held on to some guilt around his feelings.
Fast forward to a little over two years ago when his daughter
took ADNA test and unearthed a surprise for the entire family.
(02:10):
John wasn't biologically relatedto any of the family he grew up
with because he was adopted as anewborn.
John shares how this discovery has affected him and the steps
he took to uncover more information about his origin
story. While he hasn't connected with
his biological parents and doesn't particularly feel the
need to, he also discusses why he's open to changing his
(02:33):
position, especially for his children.
Thank you for sharing your story, John.
John, I'm 60 years old and I'm from New Jersey.
It started innocently enough with my daughter taking ADNA
test. She did one of the over the
(02:54):
counter DNA test. And the reason she did it was
more of a kind of a joke, if youwill.
So my dad used to tease my kid, my children.
I have three children and my dadused to tease them saying yeah,
I'm from here, I'm from there. Because he didn't know where he
was from. He didn't know his ethnicity, so
(03:17):
every time he would talk to them, it would change because he
was just being silly. So as when my youngest got
older, she's like, well, I'm going to find out what the heck
we really are. So she went and and took a test
and it came back. Basically, she's 100% Irish,
which we had a lot of laughs about.
(03:38):
It was a lot of fun. And it was like, you know, we
knew my wife was Irish but neverthought we were Irish on my side
of the family. What did you think you were
before? My mom was half Italian, half
Polish and some other things, but she was basically raised
Italian. And then my father would
(04:01):
primarily say he was German, sometimes French and Austrian.
What you know that that neck of the woods?
But then my daughter came back like 90 something percent Irish
and it was like, what the heck is that?
So you all had a good, good laugh about it and and she's
like, dad, you got to go take this test.
Just find out what the heck you are.
(04:23):
So I'm like, sure, what harm could that do?
So who knew? This last word and so your
daughter, she told you, OK, go take this test, figure out
what's going on with you becauseobviously her mother, your
daughter's mother is obviously largely Irish as well.
(04:47):
When you saw her results did anything like Ping for you?
Were you like that doesn't line up with what my mom said she
was. Yeah.
And I, I, I think I have a good history now that maybe ignoring
red flags along the way, didn't really think too much about it,
to be honest with you. I'm like, my parents were not
(05:10):
very forthcoming with any information.
They're kind of secretive. So it was certainly surprising,
but kind of learning new information, par for the course.
And we really didn't pay any attention to like DNA
connections at this time. It was really more about the
ethnicity. It was right around or right
(05:32):
before the pandemic started. My, my daughter got the results.
So I'm like, all right, I'll go get a test and take it.
And so I, I took the test and then the results came back right
around the, the start of the pandemic.
And the reason I'm calling that out is right around that time,
(05:53):
my mother kind of had a breakdown and she went from very
early dementia to like full blown dementia where, you know,
it's kind of like as almost as bad as it gets type of thing.
So couldn't really even have a conversation with her during the
early part of the pandemic. We had to get her into assisted
living. She couldn't live by herself.
(06:13):
She needed full time help. So it was really bad.
But I call that out just from the standpoint of couldn't even
ask her any questions about any of the results.
So then I get my results back and you know, I still have some
of the Italian in there, but I'mlike half Irish, right?
(06:34):
Which kind of aligns up with my daughter's results.
Obviously, again, didn't do a whole lot with it.
Couldn't ask my mother any questions at this point.
So it just kind of kind of sat there for a while.
We had a lot of questions, but really couldn't ask anybody.
(06:56):
My mom has three siblings, couple of them are in their
80's, the ones in their late 70s.
So communication starting to getdifficult with that generation.
So we just kind of sat on it. Another red flag that I ignored
was the fact that I really didn't connect with anybody I
knew. Didn't have any any real close
(07:17):
connections save for one. And we'll get to that later.
But no, like, no names that I knew, but not anybody even close
in the family tree. So they were so far distant
that, all right, these names might make sense.
They're like second, third, fourth, you know, Cousins twice.
Removed So you're just thinking maybe nobody close to you took
(07:39):
the test so there was nothing surprising you didn't have a
sibling or a first cousin or anyone show up that you didn't
know. Exactly, exactly.
So there were other irregularities, if you will.
My birth certificate looks very different than my wife's.
