September 23, 2025 • 41 mins
Dad. Bio dad. Genetic father. Father. After people connect with their newfound biological fathers, they often struggle with what to call them. And what about the dads we grew up with? Raised dad. Step-dad. Birth-certificate dad. Then there’s the well-meaning but perpetually frustrating phrase, “your dad is still your dad.” Love that one.
Many of us do continue calling the dads we grew up with dad. But what if your relationship with your raised father is traumatic? What if you were always distant, and there’s no real love lost after uncovering a DNA surprise?
In this week’s episode, Luisa shares a name I hadn’t heard yet on the show - Fake Dad. She shares how she uncovered her DNA surprise and the impact that it had on her relationship with her parents, as well as the biological father she was able to identify. He’s called “New Dad,” by the way.
A quick warning before this episode begins - there is mention of childhood sexual abuse during our conversation.
Thank you for sharing your story, Luisa.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So I try to find a nice balance.I don't call them anymore.
They've stopped calling me. I'm just done with them.
They had their chance. They had their chance to build a
meaningful relationship with me.There's beautiful people in the
world. I have a really great
relationship with my children and I would never put them
through what my mom put me through.
(00:22):
Welcome to DNA Surprises, a 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 outthat I'm an NPE, a person who
has experienced a non paternal event.
(00:43):
In other words, my biological father isn't who I thought he
was. Join me as we explore the
stories of NP, ES, adoptees and donor conceived people and their
families. Get ready to unravel the
astonishing journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.
This is DNA surprises dad, bio dad, genetic father or just
(01:11):
father. After people connect with their
new found biological fathers, they often struggle with what to
call them. And what about the dads we grew
up with? Raised dad, stepdad, birth
certificate dad. Then there's the well meaning
but perpetually frustrating phrase.
(01:32):
Your dad is still your dad. Love that one.
Many of us do continue calling the dads we grew up with Dad.
But what if your relationship with your raised father is
traumatic? What if you were always distant
and there's no real love lost? After uncovering Adna surprise
(01:54):
in this week's episode, Louisa shares a name I hadn't heard yet
on the show. Fake Dad.
She shares how she uncovered herDNA surprise and the impact that
it had on her relationship with her parents, as well as the
biological father she was able to identify.
He's called new dad. By the way, a quick warning
(02:17):
before this episode begins, there is mention of childhood
sexual abuse during our conversation.
Thank you for sharing your story, Louisa.
My name is Louisa. I currently live in Ohio, but I
was born in Germany, actually East Germany behind a wall, and
we moved here to Ohio when I was13.
(02:39):
I grew up in East Germany with abrother.
He was three years older than me.
My mom, my dad, which we will call fake that as it turns out,
and my career mom all in the same household.
It was a pretty normal upbringing.
A few incidences that I kind of remember growing up that looking
(03:01):
back now are really weird and they will kind of set the stage
for what I will find out later. The first one was my fake dad's
dad's funeral. So my grandpa on fake dad's
side, he had passed away and everybody went to the funeral
except for me. I was left behind at home.
It was so upsetting to me that Itook up my dress, this beautiful
(03:25):
dress that I owned. I was probably about six years
old at the time. And I cut it all up to show my
anger and a destructive way that, you know, I thought would
hurt my parents for leaving me behind.
They, of course, explained it. Oh, it was because I was so
young and kids shouldn't be at funerals, which the old I got, I
was like, oh, I guess that's understandable.
(03:47):
Another incident that's very pronounced was I saved my pin
money. I was probably 8 at the time and
it was during the times when catalogs was a thing still and
everything got ordered off catalogs and I bought Fake dad
this Christmas tape that I thought would be a really
(04:08):
exciting opportunity for us to listen together.
I was really excited about it. It was a big deal to me.
I remember feeling so heartbroken when it was kind of
rejected. It was he doesn't need this, so
why would we waste our money buying this?
And it like really hurt my feelings because I thought it
was a great gift. And it was just like this
(04:30):
rejection from these adults that, you know, that are
supposed to live here. And there's other things.
My mom growing up there was a story about that she would bring
up all the time when I was beingdifficult how she was going to
have an abortion and she was laying in the chair and
(04:51):
something told her not to and here I am and how I should just
be very thankful that she changed her mind at the very
last minute and I shouldn't evenbe here.
