Lori's DNA Surprise

Who would I have been if I’d known the truth about my identity? This is a question people in the DNA surprise community often ask themselves. Where would I have lived? What choices would I have made? What about my life would be different from how it is today?

In the season 11 finale of DNA Surprises, Lori shares how much of her childhood, and who she is today, was shaped by her parents’ efforts to keep her donor conception and the truth about her ethnicity a secret.

If you have a DNA surprise that you’d like to share, please submit your story at dnasurprises.com. If you’d like to support the show, please rate and review the podcast on Apple and Spotify - it really helps!

We’re taking a short break for the summer, but we’ll be back soon with new DNA surprise stories. Thank you for listening.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
They're just unexpected roots and I'm interested in them, but
I don't know how to express themand I don't know what feels
right and what feels right to claim.
Because wherever, whatever I do,I feel like an imposter.
Like whether it's my Jewish side, because I know that I'm
not 100% Jewish, whether it's, you know, the Latin American
side because I know. OK, so my mom is from Latin

(00:20):
American. I grew up visiting her country,
and I have cousins that still live in her country and they
have children. So I have all this family and I
do speak the language and I do eat the foods and all all that
cultural stuff, but it's still not exactly the same.
It's a subset of culture. And then this African American
piece that I didn't know anything about.
And I don't know what I have rights to, especially since I
wasn't created on purpose. Welcome to DNA Surprises, a

(00:44):
podcast that delves into the world of unexpected DNA
discoveries. I'm your host, Alexis Oursalt.
In July 2021, my life took a surprising turn when I found out
that I'm an N P/E, a person who has experienced a non paternal
event. In other words, my biological

(01:05):
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.

(01:26):
Who would I have been if I'd known the truth about my
identity? This is a question people in the
DNA surprise community often askthemselves.
Where would I have lived? What choices would I have made?
What about my life would be different from how it is today?
In the season 11 finale of DNA Surprises, Lori shares how much

(01:49):
of her childhood and who she is today was shaped by her parents
efforts to keep her donor conception and the truth about
her ethnicity a secret. Now I'm going to break the 4th
wall here for a moment. I've spoken to dozens of guests
in the three years that I've been making this show, but few

(02:10):
who have made discoveries so similar to my own.
Laurie also learned through DNA testing that her genetic parent
is black. In this episode, she articulates
how challenging it can be to navigate a major change in
ethnicity in an authentic way and why she identifies as mixed

(02:31):
as opposed to Black or African American race, ethnicity and
culture are complex topics that require so much nuance, and they
can be difficult to talk about. My own racial and cultural
identity is something that I continue to struggle with in the
aftermath of my DNA surprise, sospeaking to her was incredibly

(02:54):
validating. I'm so grateful for our
conversation. Thank you for sharing your
story, Lori. Hey, I'm Lori and I'm 46 and I
grew up in New York. So I found out two things.
First of all, I found out that Iam not 100% Ashkenazi Jewish.

(03:18):
I am 50% African American. And secondly, I found out that
I'm donor conceived. It probably makes sense to
really start at the very beginning because I think it
puts into context the decisions my parents made and also how I
grew up. I know you had a racial DNA
surprise as well. And so one of the big questions

(03:40):
that people get when they hear about it, they're like, what do
you mean you didn't know? Like, are you dumb?
So I think the back story is sort of important for giving
that context because like, no, I'm not dumb, but I do feel
dumb. I was born in the late 1970s,
and donor conception wasn't really a thing.
My parents apparently struggled with infertility.

(04:01):
They got married four years before I was born, and then
about three years after they gotmarried, they had a baby boy who
did not make it. So he died a couple of days
after he was born, and then I was born about 15 months after
that. So looking at those timelines,
it's not a situation where I would suspect that there were

(04:23):
fertility issues. My parents weren't particularly
old. They were in their late 20s when
I was born, but I didn't find out about any of that stuff
until the DNA surprise. So I grew up as the oldest of
two kids. I'm four years older, just about
than my younger brother, and my mom is from Latin America, but

(04:44):
she is Ashkenazi Jewish. Her parents came from Europe to
escape World War 2, and my dad grew up in Brooklyn, so I grew
up in this very Ashkenazi Jewishfamily.
But on my mom's side also very much colored by her growing up
in Latin America. My mom's family speaks Spanish,

(05:06):
and so we grew up eating both Latin foods and Jewish foods.
That's important to the story because it was kind of part of
that story that I constructed for myself because I looked a
little different than everyone else in my family.
And it was pretty obvious that Ilook different to other people
from the time I was growing up. You know, I would get a lot of

(05:27):
those questions like, where are you from?
And I would, you know, play around, be like, I'm from New
York or whatever. But really the answer that I
would give is like, oh, you know, my mom is from Latin
America. So a lot of people, like, would
just accept that at face value because they wouldn't.
They didn't really realize that my parent, my mother's family
was all from Eastern Europe. And the whole thing didn't 100%

(05:50):
make sense. But I'm ethnically ambiguous
enough that at least to some people, curly hair, you know, a
little bit darker skin, it kind of all made sense, you know?
Yeah. Enough.
And so was that right? Right.
And I'm obviously very much relating to a lot of the things
that you're saying right now. When you would tell people that

(06:10):
my, my mom is from South America, Latin America, was that
just so that they would leave you alone, stop asking?
Or did you also internalize thatstory that that is why you look
different from your family? It was.
A combination of both. Because there wasn't any real
reason why that would be the case.
Because I knew my both of my grandparents, I knew they were

(06:32):
both born in Eastern Europe. I knew my mom and her sisters.
And Jewish people from Eastern Europe don't look exactly like
Eastern European non Jewish people.
They might be a little bit darker, they'll have often times
curlier hair and so forth. But like people were
specifically assuming that I wasAfrican American or that I was
mixed or something like that. So like it was really intended

(06:55):
to be an explanation. So I definitely made sure that
my Spanish was good because I felt like it kind of added
authenticity to that story. And I also grew up in a
neighborhood where everyone was pretty much Italian or Irish.
I already was an outsider being Jewish in that neighborhood and
then looking African American. I was an outsider in the Jewish

(07:17):
community because people would always be confused by me.
And then also in in the area where I grew up, it was 100%
white people. Did you at any point question
did you think that you looked African American?
I didn't really know, I just knew I looked different, right
and I'd ask my parents about it and they would just deflect and
then it really came became more noticeable to me.

(07:40):
You know, like people would say the N word to me in school and
I'd be like, why are they doing this?
This is so confusing, but I really noticed it when I went to
college more because like I got there and I thought like the
reason was me because they're, there weren't that many Jewish
people where I grew up and I'd go to college and I'd fit in.
And what I ended up doing is allmy friends were Hispanic for the
most part. And then people would again just

(08:01):
assume that I was African American.
And when I said I was from LatinAmerica, a lot of Hispanic
people are multiracial. So then that just like put an
end to all the questioning. And then because I spoke
Spanish, because my mom actuallywas from Latin America, it
provided this off ramp. So I didn't really have to do a
lot of exploring or probing because I think, you know, when

(08:22):
people ask, like, how didn't youknow?
It's because your parents kind of tell you where you're from
and like who your family is and who you are.
So you just like don't you don'tdistrust your parents in that
sense, especially when like you just believe them.
And I think you're programmed tobelieve them.
My parents definitely like, you know, they would do certain
things like I was always very self-conscious about it.