We were born geographically close to each other, same
(08:01):
county, but our birth certificates look very
different. My wife's was issued, you know,
a month or two after she was born.
Mine was issued 14 months after I was born.
And they look different, but they both have our legal names
(08:22):
on it with our parents names on it.
So, you know, we always questionthat, but not too deeply.
You know, it's just one of thoseoddities.
Again, maybe another red flag that I, you know, conveniently
ignored. Fast forward to 2023.
My mom's been in a sister livingfor three years and she passes
(08:45):
away. A cousin of mine came up for the
funeral, stayed at our house. The day she was leaving was the
day after the funeral. I said, you know, just for
giggles when you get home, it just, her mom couldn't travel to
the funeral 'cause she's just, you know, too old at this point.
I said, when you get home to, they live in North Carolina.
(09:07):
I said, when you get home, ask your mom, you know, just for
giggles. It was I adopted, ha ha ha, you
know, type of thing. So she gets home two days later
and she calls my wife up. And my wife was at the store,
and she's like, give me a call when you get home, you know?
So my wife comes home, she callsup my cousin.
(09:27):
And it's like, yeah, I did talk to my mom.
And it turns out John is adopted.
So literally, you know, two daysafter my mother's funeral, I got
the news that I was in fact adopted.
So, you know, kind of like a bombshell going going off at
that time. Yeah.
(09:49):
So what part of you, I mean, youkind of said it as like this
throwaway comment. Hey, just just ask your mom,
like was I adopted? Was there some?
I mean, obviously there was somepart of you, but was that
thought coming more to the top of your mind or what made you
(10:10):
ask her that? Well, she was staying at her
house for a couple of days and we got to talking about, you
know, the family history and whatnot.
And then she mentioned she was in fact on Ancestry.
And I said, well, I took Ancestry and we didn't connect.
So you know why is that? You know so?
(10:32):
OK. So well, that's that's pretty
odd. You know what what's going on
here? So either there's a there's a
mistake here or, you know, there's something something
wrong. So, yeah.
So she went home. And, you know, at the same time,
my aunts and uncles, you know, they're calling me because, you
(10:54):
know, they're offering condolences about my mom passing
away. And then I'm using it as an
opportunity. Oh, by the way, let me ask you a
couple of questions about my. It became a whole different
conversation. So then I was scheduling time to
to talk to them, to just try andget some facts around the
(11:15):
situation and just 'cause I knewnothing, literally knew nothing
about anything about the situation.
And while I always may have had some suspicions or just thoughts
or questions, you know, once it once it becomes a reality, it's
for me at least, it was like, you know, a bomb going off.
(11:38):
Absolutely. So your cousin goes home, calls
your wife, says give me a call when you're at home, not at the
grocery store. And.
Drops this bombshell. What is your first thought
first? Of all, I was like, why I was
never told, You know why? Why didn't they tell me?
(12:01):
Why the secret it you know, I felt like I had a right to know.
Obviously now my parents were mylarge, very secretive people.
So this was their decision is not shocking to me that they
didn't tell me, but it was the not telling me and the fact that
OK, well, now both my parents have passed away, so I have no
(12:24):
ability to even ask them a question.
I don't know, you know, how muchthey had to offer per SE, but it
just felt like I have no recourse now to get additional
information for my parents. And so that was probably what I
was thinking about. I was trying to think about how
can I get information elsewhere.It's one of the things I, I
(12:46):
found like very, very early on through all this.
It's like you want to take action.
You want to do something to feellike you're in control of it,
because you feel like you're outof control, like things are
beyond your control. So by taking action, you feel
like you're getting your arms around the situation, which may
or may not be true, but at leastI felt like I had to do
something. Were you able to learn anything
(13:09):
from the aunts and uncles and other family members that you
connected with? Yeah, so I talked to two uncles
and one aunt. My mom has two brothers that are
living and and one sister. Honestly, they didn't have much
much information other than the fact that my my mom and dad were
(13:32):
living with my grandfather at the time and my one uncle was
much younger so he was like 17 or 18 at the time.
When they brought me home from the hospital he said, you know,
they didn't really talk to him. He was like a 17 year old kid at
the time. But the one piece of information
that was useful was 60 years ago.
(13:53):
But he said, I remember them talking about Catholic
Charities. So that was very helpful.