The story has been told even before I found any of this out.
Kind of like accompanied me my whole life.
Similar another story is that she always claimed she had found
(05:12):
me in the bushes and that's why I was so different.
How did you feel hearing those kinds of things?
I mean, hearing that your mom almost had an abortion and that
didn't, and then here you are. I mean, how did that affect you?
I can't even tell you because that is one of those stories
that you've always been told. So you just like, I don't
(05:36):
remember how it first made me feel because I was probably
really young when at first when she first normalized telling
that story. And now looking back, it makes
sense. But it's just like I even if I
ever thought about an abortion, I would never tell my kids about
that. I would never.
(05:57):
Like not a prop that in. There, Yeah.
Wrap that in their face and makeit part of their growing up,
essentially, which is now it's hurtful.
Like now with now that I have all the information, it's just
very hurtful. I feel like it wasn't a very
close relationship with anybody.Me and my brother were close
(06:18):
enough but far enough apart. We were just always kind of
bickering with each other. So there wasn't a lot of love
lost. I feel like the closest
relationship I had was with my grandmother, my mom's mom.
She actually had a really rough family history.
She has a lot of PTSD that I think she knowing now what I do
(06:39):
about PTSD and how it's a generational trauma.
I understand how that influencedmy mother's behavior in certain
ways. So my grandma, she actually grew
up in Prussia and when World War2 happened, she was a young
teenager and they were originally from Germany and the
(07:00):
Russians started entering World War 2 and they started bombing
in the towns and kind of like migrating West in hopes of
defeating Hitler. And so my grandma and her family
were caught in the middle of allthis, of these two mega forces
battling it out right where theywere living.
(07:21):
And I remember her telling me how they had to pick up all
their belongings and actually walk all the way to Germany from
Prussia. Many family members died.
It was really tough growing up for her, and it really scarred
her in a lot of ways. Growing up.
She would always hide when we had fireworks in the city
(07:44):
because it reminded her of the bombs falling, and it was really
hard to watch her and hear her tell these stories.
So I can accept the fact that her trauma probably influenced
how my mom grew up. My mother always said she had a
very difficult relationship withmy grandma.
When I was 13 years old, my parents decided to take a job in
(08:08):
America. My daddy's job offered him a
position here in Ohio. This is after the wall had come
down and they economy was in turmoil and then they thought it
as a good opportunity to do something more with their lives.
Especially both of them grew up behind the wall and it was very
(08:31):
restricted living behind the wall.
So they saw this as a great opportunity while they moved me
and them to America and they left my brother, who's only 16
at the time, behind in Germany by himself.
He actually moved in with my fake dad's grandmother.
Back then it was all explained away and in an orderly fashion
(08:51):
why this is happening. But looking back now, I would
never leave my 16 year old in a different continent.
What did you think about moving to the United States during that
time? Were you excited?
I was. Excited and you know, you see
some of the movies at that time,it was a little after the wall
had come down. So the Western TV started being
(09:13):
on and you saw all these series and Western life and you're
like, oh, that's, that's really cool.
Especially America. It just seemed like a really
neat opportunity. Before we move, I walked in on a
conversation that was happening in the kitchen.
I was 13 years old and I think it was grandma and the parents
(09:35):
and my brother. And they were talking about a
sister and I was like what do you mean a sister?
And they were like oh Louisa walked in on us.
Now we have to tell her. Apparently there existed 1/2
sister that was the same age as my brother, and the story goes
(09:56):
that my dad got two women pregnant at the same time.
He was seeing both of them and his parents made him choose one
of the women. He ended up choosing my mom, but
they were both pregnant. They both had their children.
She had a daughter, my mom had ason.
Shortly after my brother was born, they actually ended up
(10:17):
getting married. Now my mom claims she was forced
into that marriage by fake dad'smom.
If it was really up to her, she would have never ended up
marrying him. So the daughter at that time
would have been also 16 like my brother.
He was never in her life. He did pay child support and
(10:38):
that's actually the conversationI walked in on.
How will these child support payments keep flowing once
they're moved to America? And I'm like, well, who cares
about that? I want to meet the sister.
I have a sister out there. I've always wanted a sister.