(08:43):
When I was 4, my mom started taking me to this hair salon in
Queens. And like, they would prop me up
on all these phone books and they would relax my hair with
these relive relaxers. And it was our secret.
And it was painful. Like they burned my head and I
would sit there and I'd pretend not to notice it because I
wanted my hair to be as straightas possible.

(09:03):
And I wasn't allowed to tell anybody about this.
It was our secret. And like in the summers, my
brother was very fair and he fitperfectly into the family.
I wasn't supposed to go swimminguntil the sun was going down
because like, they didn't want me to get too dark.
So there were definitely things that my mom in particular was
doing in the, I grew up in the 80s, by the way.
So like the curly hair thing. Like I wanted curly hair and I

(09:25):
was like can I have a perm? I was like, no, you can't have a
perm. Like it was all about trying to
like portray this appearance andlike, so I knew that these
things were weird and it bothered me because it made me
feel very insecure. Like I always felt like there
was something wrong with me. Like I was too dark and I tanned
too much and my hair wasn't niceand I had bad hair.
And I spent all of like basically until I was 25 trying

(09:49):
to do, even later trying to dealwith that, but I didn't
understand it and I didn't understand the context of it.
Did you ever ask your mom? Like why?
Why can't I go swimming when my brother can?
Well, she's. Like you get too dark and she
would always it was that it was because of the tan and so.
She would actually say I don't want you to get too tan.

(10:09):
And for people that are listening, Lori is light
skinned. Pretty like relatively fair,
right? I think.
I mean medium. I guess because the lighting is
really bad in here. Yeah, it's really bad.
So it's more of a medium complexion, I would say.
Yeah. Like whenever I buy cosmetics
it's usually like in like the medium range, medium to tan,

(10:32):
something like that. Same.
OK, same here. But but during the summer time I
can get pretty dark and so I imagine similar for you.
OK, Yeah. Same.
So I could get super dark. And so, yeah, so she was trying
to keep me in this sort of more medium kind of complexion, which
is probably a little bit darker than your average, like Southern

(10:55):
European, but not like so dark that you'd be like where this
makes absolutely no sense. So, right.
Wanted to keep me light enough where there was some sort of
plausible deniability. My brother didn't.
He was like, really white, OK. So your brother did not look
like you either. No, in addition to the the

(11:16):
tanning thing, my mom had me have my nose thinned out when I
was 18. It was.
That something that you wanted to do, or was it mostly from
her? I was.
Always told that my there was something with my nose and so it
was like a lot of pressure. But then when I went back and
like looked at the pictures and also like when my ex-husband
like saw the pictures of me as akid, he was like, you really

(11:36):
looked blacker with your nose, like whiter, you know, like more
of an African American feature. And I think like in retrospect,
like even if it wasn't like my parents like consciously trying
to do that, I think like it was subconscious.
You know, I was also really tall.
That was the other thing that was super off about me.
My mom is like 4 foot 10 on a good day, claims to be 5 foot.

(12:00):
And my dad is about 5 foot 3. And my brother grew up to be
about 5 foot 4-5 foot 35 foot four.
And I'm closer to 5 foot 7. And also my mom wore a size 5
shoe and I wore a size 8 shoe. And they would call me Bigfoot.
Like they would just make fun ofme for being so big.
So I felt like this huge giant in the middle of this really

(12:21):
short family. Like on my mom's side, I'm
literally the tallest person, male or female of all my
cousins. Like everybody.
Wow. So everyone.
'S really short and then on my dad's side, my I have one tall
uncle, so I would latch onto that.
I'd be like, well, that's probably why.
I'm tall cuz like. You know, my uncle is tall, you
know. The stories we tell, yeah.
So I was like always trying to find pieces that would fit.

(12:44):
And I would Google like Jewish people who looked black to try
to figure out. It would always be like people
like Lenny Kravitz or Lisa Bonetwho are actually half black.
Because like what would happen was like in college and in law
school and in grad school, I would always be added
automatically to the Black students associations because
people would just assume that I was like biracial or mixed or

(13:07):
something like that. And at the time my hair was
relaxed, which I think added to the perception, which is the
opposite, I think, of what my parents intended.
How did it? Affect you how did you feel
being kind of stereotyped, however accurately in hindsight,
right but being stereotyped and just automatically put into
these groups and people automatically making assumptions

(13:28):
about your race and you really believed you were something else
How did that affect you it was. Awkward because like in a couple
of different ways, because like,I didn't, you know, I never
wanted people to think I was trying to be something that I
wasn't. And it's just like uncomfortable
if people think you're somethingyou're not.
So what I did is I kind of leaned into more like the fact

(13:51):
that my mom was from Latin America.
I'm like, I know I'll get more involved in like the Latino
student associations because I'mlike, you don't have to be any
race being Latino. Like you can be any religion.
It doesn't matter. So that to me made sense.
But you know, that also kind of leads into how it was that I
eventually decided to do the DNAtest.
And again, I'd been ongoing overthe years and like when I got

(14:12):
divorced, my ex-husband was like, your mom had an affair.
She must be a swinger because there's no way that you're
completely white. Like, are you dumb?
And like, I was just like, so like standing my ground, like,
no, like my, that's not my parents.
And he would use that like to throw in my face.
He was trying to get my kids to take DNA tests to try to figure
it out. But really what ended up getting
me to do it? And I actually bought Adna last

(14:34):
like a couple of years before I actually did it.
And I lost it. It disappeared.
Found out later my mom had foundit and thrown it out in my
house. She had been staying over.
I had bought it and I shoved it in a drawer and she saw it and
threw it out. I'm so disorganized.
I thought like I was just like, I don't know what happened to
it. So I bought another one.
And then that one sat for months.

(14:54):
And I finally took it because there were a couple of things
that happened where I started worrying that I was gonna like,
get like, found out for pretending to be something that
I wasn't because, you know, there was a Rachel Dolezal
thing. And like, I never ever said that
I was African American, but people often assumed it.
And I was always feeling like this need to correct people.