What I did was I looked up Catholic Charities then on the
Internet and fired off an e-mailto the Archdiocese of Newark.
And they came back to me within an hour saying literally within
(14:13):
an hour saying you got to reach out to this person or here's an
e-mail address for someone that maintains, you know, all of our
archives. So send another e-mail out to
the archive place. And with an hour, I get a phone
call from some woman who managesall the archives for North
Jersey. And I, I tell her my story.
(14:36):
And she said, well, if they wentthrough Catholic Charities,
there's a chance that there's a file here.
It's $200.00 or $250 for us to research it, blah, blah, blah.
But she said let me do this. Let me go see if I could find a
file on you. If I find something, I'll let
you know. Then you can fill out the
paperwork, submit it, and we'll go from there.
(15:00):
Same day she calls me back. She's like, I found a file on
you and I read it and I think you should fill out the
application and send in the check.
So this was like March. So I did all that and then about
a month later I get a report back.
So what she did was she took allthe file and she typed up like a
(15:21):
two or three page report on the situation.
And it gives me the details of what happened, at least from
their perspective. And so apparently my biological
mother was a a sophomore in highschool, and I guess she went
(15:41):
with her parents to the church and talked about putting the
child up for adoption. The father's parents also came
in and there seemed to be, obviously, if you could imagine
a little tension there between the two families.
But the bottom line is, I guess it was decided that she would
(16:04):
have the child. She went into a convent
somewhere or a home for these type of situations.
But it sounded like some sort ofconvent, got taken out of
school, put into the convent andthen apparently had the baby.
And then my parents that adoptedme were able to Take Me Home
(16:27):
from the hospital. They took me home from the
hospital, you know, like to whatever it is back then two or
three days later. And then for the next year they
had follow up visits with the Catholic Charities to see how
they're doing and, you know, make sure there's nothing
nefarious going on. And then it looks like after a
(16:49):
year they were able to get titleto me, so.
Sure, hence the birth certificate.
Exactly. So that's when the new birth
certificate was issued a year, like 14 months later.
OK, well this is a lot for you to take in, I imagine, like
reading all of this and reading,you know how you came to be did
(17:10):
did the write up list your mother's name, your birth
mother's name? The woman who wrote the report,
she she rewrote it from the fileso she didn't have to redact any
information. She would only put the first
name down of the birth mother and first name of the father.
(17:30):
But what I was able to do though, I guess in the state of
New Jersey, you're able to applyto the state to see if in fact
an original birth certificate was created.
So I mailed away to capital, which is Trent and where these
records are kept. And there was in fact, I, I was
named and there was a birth certificate by the biological
(17:53):
parents. So I, you know, it was born
under one name. But then when my parents got me,
I guess three days later they name me something else.
And then fourteen months later, that was a second birth
certificate. So the original birth
certificate gave me the mother'sname, first and last name.
(18:14):
So I got the mother's name on the birth certificate and no, no
father's name. OK, so he was not listed once
you saw her name, did you want to find her?
So, you know, back to my earliercomment, like, yeah, I wanted to
do things. I wanted to take some action.
(18:36):
So between myself and then, you know, my kids are all like, I
have three children, 2 girls anda boy.
And the girls were very into like finding things out and
snooping on the Internet and doing all this research and
trying to find the biological mom and dad.
So part of me was was yes. But the longer I went on or went
(19:00):
through this process, the less Iwanted to do, if that makes any
sense. I, which seems to be a little
counter to some of the other people I've heard or listened to
on various podcasts that seem tobe more gung ho about finding
information than I. I feel early on, I feel like I
was being pressured and that might not be the right word, but
(19:23):
I felt like everyone around me wanted to know more.
So I felt like I was being pulled into this.
We got to get more information. We got to find out what's going
on. And while I would like to have
maybe more data, I'm very uncomfortable.
And maybe it's just my personality, but I'm very
uncomfortable continuing to pursue it.
So as time went on, I, I, I kindof pulled back from doing a lot
(19:46):
of that. That's totally fair, right?
Because it's your life and it's your story to kind of try to
navigate and get more information or not.
So you said your daughters were very sleuthy and trying to find
information. Did they identify the biological
(20:08):
mother or did they stop at your request?
Both so there was the only like kind of close connection.
There was a half connection or ahalf sister on ancestry.