I only grew up with a brother, and we always had a very
contentious relationship. Maybe she looks like me.
(11:00):
Maybe we can be friends. I was over the moon.
I was so excited. I was the driving force that
finally got us to meet her. I begged my parents that I
really wanted to meet the sisterthat I had, and it ended up
being me, my brother and my mom that ended up meeting her at a
restaurant. And I want to say fake that this
(11:26):
is after we had already moved tothe US and because it takes a
little time to, you know, establish the relationship and
get to a point of where you wantto meet somebody.
We all met with her at a restaurant and it was lovely.
She was a really sweet person. We don't look anything alike.
(11:46):
I was kind of a bummer for yearsand I was looking for
similarities, but and that was really that.
So when we're living in America,we had been here for a year now,
that fig that assaulted me, it wasn't a rape, but it was a
sexual assault. And I was so young at the time.
(12:06):
That's how I processed it is like, oh, he didn't rape you.
It's OK. You can just forget about it.
You don't need to think about it.
It will be OK. And I completely just black that
out of my memory and I'm so. Sorry.
Thank you. I would go about my business.
You know, you're you're in high school, you're starting.
(12:29):
I'm trying to learn a new language.
I didn't speak English when I moved here, so I'm trying to
learn English. That happened.
I'm trying to make friends. Being a teenager and finding
yourself in a new friend situation is so difficult.
And it was a very volatile time.I wouldn't even know even if I
wanted to tell somebody besides my mother who was out of town
(12:53):
when that happened. And when she came back, a few
days had passed and I'm just like, OK, it's gone.
We're just moving on. It's just us 3 here.
Like these are the two people that I rely on in my life.
I have literally nobody else. It's not like I know any any
teachers that I've known for a few years or any friends.
(13:13):
I wouldn't even know how to communicate something like that
to anybody. It's incredible what your mind
does. And I just went about my
business. However, it really took a toll
on our relationships further andthe next few years were really
volatile. Lots of fights.
He was always still traveling, so it was all me and my mom just
(13:37):
fighting and we didn't see eye to eye.
There was times when we got intophysical alterations just hard.
There was a lot of talk of you're a difficult child, you
always want everything. You are just complicate.
You make our life complicated ina sense.
(13:59):
I was when we were still living in Germany.
I was running around with teenagers that also didn't like
their home life. And we met on the streets and
we're just out and about at all hours.
And I felt more of a connection to those people than my own
parents. I've run away from home once
(14:19):
just for one night, but it was like I just couldn't take it
anymore. It was a moment where me and my
mom had gotten in a lot of fights, yeah.
That's but you know, I just wantto say because I think sometimes
children, but you were a child hear that.
And the reality is you, you werea kid.
(14:40):
Yes, my husband put it really nicely.
He said, because my oldest is actually one of a different
relationship. So he, my husband and him are
not related. But he met him when he was three
years old and he is now almost 20, so they've been in each
other's lives for a long time. He really opened my eyes.
(15:01):
He said it's the same as me blaming your son for us not
getting along at certain times. And I'm like, you're right, no
kid should have that put on their shoulders that they're the
reason this relationship is so difficult.
So I'm living in America. I'm kind of trying to figure out
(15:23):
how to make this relationship with my parents work.
It's just as three. None of the other family ever
really like kept in touch. The only one that sent me
letters was my grandma on my mother's side that used to live
with us. Other than that into this day I
have 0 relationships with any ofthem except my brother, his
(15:45):
daughter and then my ex half sister.
I was probably 17. I went back to Germany for a
visit because my grandma was dying on fake that side.
I went to visit her and she justhad no idea who I was.
I was like, oh, I'm your granddaughter.
She was struggling with dementia.
She said these words and they haunt me to this day.
(16:07):
She says, but I don't have a granddaughter.
I have asked my brother, did sheever not remember you?
And he's like Oh no, she knew she even to the end like there
was dementia moments but like the people around her she would
still kind of register. And later I put it together that
that's fake Dad's mom. And of course she didn't have a
(16:27):
granddaughter. More along the lines of my mom
and me fighting is during one ofthese fights or it might have
been a series of fights. She took all my baby picture
albums and ripped them all up. I have 0 pictures of anybody
with me as a baby. They're all ripped in half and
(16:48):
all that was left behind was just my picture.