(15:16):
And I think that could be off putting too, because it wasn't
like I had an issue. I just never wanted to be seen
as pretending to be something I wasn't.
And then there was a professor at a university that was Jewish,
that was pretending to be PuertoRican.
And then I was like, oh, crap. Like I wasn't pretending to be

(15:37):
anything. I felt like I legitimately like
my mom was legitimately from Latin America and like, it was
reasonable. But at the same time, I was
like, what if people don't agreeand they think because you're
Jewish, you don't have a right to claim that you're from Latin
America? And then I was like, well,
shoot, what do I do? Because I was really freaking
out. Like, what if people find out
that I'm a fraud? And then I end up losing

(15:58):
everything and I started like having this whole like freak
out. So I finally decided to send in
the test and I didn't know what I was going to find.
And I was like, it'll put it to rest one way or the other.
It was. Like a fear.
And would you say that this was a big part of your life and your
identity? Was this ambiguousness and

(16:19):
people questioning you? Did you feel like that was a big
part of who you were? Absolutely.
It was because it was happening constantly because I think, you
know, a lot of different settings.
People just want to know how to characterize people.
So, you know, like in school there were different affinity
groups and also in companies. This was like when I started

(16:40):
working and like in the professional world, you know, it
was like a couple years before 2008.
But like when Obama became president, there was a lot more
focus growing over the years on diversity and things like that.
Like they wanted to know like, how to characterize you.
And so like, it started to become more and more important
to know how to characterize myself because like, whenever,

(17:01):
like if I said like, oh, no, I'mjust an Eastern European Jew.
Like people would make the mailman jokes and the milkman
jokes. And it was just like, so sounded
so ridiculous that it wasn't an acceptable response because
nobody believed it. Like literally nobody.
And so the only response people believed was, oh, I'm Hispanic,

(17:22):
which was true. But it was also like, again, it
wasn't like I looked that way because my mom was from Latin
America. It was just a coincidence.
Right, right. You didn't have Spanish or
indigenous. There are African, you know,
roots, but you didn't think thatyou had those.
So you couldn't do on that, right?

(17:43):
Right. Exactly.
And also like what ended up kindof coming to a head too.
So it was like, so that professor who is like Jewish,
pretending to be Puerto Rican. And then around the same time, I
got a big promotion and people were upset that the African
American affinity group didn't say anything about me getting
promoted because I would have been the first, like, black

(18:04):
female to have been internally promoted.
And then somebody called me. So one of the people, she was
one of the few black female partners at my firm, called me.
And she was talking about how excited she was for another
black woman to get promoted. And it was so awkward because I
didn't like, I was trying to figure out the right way to
like, interrupt and tell her I'mactually not black.
And it was so awkward. And so it was like.

(18:27):
That combination of things that had me male in the test.
So like I ended up having to like send her a note like, you
know, like I really appreciate it, but I'm not actually black.
Like so like that's the thing. And it was just so awkward
because people, it didn't even occur to people.
Wow. And I think also people were
offended because they were just like, is she like, does she

(18:48):
just, like, not like herself or what?
And then there's also like, a tension between the Afro Latino
community and the African American community because not
all Latinos embrace their African heritage.
There's some of that, too, right?
And like, I was sort of trippinginto all of these different
things inadvertently. White people just would assume I
was black or, you know, something.

(19:11):
And then black people always saw, like, the African American
heritage in me, you know? Sure.
OK, so take me to getting your results and opening them up.
So I got my results. I sent in my test and it was
like part of like the Christmas flood of tests, you know, that

(19:32):
went in. So I mailed it out like, I don't
know, sometime after the new year, like pretty early on a
couple years ago, I guess this was about four years ago.
And I was kind of stalking them.Like I put them in the mailbox.
Like my parents live nearby. So I put them in like the
mailbox, like when I knew my momwasn't around.
And then I literally watched themailman take it out of my
mailbox cuz I was worried that like, my mom was gonna see it.

(19:53):
Cuz my cousins on my dad's side had done DNA testing and they
were talking about it. And I was like, Oh my God,
that's so cool. And then in the car on the way
home, this was about like maybe six or seven years ago, like my
mom, like flipped. She was like, don't you dare,
like, promise me, promise me you're not going to do DNA
testing. And like, obviously that was
super suspicious. So at that point, I was like

(20:14):
beginning to suspect that perhaps that's why my DNI test
disappeared, Like, and I was starting to put two and two
together. So finally, even though I didn't
know what I was going to find, like by the time I sent my test,
I had a pretty good idea that there must be like, my parents
were hiding something. I didn't know what.
I was like, maybe it was something like my grandmother

(20:34):
did, although that didn't make any sense based on like my
mother's appearance. But like, it's really scary to
take the step to find out. Like it's one thing if you
innocently send off a test and you don't really know what
you're going to find, but I think it's another one, you
know, that there's probably a greater than 50% chance that
something is gonna be uncovered.I didn't know what.

(20:57):
I had no idea cuz. Also, my mom is very
conservative so I didn't think she'd had an affair.
I was so confused I couldn't figure out an explanation.
Like she was very into like thatpurity culture.
I didn't know what to expect. So I sent it in.
And then the day before the testresults came back, I had eaten
like a bad burrito. So I was up all night and like

(21:19):
super sick with awful food poisoning.
It was like miserable. So my mom stayed over because I
was dehydrated. I had all my kids at home.
Like it was just a nightmare at 7:30 in the morning, I woke up
and it was March 7th. I checked my e-mail and I see
that my results from Ancestry came in and I was like, oh, so
like she was there. And then I was like, oh, can I

(21:40):
have some tea? So I sent her down to make me
tea. And I go quickly look on my
phone and I click on, I ignore all the warnings and I look and
right away, like you can see like the pie chart or whatever,
it came out to exactly 50% Ashkenazi Jewish, which is what
I, I expected Ashkenazi Jewish, but not 50%.
And then there were a whole bunch of different other things.

(22:02):
The second largest ethnicity waslike Nigeria.
And then it was just like a whole list of African countries.
And when I did the math, it cameout to about 40% African
countries and 10% European countries.
I haven't taken science since college, but I knew enough to
know that in order to have 40% African DNA, that means that
like my one of my parents has tohave 80% African DNA and neither

(22:25):
one of my parents have 80% African DNA.
And I knew nothing about ancestry at that point.
But I did see that I could Clickto see matches and there's a
warning there. And I was like ignore all that
crap. And I went and I clicked it and
I saw that my highest match was my mother's sister.
I did some Googling and it was pretty clear that she was 100%

(22:48):
like my first aunt. And then my second highest match
was, I still remember 632 Santa Morgans and he was an African
American man from the Bronx. And I looked through my list and
there are tons of African American people that are
connected to me genetically. So I thought to myself, I'm
like, well that's weird. My DNA must have mixed with

(23:09):
somebody else's, you know, like,and I'm like, no.
That is the next logical thing, right?
I think. This is super confusing and I'm
like cuz there's no way cuz neither one of my parents are
African and it was too high for it clearly wasn't my mother.
So that threw out like the theory like the Latin American
theory like that made no sense. And then I'm thinking about I'm
like wait so if I match with my mom's sister my that means my

(23:31):
mom must also be 100% Ashkenazi Jewish.
And then I was like Oh my God. So I immediately went on Amazon
and ordered a 23andMe kid and I waited for that to come.
And 23 Me is a little easier to read, I think, because they
break it down by continent a little bit more clearly.
And that came a couple of weeks later and it came out again to

(23:53):
the same 4041% African DNA and 10% European DNA, similar kind
of list of countries, slight differences, but basically the
same. And I didn't really have many
matches on 23 Me. I had a lot of matches on
Ancestry. I was mad.
But yeah, I was gonna say, like,what was your first reaction?