So early on I, I sent an e-mail to this person like, hey, looks
(20:29):
like we might be half brother and sister.
Do do you know anything just, you know, kind of left it wide
open for whatever information you want to get back to me.
And what came back was lukewarm at best.
I'm paraphrasing now, but it wasn't like, hey, I've been
(20:49):
looking for you my whole life. We can glad to hear it wasn't
that. It was.
No, I really don't know anything.
It looks like I might be your niece, but if you find anything
out, let me know. I mean it.
It was like short, sweet, very cold, and it felt unwelcoming.
Now, I could be reading it totally wrong, but I took it
(21:10):
that way and I was like, well, you know what?
I'm not going to, I'm not going to pursue it.
But with that information of theconnection, my daughter's used
that to kind of keep their sleuthing going on.
And they found the biological mother, the woman of Catholic
Charities. She was wonderful in dealing
(21:30):
with me. She couldn't have been nicer.
And she would periodically call me up to see how I'm doing
because she knows, you know, this is a lot.
And she really went out of her way just to be nice to me.
And I can't say enough nice things about her, you know?
And so she asked me how things are going.
And I kind of told her this story.
And she said, you know, if you find your biological mother, we
(21:55):
could serve as an intermediary if you like.
We, we would reach out to them if, if you're so inclined, if
you're uncomfortable doing it. And that appealed to me more
than me reaching out because I am by nature a little bit shy
and I, I would have been very uncomfortable calling up and
say, hey, mom, Remember Me. So she offered to write the kind
of a generic letter saying, you know, would you be interested in
(22:19):
connecting type of thing and sent 2 certified letters and
basically no response. OK, Now, could it could it have
not been received? Possibly.
But I will say my, you know, my daughters and my wife feel good
about their sleuthing skills. So they think they had the right
address. So at that point, I kind of told
(22:42):
everyone, listen, I, I don't want you reaching out.
If anyone's going to reach out, it's going to be me.
Stand down. If someone's going to reach out,
I'll do it when I see fit, how Isee fit.
But I don't want you guys, you know, kind of stirring up the
pot right now. And they respected that.
So, so that's kind of the end ofthe story, if you will, as far
as researching people and, and trying to find out anything.
(23:06):
How did you feel when you didn'tget a response?
Were you hoping for a response? Were you sort of OK and
accepting of whatever outcome? Yeah, maybe a little of both.
You know, part of me wanted to know, but part of me like, do I
(23:26):
really want to get in? Do I really want to do this
where I know I've heard other people like they're so excited
and can't wait to meet biological mom and sister and
this and that It were. I was more scared, afraid of the
unknown. You know, I don't have
tremendously close relationshipswith my my sisters.
(23:46):
So how many other bad relationships do you need?
You know, so, so, you know, partof me was like, yeah, if, if I
knew it was going to be wonderful, I would jump into it.
But that hasn't been my experience per SE.
So maybe a little disappointment, but a little
relief at the same time did. You know anyone who was adopted
(24:10):
or you know friends, family, or was this all new to you?
Because like you said, you uncovered you could do a request
for your original birth certificate in the state of New
Jersey and you found Catholic Charities and you're doing all
of this research. Did you have anything to go off
of when you were starting this? NO0II.
(24:31):
And I may be missing a lot that I don't know about, but no, I
don't. I didn't know anyone who was
adopted who went through this who could provide any, any
guidance. It seemed to happen fairly
easily, finding some of this stuff.
But yeah, I really didn't know what I was doing.
I'm looking into this and I had no help, you know?
(24:52):
So your sisters, you mentioned that you have sisters.
To your knowledge, are they the biological children of your
parents? Yeah, so it this is a like a
little weird 1 So my parents were married in 1958 and then
they adopted me in 64 late 64. So, you know, 6 plus years later
(25:17):
and then I have two sisters 17 years younger and the other is 8
years younger than me. So big gap between us.
The youngest 1 is a bit estranged, but the, the older of
the two, we communicate a littlebit.
So I, I told her the story and you know, her first rejection is
(25:39):
like, Oh my God, I thought I wasthe one who was adopted, you
know, because she, she's got blonde hair that, you know,
everyone else had dark hair. She had blonde hair.
But I, I actually remember my mom being pregnant with them.
So, so I, I, you know, they're biological children.