Nobody else in the picture, evenherself.
She ripped the doll in half and took all the people out of all
the photo albums that she's leftbehind, which is just I, I can't
even like, I always put myself in her shoes.
And when I think of my own children and doing that to my
(17:10):
children, I just want to cry. Yeah, that's unbelievable.
Always in our fight, she would leave little Nuggets of your
real dad never wanted you. I'm going along with the
abortion claims from early in mychildhood and it got set a few
times. It kind of like stuck in my
head. So for probably 1520 years, the,
(17:33):
the all these thoughts always circling in my head.
I'm going about my life, I'm building my life, I'm going
through college, I meet my husband, I get my CPA, I have a
very good career. I'm building my life here.
We get married, we have two morechildren.
We now have three children. And I take a job in a nonprofit.
(17:58):
It deals with children and thereare also troubled children
there. So as an employee of this
nonprofit, we received what is called trauma informed Care,
which is a seminar that you takeand we went through it for a few
days. And during that seminar they go
through certain exercises about your life and what are some
(18:20):
traumatic and triggering events.And we go through this exercise
and my mind is just like, guess what happened to you?
This is what happened to you. Do you remember this?
It was almost like I experiencedit for a second time as an
adult. I am glad it happened because
who knows how long I still wouldhave cut that part in my brain
(18:42):
off and and filed it away. Now it's about over 10 years ago
now. From that moment on, it was
just, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It was constant, my thoughts constantly, like he did this and
this and this and this and what do you do now?
What do you do? I have my own life.
(19:03):
I still try to maintain a relationship with my mom and
fake dad because they're the only family I've left,
especially on this continent. I don't really have any other
connections to my origin family besides my brother.
So I'm still making it work. It's very anxiety driven.
(19:23):
They've never really gotten along with my husband in the
beginning either, so their relationship has always been
very volatile. He never knew about any of it
until a few years ago when I finally opened up to him.
He is actually very encouraging of just just cut them off.
They're not adding any positive value in your life.
So it was very stressful time. I started seeing therapists and
(19:48):
life coaches and kind of trying to get to a better place in
2020. So five years ago, my mom and
fake dad moved back to Europe. They ended up leaving the US and
might I say the only grandchildren they actually have
and moved not to Germany but to Hungary to live out their
(20:12):
retirement years over there. It's been five years now.
I've only seen them once. That was two years ago.
So two years ago was the last time I seen them.
And I've just been going throughout my life as normal
when last August, my brother suddenly texted everyone and
(20:33):
there is a group chat going on between all the different people
all over the world. And he texted how great his DNA
test turned out. And here's all the regions that
popped up and and look at this and I'm German.
Just as we expected, they're picking up the Eastern European
from grandma side and the rest is all German.
(20:55):
There's some Great Britain in there.
Where did that come from? It must be from someone else's
family. He was so excited and he just
kind of like opened Pandora's box because the moment he sent
that text, I jumped on it. I was like, oh, what DNA test
did you use? And he was like, oh, I used
MyHeritage. That's the most popular in
(21:16):
Germany. So I went with that.
I was like, oh, I'm buying me one.
I want to, I want to see. And in my head I'm like, I'm
finally going to get my answer. I'm going to get my answer to
these questions that have just been sitting in my head for
decades. And so I run out the same day I
grab the test or I order it, andit took forever in the mail.
(21:40):
And every day I'm looking on theapp, just waiting, just waiting.
I wake up usually about 4:20 in the morning to go to the gym.
And so I'm waking up at 4:20 andwhat's sitting in my inbox is
the test result that just changed everything.
(22:01):
Turns out he's my half brother. And immediately I'm like, I knew
it. He's not my father.
I I just knew it. And my husband, you know, I wake
him up right away and I'm like, hey, the test is here and I'm
right. I've been right my whole life.
And he's like, well hold on. It could also mean that maybe
your brother isn't his and you are really his.
(22:22):
And I'm like, Oh my God no, thatwould make no sense.
I can tell it was such an emotional moment for you.
Was it relief? Was it upset?
Like what? What were you feeling was just?
Disbelief. It probably took, it took a few
hours. The first moment was I knew it
(22:44):
and then I was like, Oh my God, this just changes everything.