(24:13):
It was anger. Oh my.
God I was so mad like and I didn't say anything to my mom.
I'm like cuz she'll kill herselfor something cuz she's very
emotionally volatile and she threatened me that she would if
she took it if I took adna test like years ago.
Wow. And like she's just like that.
Like I didn't know if she was going to do it or not, but I
didn't want responsibility for that.

(24:34):
But I was so mad. So at the same time I was like,
I can't tell anyone so this is awkward but I wanted to know
what was happening and I was trying to come up with all these
different theories. And I was like, well it's
possible she was depressed aftershe lost her baby and had an
affair. It didn't sound like her, but

(24:55):
maybe because again, my DNA matches were in the Bronx and at
the time my parents lived in NewYork City.
So I'm like, that's possible. They didn't live in the Bronx at
the time, although my mom did live in the Bronx at one point.
They did not live in the Bronx at that point, but you never
know. Maybe they were in Manhattan
because she worked in Manhattan and maybe like something
happened. Maybe she was sexually

(25:17):
assaulted. That's possible.
I didn't have any sibling matches.
Donor conception didn't really occur to me because I was like,
why would they give an African American sperm donor to like a
white couple? Right, usually they try to match
the ethnicity of the parents andand you didn't have fifty

(25:37):
siblings, right. And that's.
What I was expecting, which now I realize for someone who was
born in the 1970s, it's not unusual necessarily because I
was born before frozen sperm wasreally a thing.
Like they were just experimenting with that at the
time. But I didn't know that.
So I was pretty mad. I didn't know what to do with

(25:59):
the information. I'm like, I can't tell anyone.
But I did end up telling my 16 year old, which is probably not
the smartest, but we were driving around and like I was
super upset and she could tell immediately that something was
wrong. And like she kept trying to ask
me. And then I finally just handed
her and she like realized rode away like what was wrong.
And I called my brother. We were trying to figure it out
together. Like this is so weird.

(26:21):
So I got him to agree to take ADNA test because in my head I'm
like, well, maybe he's half African American too.
Even though like there like it would have to be like a genetic
miracle for him. I mean, I guess anything is
possible. Sure, sure.
Yeah. You never know the way DNA
works. OK, so he takes his test.

(26:41):
Yeah, and he got his results a while later.
It took him a while to send it. But in the meantime, you know, I
joined like the Facebook pages and then I ended up pretty
quickly getting involved with the DNA Angel.
It was like an obsession. But I don't know anything about,
like, actual genetic research. And I'm really busy and like, I
didn't have time to learn about it and I wanted quicker results

(27:02):
then I could possibly muster in my time because I don't know
what I was doing. Like, I've never been interested
in geology ever, but I did a lotof homework on it.
And then I within a couple of weeks, I connected with Adna
Search Angel and you know, they did a lot of work and there was
a dead end that they hit because, spoiler alert, it turns

(27:24):
out that my biological father was also an MPA.
Oh wow, there was. Just some triangulation.
So we knew last names because wefigured out pretty quickly, like
just based on the number of Santa Morgans with my closest
match, like we knew it was a close relative.
So it turned out that ended up being 1/2 uncle.
There was one person that we were able to narrow it down to

(27:47):
because it was a family of I think six children.
I think one died like way younger than would have been
able to donate. Two were girls.
This guy was not my father, There were three girls I don't
remember, and then there was this one brother who was not a
young medical student or anything like that.

(28:07):
But at that point I didn't know about the donation part but I
was trying to figure it out. But anyway, he was around the
same age as my parents, born around 19491950.
So it fit and then we're like, this is who it might be.
Also, his age triangulated with the NPE piece because we were
able to trace his paternal line and we found some documents that

(28:28):
show that his mother was marriedto the closest male ancestor on
that line. Somebody that I was connected to
biologically happened to have been a genealogist in that
family. So started working with the NP
Search Angels to help me like aslike a distant cousin.
So putting it all together, we had a pretty good idea that this
guy was the father because we had found records that his

(28:50):
mother had very previously been married.
She had had twins that had died in infancy and then she had had
a son. And then there was no record of
what happened to her first husband.
But then there's a later record of her remarrying.
And it all kind of lined up. He would, they were in the
Bronx. It just kind of all lined up but
we weren't sure but had a prettygood idea.

(29:12):
OK, so for people who maybe aren't as familiar with the
genealogical piece and all the mapping, the half uncle that you
matched with, did he know that he had a brother out there who
was your father or was he raisedwith your genetic parent?
I, I guess I should say, have you referred to her?

(29:32):
Your genetic parent? Yeah.
So your half uncle knew your genetic parent.
He. Did he did not, you know?
So then I kind of reached out tohim on Ancestry.
So I kind of was poking around and then I kind of asked some
questions. And then he was like, hold on.
And I think he went to talk to his sisters because I don't know
if he was aware that his older brother was from a prior

(29:53):
marriage. OK.
So your genetic parent was the third born child to his.
Marriage of the 1st. Marriage and then the older two
died, he was born and then she remarried.
And then the person that she remarried raised the genetic
parent as their own Childs. OK right.

(30:14):
And then everyone else was younger than him, so they
wouldn't have known necessarily.Exactly.
And this was like late 40s, early 50s, and, you know, people
were kind of cagey about all this stuff.
So I don't know what was known and what wasn't known doesn't
seem like it was something that was widely talked about.
So, you know, I found all of this out, but I still had no

(30:36):
understanding of how it all cameto be at the same time.
Like I was still researching allof the options.
So I knew like just from research that he was not a
doctor. Like he dropped out of high
school. He had his first child at 15
years old and his second child also as a teenager.

(30:56):
I knew from doing research that I also have a genetic half
sister that was born about a week before me, and she was in
and out of prison and died in her 30s.
So I knew just from all of the research that the family
definitely was, you know, I think more troubled from like
just family research and all that, which didn't fit the

(31:18):
perception that I had of who a donor would be.
Because there was another branchof the family that we had zeroed
in on initially on his biological father's family that
had been more educated. And I thought maybe that was the
side of the family that the relationship would come from.
And the DNA search engine was like, no, it's not pointing that

(31:39):
way. But in my head I'm like, but it
makes more sense if it was the other family because like they
were journalists and they were like professors and they were
really educated. And that seemed to fit more with
the type. Like at the time, like I was
still going on, like I was goingon different theories.
I'm like, that's still kind of fit with like the, my mom like
freaked out and had an affair theory.