(26:00):
Growing up, did you ever feel like you didn't quite fit in?
You know, we hear that a lot, right?
But for some people, they reallydidn't know.
Yeah, 1000%. That's something my wife and I
talked about even for years and years, how I felt like I did not
belong. And maybe part of it's my
(26:20):
personality. Very, very different than my
parents. Especially my dad was very
gregarious. He walked in the room.
He was the loud one, the funny one, but a totally different
sense of humor than myself. I couldn't be more different.
My father like basically built an addition on our house and I
can't even screw in a light bulb.
(26:41):
I mean it's just night and date different.
He must have been so disappointed.
In fact, I couldn't help him with it, couldn't even deliver
the right tool when he asked me for it.
I mean no exaggeration. I just had no inclination.
To this day, I, so along the way, I, I, my wife and I would
always say how different I was and I would always say I don't
(27:02):
feel like I even belong there. And I know I've listened to
quite a few of the podcast and people say that.
And it was really reassuring in many ways to hear other people
say that because I carried a lotof guilt for that through the
years of, Oh, I just don't feel like I belong here.
What, what's wrong with me? You know, and I, I felt really
(27:25):
guilty about that. And I think had I known I was
adopted, that would have been such a help many years ago to
know, hey, it's OK, you're different.
There's a reason why you might feel or you think you're
different than us and behave differently and whatnot, because
there's a reason for it. But I didn't know that.
(27:46):
And then I, I carried this guiltfor years and years and years.
So it's not like I'm playing theresults now saying, see, I, I
feel like I didn't belong. I mean, I said that for years
and years. Did you have any anger towards
your parents for keeping this from you or empathy?
(28:08):
Yeah, so, and this is something my wife and I talk about a lot.
She's angry, but my wife is angry about it.
And we've been together since I'm 17.
So we've we grew up together essentially, right.
She's angry from, I think being protective of me standpoint, you
know, so and I get that, but I'mnot angry.
(28:29):
And I don't know if that's the right emotion or wrong emotion,
but I, I know, I know my parentsloved me.
It wasn't that they didn't love me.
So I think they came at it from,in their opinion, they, they,
they felt that was the best choice not to tell me.
They didn't want me to feel different.
They wanted me to feel like I was, you know, just theirs,
(28:52):
period. And I, I'm speaking to my uncle
who was living with them when hewas 17.
You know, they all disagreed with my parents not telling me.
But there's one thing he can sayabout my father's You couldn't
change his mind. If he felt like that was the
right decision. No one was going to change his
opinion and he just in his opinion was he did not want me
(29:16):
to feel like I was different or not loved.
So so because of that I'm not I don't agree with their decision,
but I don't I don't have any anger over it.
So. Yeah.
And I, you know what? I get enough poems.
I don't need anger, you know, so.
Yeah. And I mean, hey there.
There is no right or wrong emotion.
(29:37):
I do think it's really interesting that even back then
the consensus from the family was you should disclose because
we hear sometimes for adoption and especially donor conception
that the advice was if you don'thave to tell them, don't you
know, just let them think. So it's interesting that the
(30:00):
family was encouraging them to to disclose to you.
Yeah. And one of the other frustrating
things about all this is, you know, as I've talked to
different cousins, it's like, yeah, everyone knew but me, You
know, like, even though it was supposed to be this big secret,
right, people tell their own children.
(30:22):
They don't have to keep lies up for other people.
So in speaking to my cousins, they're like, we thought you
knew or. Yeah, yeah, we all knew.
And everyone knew but you apparently.
So that's that's it. That's annoying to me for sure.
That's one of the things I was probably most annoyed about from
(30:42):
the standpoint of, as I mentioned earlier, I think I'm
accused and I think it's true that I'm shy and I don't want to
be the maybe center of attention.
And now I feel like I'm the story, like, and maybe most
people don't care. I get it.
But it feels like I'm the story and I don't want to be the
story. Like, oh, here's the adopted guy
who just found out what an idiot, you know?
(31:02):
And you know, you just feel stupid.
You really feel stupid. I've heard that a lot.
You're definitely not alone in that feeling.