(31:59):
And also they were from Staten Island and my parents were from
Staten Island. Yeah, because at this point you
still did not know the origin story.
You did not know. So you you were able to identify
that as this person. But it makes sense.
You're thinking, okay, what's the kind of person that my mom
might have seen socially in someway?
Right and they were from the same place and my grandparents

(32:20):
lived in Staten Island. In my head, I had this whole
story. I was like, well, my parents
baby died. I knew that my mom and my dad
had a hard time when the baby died and my parents were
resentful. And I know that my mother stayed
with my grandparents for a while.
So I was like, well, these people are from Staten Island.
Like maybe it all makes sense, but that was not what happened
like at all. So finally my mom knew like she

(32:41):
could sense that was hustle. And so she finally said
something to me and I just like kind of was like, well, why am I
black? Like what happened?
Like I just kind of like finallyhead on like after all those
months. And I think she was just trying
to figure out like why I was so hostile to her for like months.
I finally asked and then she said we have to talk.
And then she took me to her house and they both told me that

(33:04):
they couldn't conceive. And they used a donor.
And their first baby died. And they thought like, maybe it
was because of a donor. They didn't know.
And then so they went like, theysaved their money and they used
a donor again a couple of monthslater.
And my dad said that they mixed the sperm together because he
was told that that would help, like, increase the motility of

(33:24):
his sperm. And it was a medical student and
all of that stuff. It was a doctor, and they were
supposed to look like him. And so my mom's theory was maybe
they like kind of decided to give her a different donor
because they hurt her accent. My dad used to teach in New York
City public schools in like verydiverse classrooms.
So he noticed that I looked likethe little mixed and black
babies in his class pretty early, but they just never spoke

(33:47):
about it again. Like they just.
Never talked about. Using a donor.
Nope, they never talked about it.
They just kind of pretended it didn't happen.
They used the donor again to have my brother and I was like
hey you really need to talk to him cuz he at that point had
mailed in his DNA test and hadn't gotten the results.
So I told him you may wanna say something to him because if you

(34:10):
don't, I will because he's aboutto find out.
But yeah, they never talked about it because at the time,
like, they didn't even use, like, the same doctors.
So like their doctor didn't know, like when the baby died,
like they didn't sue the doctor because there was medical
malpractice because they were worried that they would find out
that they used a donor. Oh wow, so there's some like,

(34:33):
deep shame. Yeah, very deep shame for them.
And like, they were devastated that I found out.
My dad was more understanding because I think he kind of knew
over the years there were just certain things that would
happen. And like, he just knew that
people were perceiving me in a certain way.
And I think he understood that it was probably like not the

(34:57):
right thing. But then on the other hand, they
were both so afraid of people finding out.
Like at this point, like they still don't want people to know.
Like they think nobody knows. Like, they don't seem to
understand that like, people cantell and they form their own
conclusions about it. Oh wow, that's that's heavy that

(35:20):
they just never spoke about. Never.
My dad was really apologetic. He's like, I'm so sorry.
Like I knew your mom was doing all those things to try to cover
it up with the hair and the sun and the nose and all this stuff.
And he's like, and I didn't intervene because I didn't want
anyone to know. So it was like they were kind of
stuck in a secret and they were both like separately engaging in

(35:40):
their own cover up and like theyjust became so invested in this
secret that they didn't, I don'tthink know how to get out of it.
I still, I think carry a lot of resentment about it.
I think especially because of mymom, because my mom took more
physical attempts to hide it. Whereas my dad, he was like a
dad. So he just like acted like he
didn't know what was going on and like, that's just what he

(36:02):
did. And he would also try to help
me. Like, for example, at one point
I was getting my house appraisedto refinance the mortgage.
And when they did the comps, like I was there for it, But
when I got the report, my house came in like well under $100,000
below what the estimate should have been.
And then I looked at the addresses and I emailed them
back and like, why didn't you pull actual houses in my

(36:24):
neighborhood? Like they were pulling comps
from like a totally different neighborhood.
And I knew right away what had happened, like, And so I and my
dad did too. He saw it.
And he's like, next time I'll bethere.
And you just pretend you don't live here.
Wow, so. He knew that they were
perceiving me, whereas if I asked my mom, she'd tell me it

(36:44):
was all in my head. So that's yeah.
So this topic of race, I guess my first question is, do you
feel like any of your mom's actions were at all tied to
racism that she may have had in like not that she's overt,

(37:08):
overtly racist or or was it morejust about hiding the truth?
I think it's a combination of both to be honest.
I don't think if my parents adopted or if they knew they
were going to have a biracial child, I don't think my dad
would have minded. There is no way my mother, like
my mom wouldn't have accepted melike she would.

(37:30):
My brother told me like when this whole thing came up, when
the DNA results came out, he waslike you didn't notice?
He's like everyone would always ask me why my sister was black.
And also he told me something interesting too when he was I
guess about college age. She'd asked him at one point if
he'd ever date someone like me. And then you know, when I met my
now ex-husband, like I didn't want my parents to meet him at

(37:54):
1st and it was mainly because mymom was so into me getting
married. Like I just didn't, I don't
know. I just didn't want them to meet
him initially. And my mom thought the reason
was because she kept asking me. She's like just tell me is his
mother black? They would barely have accepted
me marrying someone that wasn't Jewish, let alone someone that
was a different race that would never have been acceptable.
So I always was aware that like I didn't match and I always

(38:17):
wondered if they could really love me because I wasn't what
they wanted. So I, I was always a pleaser
growing up, like I always wantedto be the best.
And I felt this intense pressure.
And I think some of it like now it kind of makes sense because
if for a couple of reasons, I think they invested a lot of
money to have children, they were also promised like that

(38:38):
they were getting like the offspring of medical students
that were going to be destined for greatness.
So I think there was that expectation tied up and
everything. And also I felt like my main
value in life was to please my parents.
So like I got married to please my parents.
Like I chose the career I did toplease my parents.

(38:58):
Like mostly my mom. I think my dad didn't care as
much. Like he would have been, I
think, happy with me regardless of what he did.
But my mom was the dominant person in my house.
My dad was just there, like he paid the bills and like he's a
better grandpa than he was. He's a good dad now, but he
wasn't like a great dad for young kids.
Like he was just kind of there. I'm curious.

(39:20):
This is a totally selfish question about how you have
navigated the fact that you wereperceived as something for so
long. You just said your brother was
even like hello your sister's luck.
Like, why is that? People have assumed you talked

(39:41):
about at work, people were disappointed that you weren't
acknowledged as like the first black woman to receive a
promotion and and you kind of had to walk that back.
And how have you been able to like or have you been able to
reconcile that you had this experience where you went out
into the world and people treated you like a Black woman

(40:02):
or mixed race Black woman and you never accepted that about
yourself? I mean, I'm curious to hear your
thoughts on this too, because I still feel like I have this
knowledge, but I don't feel thatnecessarily that I have the
right to. Like I haven't figured out how

(40:22):
to slap myself because I kind offeel like I fit nowhere.
Like even before all of this, I knew I wasn't a white woman.
Like I knew that because it justnever, I knew I wasn't perceived
as one. So, you know, that's why I was
always trying to figure out how to explain myself because I knew
I wasn't being perceived as a white woman.
So I've never seen myself that way.
But now like, even just like filling out forms, I'll click

(40:45):
two or more racist because I feel like that's accurate from a
racial perspective. But you know, race and culture
are two different things, right?So I didn't grow up in the black
community. So I don't know, like what's
right? And it's something I struggle
with to this day. And I think part of that also is
because like I still have to kind of be on the down low about

(41:07):
it because my parents are still like completely ashamed.
And they also don't feel like it's my story to tell.
So it's just like, again, like it's weird scenario.
And my mom still is very racially insensitive and she was
furious when she found out that my kids knew.
I'm like, well, they were being asked at school.

(41:27):
Like when I told my youngest, I told her about a year and a half
ago and like she I would say shelooks more Hispanic than black.
But like when I told her she's like, well that makes sense.
Like. That was her immediate initial
reaction. She's a teenager.
She's 14, and she's, like, talk talks to boys and like, she
often talks to black boys, whichsets my mom off.

(41:50):
And I've had to pull her aside many times.
And she gets super mad, you know, when she gets called out
on it. But like, she has a lot, I
think, of internalized racism. And it's really tricky because
even though I think she doesn't mean to, I think some of it has
been directed at me. And I think also when she does
that, it also reminds me that she would never accept me and

(42:14):
that she wouldn't. She didn't get what she paid
for. That's how I feel.
And then adding to that too, is there were certain issues too, I
think with the way I was conceived because I was
conceived in late 70s with a fresh donation.
I mentioned earlier that my biological parent father was,
you know, not a Med student. He dropped out of high school,

(42:36):
teenage father. I also found out later through
DNA testing, I connected with two of his grandchildren via
DNA, which really confirmed the biological connection.
One of them it's like a 1200 centimorgan connection, which is
really close. And another one, it's like in
the like around 900 and 80 or something like that, like it's

(42:57):
really high. So it's unequivocal that this is
my biological father. So when that was proven, then I
sent the, a person that I found on Facebook that I believe was
my half to sister Adni test. And it seems that she gave it to
her daughter. So that's how we found out.
And then I asked her some questions.
When the results came through, I'm like, it's confirmed And I

(43:17):
found out. I knew he had died in 1997, but
I didn't know why. I found out he was a drug user
and he died of AIDS. And I think the AIDS epidemic, I
was born a little bit before it,but my brother was born in the
80s, early 80s. It was right at the beginning,
before they were really testing sperm.
People had contracted HIV through sperm donation in the

(43:38):
early 1980s. And think about the fact that my
mom was doing that and the clinic where she went, the
doctor where she went, like theyliterally, I have no idea where
they found him. Like no idea.
And I also have connected with people whose parents use the
same doctors. And there are some stories of
him like pulling random boyfriends of people that work
there. Like, I have no idea how like he

(44:00):
ended up being in the donor baselike or how they, I mean, it was
almost like they pulled someone like off the sidewalk and was
like, here, you want to make some money, like be a donor.
We're in a bind and we need somesperm.
Like, yeah, like, I can't understand.
Like, cuz I was like, well, maybe there was like an African
American family also trying to conceive at the same time, but
then there I didn't connect withthem, right?

(44:21):
So there was nobody that I connected with genetically.
And I feel like if there were another family that they were
actually looking for an African American donor at that time, I
would have connected with them. So I almost feel like my parents
were coming in and they had likea sperm shortage and they just
picked some random person from somewhere just so that they
could inseminate my mom. And I don't know what they

(44:43):
thought was gonna happen. Have you?
Seen photos of him? Yes.
I look a lot like him, especially before my house was
fixed. I have half siblings, so I have
1/2 sister and then there's AI think there's 1/2 brother and
then I think there may be one ortwo other siblings.
Like I said, one of them is exactly my age, like born in the

(45:04):
same month, same year, but she struggled with addiction and
prison and she died really young.
So one of the people, the nephews that I connected with
was actually her son. And then the other, like I said,
was the daughter of my half sister who was born when he was
like 15 or 16. Do you?
Have any relationship with thosepeople?
Not really. I mean, I've messaged with them

(45:26):
a few times, but like, I, you know, it's awkward.
I think number one, I still feellike I'm supposed to be keeping
it a secret. Number two, I was not supposed
to be here, you know, and I think it's upsetting to them.
Like, I don't think they're dying to meet me.

(45:47):
And they live in New York. I do go to New York, but I've
never really tried to connect with them when I'm in the city.
Like when I'm in the city, I'm like either there for work or
I'm with my kids or my family. And it's just like, I've haven't
been in the headspace. And also, it sounds like, you
know, we've had pretty differentlives, you know?
Yeah. It's hard to kind of go back and

(46:09):
try to make sense of that especially I think probably the
donor conceived part, right, because it's not even like if it
had been the other family that you thought it might have been
where maybe they have some more like it if.
It was more similar right? But I also think knowing what I
know now from what my half sister has told me, like he
probably was just using the money for drug money or

(46:31):
something like that, which also isn't a great feeling.
Yeah, I mean. She said he was a good man, but
he struggled. And like, I find it really
upsetting to think about. There are all of these people.
I'm genetically connected to youand they've had really hard
lives. I was hoping that the family
would be more like the other side of the family.

(46:54):
Yeah, yeah. Have you wow, kind of keeping
this on the down low as you said, come to find any
connection with that black part of yourself?
I mean, I think I've tried in different ways.
It feels though, like sometimes I feel like I'm trying things on

(47:14):
for size, which I don't know, feels respectful or not because
I'm trying to figure it all out in the most respectful way that
I can. So I do kind of think about like
where I've come from, I'm alwayslooking, you know, at the
genetic updates. Like, I did a lot of poking
around, try to figure out what Ican about the ancestry on that
side. About a couple of months ago, my

(47:36):
brother and his family were visiting, so we went down to
Mount Vernon, which is George Washington's estate, which isn't
far from here. It's about half hour, 40
minutes. I made sure to go to the slave
cemetery and to pay my respects there.
I mean, I always was interested in it, but I think it feels a
little bit different because I also know that my biological
family, like part of it were held as slaves in Virginia.

(47:57):
And also, I think another thing that really resonated was when I
was doing that research and kindof learning about my family, I
found out that, so I'm biracial and then my kids are about 1/4
African American, something along those lines.
And around the time my oldest was applying to college, she
loves theater. And we talk about the founding

(48:18):
fathers. And like, Sally Hemings was 1/4
black. And that particular fact really
sat with her because one of my kids like looks totally white,
but the other two look like there's some sort of mix going
on. And then also for her in
particular, like a lot of peopleassume that she's mixed.
You know, I never thought I had real ties to American history or

(48:39):
anything like that. And finding out that I have
like, this deep tie to American history, not to Sally Hemings, I
mean, just the fact that I have ancestors, right?
Here in. Some ways since the 1600s, you
know. Right, because they're very
different from like the Ashkenazi Jewish history.
Right. Or my mother that came through
Kennedy Airport in 1960 something.