I've also talked to people who they don't really tell other
people about their story becausethey don't want to be the
subject of gossip essentially, right, Like, oh, did you hear
(31:24):
about this or that? You know, even among sometimes
they're friends, they they don'ttalk about it a lot because they
don't want to be the center of attention or, or have the focus
of this on them. Yeah, that's a good point.
I, I mean, I'm not listen, I'm not going to perpetuate their
lie of not of keeping it a secret per SE.
I don't tend to be the center ofattention telling stories about
(31:47):
myself. So, you know, close friends I've
told, but, you know, it's not something that we've a flag
saying I'm an adoptee or something, but I'm not hiding
it. I don't feel like it's an
embarrassment or I'm ashamed of it.
So, so yeah, I, I'm, I'm comfortable with it from a
standpoint of talking about it, but it, it's not something that
(32:09):
it kind of raise up proactively,you know?
I'm curious how discovering thatyou were adopted has played into
or affected your identity. And the reason why I'm asking is
because I noticed that when you were telling your story and
relaying what you learned, you refer to your biological mother
(32:31):
as the birth mother and you refer to yourself as the baby.
So have you internalized the story?
Like do you think of yourself asbeing part of it or is it kind
of, I don't want to say detached, but is it something
maybe that you haven't integrated into who you are?
(32:51):
It's a good question. I'm not sure I have a good
answer. I feel like I've integrated and
accepted it at this point. Sometimes it gets confusing
telling the story on like Like how do I identify each each
person? Sure.
No, that's fair. Yeah.
But I feel like as much as I've can come to terms with it, I
feel like I, I got it at this point.
(33:13):
It is what it is. It's, it's not going away.
It's just part of my story now. Although, you know, a lot of
people don't even ask me about it.
Like people that I've told they,it's like for them, it's no big
deal. You know what I mean?
Like no one, no one's ever askedme like a follow up like Hey,
(33:36):
how you doing outside of my wife?
Like so for them it's just no big deal.
Like it's it's hey, you told us you're adopted.
We still love you move on type of thing where meanwhile, my
whole world's blown apart and atleast the first year and a half
were quite a struggle. So it's it, it's funny where
(33:57):
people came to would, would say when I told them the story, they
were like, oh, but you're still family.
We love you. And that's like kind of the end
of it in their mind. Meanwhile, internally, you're
you're you're a basket case. You know, sure, Yeah.
Without connecting with your biological mother, have you been
(34:18):
able to learn anything, maybe just from like a family history
or medical perspective that can maybe inform some of who you are
with this new information? No, really, really nothing.
I mean, the only thing I know isnow I'm Irish.
I mean, when I grew up, we were raised Italian and like, in our
(34:39):
neck of the woods, the Italians don't like the Irish.
So like, I couldn't even wear green on Saint Patrick's Day and
now suddenly I'm Irish, you know?
How do you come to terms with that?
Like, do you still identify strongly with your Italian, I
mean adopted, but you know, yourItalian heritage that you were
raised in, Is that still a big part of who you are?
(35:01):
Well, we eat Italian a lot, but other than that, like, yeah, no,
I guess not really. I mean, it, it's kind of funny.
We we, we, we joke a ton about it.
Suddenly I'm Irish, you know, mywife's family's, they're like
Irish Americans and they, you know, all wave the flag.
And now suddenly I'm on the team.
But before that I was on the wrong team.
(35:22):
But now, now that I can play nice with them.
So yeah, it's it's comical to mein that, that regard.
But I don't have any inkling to,you know, anything about my
family or medical history or anything like that.
And that, that, you know, that'sa little frustrating, obviously,
(35:42):
but I, I, you know, it, it is what it is at this point.
Yeah, you took 23andMe, so perhaps you got some medical
insights from taking that. Otherwise, how have you kind of
landed to a place of acceptance with the gaps in your
understanding of your background?
(36:06):
Well, I mean, I'm just like I said, the first year or two were
tough, right? It's just like 2 years now on
top of like grieving for a parent who dies after having
three years of dementia. And you know, that's not a fun
road to travel. That was a very difficult
period. And then, you know, the passing
(36:28):
of my mom and then, you know, I was the executive of the state.
So he had all that stuff going on and then at the same time the
adoption stuff going on. So it was just busy craziness
for like, you know, six months there.
Once the dust settles and then you start thinking about it, you
know, I, I guess time is the only thing that that heals it,
(36:49):
right. It gets a little bit easier
every day. And and, you know, I think, you
know, maybe after a year or so, I I came to grips with, you
know, this is what I know if I learn more or meet anybody along
the way, OK, but I'm more than OK not meeting anybody.
I got enough people that love mearound me.
(37:10):
My wife is been like the most amazing resource through all
this. You know, she couldn't have been
a better support system through all this.
I'm comfortable with it. The one thing I'm evolving my
position on is I think if my children want to reach out, I'm
(37:32):
I'm now of the opinion, listen, they they have a skin in the
game here. Even though it's my life, It's
unfair. I think for of me to say,
listen, don't, don't do anything.
If they want to find out and learn more, have at it.
But just don't expect me to jumpin and start meeting people like
that's not what I'm going to do.But I do think it might be
(37:54):
unfair of me to say, listen, don't reach out if if in fact
they want to. I I like that you acknowledge
that your position is evolving on it, and also that you are
thinking about your kids and howmaybe this would affect them as
well because it's their genetic history as much as it's yours.
(38:15):
I think it's important, but to recognize what you said, which
is that you work in the midst ofgrief.
And, you know, with dementia, it's a long grieving process
too. So it's a lot that was thrown at
you to then learn that information in a situation that
would have been a lot for anyoneto manage without finding out
(38:37):
that they were adopted in the midst of all of that.
Yeah, the timing could not have been worse, you know?
Yeah. It just wasn't the best time to
learn that because you were already upset.
I was just, there was so much going on.
Your, your nerves are frayed. And then you get this phone
call. Are you sitting down?
And it's like, Oh no, you know, it's like it, it was just not
(39:00):
good. Have you connected with anyone
in the adoptee community and hasthat been helpful to you at all?
The best thing that ever in in this whole process.
I was on a work trip one day up in upstate New York and I
happened to overhear a a Co worker telling someone about
(39:20):
being adopted. And I had known this person for
15 years, never knew she was adopted.
And I literally, literally overheard it, heard like telling
someone else. So when she was finished, I
walked over to her and said, hey, you have a minute, can I
pick your brain about something?And she's like, yeah, sure.
So a little while later, we wentinto a conference room and I
(39:41):
said, listen, I just, I apologize, but I overheard you
Speaking of so and so saying youwere adopted.
And I went on to give her my tale of glow.
And we talked for about an hour and a half.
And it was the most cathartic thing for me in this whole
process, being able to talk to somebody who went through
(40:01):
something similar. And what was it really
interesting was she had the sameopinion of me of really not
wanting to really meet the biological parents.
And she, too, felt like she was being pressured to do that.
So I don't know if it was MiseryLoves Company or two minds
thinking alike, but it was very nice to hear someone else have
(40:23):
the same process as you. And just talking to her for that
hour and a half was was really, really helpful to me.
That was one of the reasons whenI saw your group that you have
on those Thursday nights was probably the main reason I
joined that because I found thatthe conversation listening to
someone else's story so helpful.And likewise, when I I listen to
(40:48):
your podcast and listen to the folks on the call echo so many
things that I feel and say that you think you're on an island.
You think you're guilty for feeling or having certain
feelings and certain thoughts that it was very helpful to hear
other people share their story and makes you feel like you're
not in this alone and you're not.
(41:10):
You don't feel bad for having certain thoughts.
So you, you asked me earlier about, you know, feeling like
you don't belong. You know, I hear that so often
now, but you know, I went, I went 59 years of feeling like an
idiot for having that thought. And here's how all these people
out there that have the same feeling that I do.
And it it just, it, it's very helpful.
(41:31):
I'll just leave it at that. Good.
I know you kind of for now sort of have like a period on the end
of the sentence with this, although you are open to what
your children may want to do in the future.
What's next for you in this experience?
Where would you say that you arenow?
(41:52):
I think I've come to grips with it certainly still have
emotional days and it's not likeI'm even thinking about the
adoption, but I think since the my mom passed away in this have
become more emotional. So I'm hopeful over time I'll be
less emotional, but I can cry atthe drop of a hat these days.
(42:15):
In speaking to people going to some therapy, they they see that
as a good thing where I struggleto see that as a good thing
sometimes. But, you know, I think just the
more time or water that goes under the bridge, the, the, the
more I'll feel better about the whole thing.