(49:01):
And my dad that was born in Brooklyn, but his grandparents
came from Russia around the turnof the century.
It's just a very different history, you know, like that
history, you know, like when we went to the Tenement Museum a
couple of months ago in New YorkCity, that's that history.
And that's the history I grew upwith.
And almost everyone I grew up with had a history like that,
whether they were Jewish or Italian.

(49:22):
It was a very similar story of like they came in at that time.
And then my mom is, again, a recent and more recent
immigrant. But still, I never thought of
myself as having these deep American ties.
Like, I thought we were just like 20th century Americans, you
know. Yeah.
So in that level, I've really connected with that because
looking at how my biological father's maternal family came

(49:47):
from slaves in North Carolina and Virginia, his father's
family actually came from Bahamas, from the Caribbean.
And so they came to the United States more recently from the
Caribbean, which is a bit of a different history as well.
So there's all these pieces like, and I don't know them, but
I do feel like a connection to that.

(50:07):
And I think because they're justunexpected roots and I'm
interested in them, but I don't know how to express them.
And I don't know what feels right and what feels right to
claim. Because wherever, whatever I do,
I feel like an imposter. Like whether it's my Jewish
side, because I know that I'm not 100% Jewish.
Whether it's, you know, the Latin American side because I

(50:28):
know. OK, so my mom is from Latin
American. I grew up visiting her country,
and I have cousins that still live in her country and they
have children. So I have all this family and I
do speak the language and I do eat the foods and all that
cultural stuff, but it's still not exactly the same.
It's a subset of culture. And then this African American
piece that I didn't know anything about.
And I don't know what I have rights to, especially since I

(50:49):
wasn't created on purpose. You've said that a few times,
like I'm not supposed to be here.
I wasn't created on purpose. Why do you think that that comes
up so strong? Because I.
Wasn't because nobody would havechosen this, right?
Like if somebody maybe had an affair or one night stand or
something, even if you were inadvertent, there were

(51:11):
decisions that were made that kind of makes sense, right?
Or but like for this, there was nothing about my existence that
anybody would have done on purpose.
No doctor in his right mind would have accidentally created
a biracial baby for white parents and my parents knowing
who they are, especially my mom,she would have adopted like a

(51:36):
Hispanic baby because she's fromLatin America and like she but
she would never have wanted a biracial baby.
So it's just hard because my brother was exactly what they
wanted. He came out 100% Ashkenazi
Jewish, and I always felt he wasthe favorite.

(51:57):
He was kind of like the golden child.
And I always felt like I didn't measure up.
And I feel like this is kind of part of it because like, they
just wanted a baby. So they were happy to have a
baby, but I wasn't what they wanted.
Where have you landed with your parents today?
We don't talk about it at all. Not really, no.

(52:19):
Has your. Relationship changed.
Yes, especially with my mother. I still am very hurt, I think
because she hasn't learned as much as I would have hoped.
You know, she's not really racially sensitive.
She's still doesn't understand and it's all about her.
Whereas my dad, I think he apologized right away.

(52:42):
His apologies were genuine and Ithink in a way I think he would
have told me earlier even thoughmy mom blames him for the whole
thing. I think he would have told me
earlier because I think he just knew and it was weighing on him.
But I think they were both in this lie together.
And there was a part of my dad too I think that thought that I
wouldn't love him if I knew thatwe weren't related, which isn't

(53:04):
the case. Like the reason I'm out of my
mom and we are related is because I felt that she
knowingly inflicted pain and cause insecurities and didn't
care. Have you reached a place of of
self acceptance with your racialidentity and some of those

(53:25):
insecurities that you grew up with?
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you had
this experience, but I think finding out I think in a way
like led to more self acceptancebecause it made sense.
I think making sense kind of makes you like yourself more.
Where is constantly trying to explain away things I think

(53:46):
makes you feel more insecure. I think it felt really good.
Like I stopped relaxing my hair.I stopped like wearing so much.
I mean I don't go out in the sunthat much anyway now cuz I don't
wanna get wrinkled and like it'shot but it's not the same as
when you're 7 right? But like, I think I felt more
like I made sense because it's really hard.

(54:08):
It was weighing on me to not make sense.
What do? You say now when people ask you.
Mix cuz I think that probably more captures reality.
You don't say I'm mixed. You know?
My mom is from Latin America so I have both of those cultures.
But I think saying I'm black doesn't feel right because I
didn't grow up in black culture and I feel like black is not a
race, it's an ethnicity. So like, that doesn't fit right.

(54:32):
But I think mixed fits because it's accurate.
Like I'm racially a mixed personand that is why I'm perceived
the way that I am culturally. I'm a combination of someone who
is of Jewish, Latin American culture in American, obviously.
But I think that kind of is where I've landed because that
feels the most authentic. I mentioned I had googled like
African American or Jewish people that look African

(54:54):
American and I'd found like LisaBonet and I'd found Lenny
Kravitz. Well, I saw an article in the
New York Times a couple of yearsago, it must have been about 8
or 9 years ago about Lacey Schwartz and she had this
documentary called Little White Lie that was on.
I saw it on Amazon and I read the article and I forgot all
about this, but I immediately wrote to her and I didn't know

(55:14):
any of the story. This was before the DNA test
anything. And I wrote to her and I'm like,
Oh my God, like I'm not black, but this so much.
Your story resonates. And I've always wondered, but it
just kind of goes to show like I've been really trying for a
very long time to understand thestory.
And that story resonated with me.
And it must have been almost 10 years ago at this point, like.

(55:36):
Well. Before any of this and I still
like when I found out like you know when I told you I had the
you know I knew that my mom was hiding something.
I tried test like I had bought atest and it disappeared like all
of the stuff. But then when I found out, like
I felt like the dumbest person alive, like so dumb.
And like people tell you you're dumb too.
I don't know if they do it to you, but they they tell me like,

(55:58):
are you dumb? Like, how did you not know?
And I'm like, I'm, I just didn'tlike I knew and I didn't like, I
think that's probably the most accurate answer.
Like it's not that I didn't know, it's that I didn't know,
you know? Like I knew.
Yeah, it's just what you said though.
You believe what your parents tell you.
I mean, I feel like I probably didn't get as much of the are
you dumb? Because my dad is Mexican and

(56:19):
he's dark. Why would you say no?
I, I don't believe you. Why would you confront your mom
and be like, did you have an affair?
Like, I mean, that's a bold thing to do, especially as a
child. Right.
And your origin story is fundamental to who you are.
And like, also when you're Jewish, like your ethnic
identity is such a huge part of who you are.

(56:41):
And also there's a huge part of being Jewish that really focuses
on like this, the line, the matrilineal line and like all of
that. And like these like the
fundamental thing, like you meetsomeone and the first thing as
you Jewish, like it's the first thing that they ask.
So it's so fundamental. So for me to like even question
that. And also my mom was very

(57:01):
conservative and like to question her integrity.
Like I, it took me like over 40 years to develop the guts to
even like mail in Adna test because I was so scared, like I
didn't know what I was gonna find by the time my mails in and
I knew there was something goingon.
But even then, like there was still so much denial going on.
I literally ordered a 23andMe right after I was in acceptance.

(57:24):
A little bit before the 23andMe results came, I called my
brother and he was like, well, that's got to be correct, you
know. And by the way, my parents
didn't tell him he was donor conceived.
I didn't. They never told him didn't they
never discussed and. How did he take Well I.
Think by then he was staying up to date with the saga and then
he was just like, well, I was like, it's possible because

(57:45):
you're short and you kind of resemble them.
I'm like, it's possible that thesperm mixing micro magic,
whatever they told my parents worked.
I don't know. And it did not.
I know he found like 1/2 sibling.
We haven't really talked about it.
I think it affected me more deeply than it did him.
I think personally he's a guy and I think for whatever reason,
I think men don't react the sameway.
And secondly, I think he looked the part.

(58:07):
So I don't think he had like a lifetime of unanswered questions
in the way that I did. I'm.
Interested in your perspective here because we had similar
discoveries but in different ways, right?
Did you have do you have any grief about the fact that you
didn't know earlier and therefore aren't really able to
connect with that half of? Yourself 100%.

(58:30):
I think my experience and yours too.
In a lot of ways, it's similar to the transracial adoptee
experience, right? Because they grow up.
They're brought here from the United States, and they grew up.
And like, when I was a kid, people didn't really bother to
teach them their culture. And I've heard a lot of stories
where people would say, you know, like, they outwardly look

(58:51):
to be like Asian or whatever therace is, but they don't know
anything and have any connectionto that culture.
Like it was just kind of cut offbecause the parents never
bothered to teach them about it.And there's a family in our
neighborhood. Some of the kids went to school
with my kids. And both of the kids were
adopted from Ethiopia by like white and white South Asian
parents, so not African parents.And the parents, like had the

(59:15):
kids go to these Ethiopian groups.
Like they fed them Ethiopian food.
And then they actually took the kids back to Ethiopia and
reconnected them with their biological family.
You know, I thought it was amazing.
But then also in a sense, it's like, wow.
Because they never, I mean, maybe they do in some level, but
on the other hand, they were raised to know who they were and
where they came from. And there wasn't this

(59:36):
expectation that their identity become subsumed by their parents
identity. Because when you're not the same
as your parents, like there's a whole half of your identity that
matters. And I feel that I lost the
ability to learn how to move andnavigate in the African American

(59:58):
community in an authentic way. Because in a lot of ways, I was
just taught to navigate in a very different world.
And then there were times when, like, there was a mismatch, like
when it was really obvious that I wasn't being perceived, you
know, as a white person, when I'd have to try to figure it out
by myself. And I wish I had the chance to,

(01:00:19):
like, get to know more, like, eat African American foods and
understand black culture better and grow up among black people.
Like I grew up in a 100% white neighborhood, there was
literally nobody like me and I wish I had that because it's not
my fault. No, it's not your fault at all.
But you are left to navigate it right you.

(01:00:40):
Are and which is tricky because I think there's certain things
that, you know, parents had conversations that people have
with their kids like that are unique and specific to a
culture. And there's just so there's a
certain vocabulary or language or I don't know what the right
word is, but like a way of navigating the world that's tied
to a culture. And they're just certain things
that you intrinsically understand when you grow up in a

(01:01:02):
culture and when you didn't, it's harder because people think
you should know that language, but you don't.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
What advice do you have for parents who are hiding adna
surprise from their child? Stop.
Like don't do it because it's not your information, it's your

(01:01:23):
child's information and your ownpersonal fears and insecurities
are not your child's issue. I think especially in the donor
conceived world, and I know thishappens, I think in general, but
I think at the time I was created, I can only really speak
to that because that's what I'velearned from my parents.
I think there was so much deep shame in it and this idea that

(01:01:48):
nurture matters more than natureor you can kind of design a baby
to your image, but that's not the way humans are.
And I didn't sign up for that. Like I didn't agree to be
created by a donor. And just the fact that one of my
biological parents is a donor doesn't mean that that genetic

(01:02:09):
and identity is any less important than the genetic
identity of the parent who raised me.
So I think parents should think about that, because even if you
don't value it, your child does.What advice do you have for
someone who just uncovered Adna Surprise?
Maybe one similar to your own? Still working through it but
it's been 4 years. I think maybe Grace, like your

(01:02:33):
parents messed up and I think it's reasonable to be mad and
it's reasonable to be angry. But I think what helped me move
forward in a lot of ways was trying to understand like what
my parents mindset was at that time and why they acted the way
they did. Even if I think there are a
million things they should have done differently and I would

(01:02:53):
never have done, I like to thinkI would never have done what
they did. They were also operating within
a certain culture. They were told by their doctors
that it was. They didn't need to tell anyone.
They believed certain things about secrecy.
And there was a time when peopledidn't tell their kids they were
adopted either. And that was considered OK.
And it's wrong. And we know that now.

(01:03:15):
And I think sometimes you have to be compassionate.
But at the same time, I think it's also fair to expect an
apology and to expect them to learn.
And if they don't figure out a way to navigate it.
Ultimately it's up to you. Like for me, I can't.
I'm not the type of person that could ever go no contact with my
mom, even though she hasn't donewhat I would have liked her to

(01:03:37):
do or responded the way I would have liked her to do.
I just know that's who she is. And even though she didn't
accept me in in the ways I wouldhave hoped, I just decided, at
least for me, that I can have a relationship with her on my
terms because I value that and she knows I'm still hurt.
But that doesn't make it OK. Just don't feel that there's one

(01:04:00):
particular way to handle it or one particular response you have
to have. It's perfectly OK for your
parents to disappoint you and toalso decide not to go no contact
if that's what works for you. But it's really individual how
you want to handle your parents.Lori, thank you so much for
coming on the podcast and sharing your story.

(01:04:21):
I know it resonated deeply for me, and I'm sure it's going to
resonate deeply for others who are listening.
And I just wish you the best as you kind of figure all of this
out. Thanks.
So much thanks for having me. Thanks again to Lori for sharing
her story, and thank you to all of the guests who trusted me
with your stories this season. If you have a DNA Surprise that

(01:04:44):
you'd like to share, please submit your story at
dnasurprises.com. If you'd like to support the
show, please rate and review thepodcast on Apple and Spotify.
It really helps. You can also join me over on
Patreon for early ad free accessto episodes.
We're taking a short break for the summer, but we'll be back

(01:05:05):
soon with new DNA Surprise stories.
Thank you for listening. Until next time.
This episode of DNA Surprises was hosted, produced and edited
by me, Alexis Oursalt. It was mixed and mastered by
Josh Oursalt of Siren Recording Studios.