I mean, I've accepted it, but it's still, it's still a lot and
(42:37):
it never goes away. I've become better at
compartmentalizing it. It's always going to be there
and I and that's OK. If, in fact, my children do
reach out and make any connections, that's going to be
difficult. If I don't get involved, it will
bring a certain amount of stressthat I'm probably not looking
(42:59):
forward to. What advice do you have for a
parent? Maybe if you could go back in
time and talk to your parents who are keeping adna surprise
from their child. Yeah, so my wife and I have
spoken about this and, and we we've debated what would be the
right time. So originally I was like, well,
(43:21):
I know 59 is not the right answer telling them.
So I was saying, well, they should have told me when they're
18 and or 21 or whatever. But my wife's opinion, and I now
fully agree with her, I think isit it should never be a
surprise. So from day one, be open and
(43:41):
honest about how you came into our life, right?
Babies can come into families indifferent ways and you came in
through adoption. And this way, it's never a
surprise. You know, you you may have to
tell them more or add to the story along the way more facts.
But if if you start on day one or you know when they're, you
(44:02):
know, two years old or whatever and explain, Hey, you were
adopted, like and just make it as part of the family story from
day one, then it's never a surprise and it's just, it is
what it is. There's because it when I think
back about it, even if my parents told me at 18 or 21, I
(44:23):
still would have been crushed. You know, I still would have
been like, why didn't you told me at 16 or 15?
You're like, it's going to be a bomb whenever it goes off if
you're doing it like a surprise.So I would just, and I have to
give my wife credit, it's not myidea, but I would do it from
from the start. Yeah, I like your wife's
perspective on that. Just because it becomes part of
(44:46):
your identity, like you said, just from the beginning.
And it doesn't shift your identity at some formative age
or later after you've had a family and been married.
And yeah, just is a part of you.It's always a part of you.
Yeah, and, and, and part of me is like acts of omission are
lies, you know, just tell me thetruth.
(45:08):
Just be honest, open. And, you know, you don't have to
lie if you're not telling me something that's a lie.
Just be be transparent, you know?
Yeah. And what advice would you offer
to someone who just uncovered ADNA?
Surprise, like finding out that they were adopted.
(45:30):
I think just be true to your emotions.
Everyone around you is gonna have a different opinion or
maybe an opinion that's different than yours.
But I would say, you know, you have to do what's right for you
at your own speed and it, you know, your own time and just,
(45:52):
you know, it's not gonna be easygetting help or, or finding a
sympathetic voice or someone to help you, at least for me, was
very helpful. So having my wife was very
helpful. You know, I probably couldn't
have gotten through this withouther.
But also finding outside resources and people that have
been through this, you know, it's amazing once this happened
(46:16):
to me to realize how many other people have stories like this.
I just never realized there's somuch of this out there.
And because of that, there's support for you.
And I think, you know, sometimespeople might be ashamed to reach
out. But at least in in my case, even
if you just sit back and listen to other people's stories to
(46:38):
know that you're not in this alone and there's other people
like you out there. Like I said earlier, maybe it's
misery Loves company, but I found that very helpful.
Time will make it hopefully a little bit better, but you have
to just do it what you feel is right.
There are resources and there's groups out there and they are
(46:58):
very helpful, so don't be afraidto ask for help.
John, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today
and sharing your unique story. I really appreciate you sharing
your perspective and how findingout that you were adopted
affected you. Like we talked about it, it
affects everybody differently, and it was nice to hear your
(47:20):
perspective as well. And I just wish you the best as
you move forward and continue tonavigate this.
And thank you. And I really want to say thanks
for what you're doing with your your podcast and the support
groups. It's been immensely helpful for
me. So for that I want to thank you.
Thanks again to John for sharinghis story.
(47:40):
If you have adna surprise that you'd like to share, please
submit your story at dnasurprises.com.
And if you'd like to join us at one of the third Thursday
meetups that John referenced in this episode, you can find more
information at dnasurprises.com/events.
Finally, be sure to join me for early access to AD free episodes
(48:01):
over on patreon@patreon.com/DNA.Surprises.
Until next time. This episode of DNA Surprises
was hosted, produced and edited by me, Alexis Ourselt.
It was mixed and mastered by Josh Ourselt of Siren Recording
Studios.
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