And then I'm like texting them because I'm actually six hours
behind. So they are already awake.
It's 10 in the morning for them.And so I'm texting my brother.
I'm like, have you seen the results?
And he's like, no, no, I'm at work.
I'll look later. And I'm like, I need you to look
right now. And he's like, OK, give me a
(23:06):
minute. And I'm just standing there in
my kitchen and like, Oh my God, Oh my God.
And he's not responding. So I'm like, I got to go to work
and I got to go exercise. It just took my mind off the
whole thing. It was so relieving.
I'm so glad I went because the rest of the day was just pure
health. So I go to exercise and I
(23:28):
finally come back and he's finally answered me.
And he's like, what in the worldis this?
What does this mean? And I'm like, it says we're only
half related. And his first impulse is he
calls them right away. They don't answer.
We tried twice to get them on the phone right away.
They don't know at this point that I have received my results.
(23:50):
However, they did know that I was taking the test because when
I said, oh, I'll do it too, I said that in the group chat.
So they knew that this was aboutto come out and they didn't say
a single word. And again, they didn't answer
our phone calls. Finally my brother ended up
texting them and saying like what does this mean?
(24:13):
Where you know, she's my half sister.
Like you got to you got to call us and there was no response.
But you could see that they saw the message and I'm like, what
is going on? Took them another two hours
before I finally received a textmessage that they are now ready
for me to call them. And they are saying this in the
group chat. They're like essentially telling
(24:35):
my brother, it's none of your business.
We're now talking to Louisa, please call us.
And I'm like, what just happened?
They literally took their time and made me wait to get their
story straight. That's literally all that's
going through my head. We call them up and they're just
like, this is what happened. We all know that fake dad had a
(25:00):
affair on my mom, and she got back at him and I'm like, what
does that even mean? And she's like, oh, I had this
affair with an Italian guy. And I was like, oh, hey, well,
I'm three years younger than my brother and you guys are already
married. And she's like, oh, yeah, your
(25:20):
dad's out of town. And he was a patron at the hotel
that she worked at. And she just slept with him and
she claims he got her pregnant on the first drive.
And that's the end of it, apparently.
Come to find out, the whole family knew about this.
Everybody knew I was not his daughter, which now makes so
(25:44):
much sense because nobody ever really bothered to keep in touch
with me. When I was about I think 18
years old, My aunt and uncle, which is a fake dad's brother
asked me not to call them on, did not go anymore and they just
framed their oh, we're too old for that.
Just call us ex-wife. I always thought that was kind
(26:05):
of bizarre. But you know, different people
have different opinions about things and if they want to be
called that, then I can appreciate that.
Sure, I can do that. Looking back now is Oh well that
makes a lot of sense now becauseit probably bothered them that I
was calling them aunt and uncle when they were really weren't a
(26:28):
fun fact. I have never heard from them
again since I found out that's. What I was going to say like I
everyone certainly is entitled to their own reaction, but just
the idea that that these were your your aunt and uncle now
they knew correct they. Knew.
About this so they were holding it and then once you found out,
(26:50):
disowned you. Pretty much.
I mean, it's not like they came out and said, oh, we won't talk
to you anymore. But there's before there was at
least a Christmas message or a, you know, Christmas past.
Now my birthday is coming up. We'll see what kind of reactions
we get there. But my brother is actually very
close with aunt and uncle, said aunt and uncle and he went to
(27:12):
them the same day that I found out.
And that's how we found out thateverybody knew.
And they claim that this Italianman was her boyfriend.
They literally called him her boyfriend.
And I don't think you do that when you have a one night stand.
There has to be more connection for the other family members to
(27:35):
call him her little boyfriend. When I pulled up MyHeritage
results and I saw my brother wasmy half brother, it also popped
up all these Italian people as my closest connections.
We know nobody in Italy. So I didn't actually think
anything of it until she said, oh it was an Italian man.
(27:57):
He was at my hotel, he got me pregnant.
I slept with him because I was angry at your father, is how she
worded it. And her next sentence was, Oh my
God, you look just like him. I was like, oh, that's nice to
know. So who is he?
Oh, he is such and such. He lives there and there and you
can find him online. She gave me all this information
(28:21):
and I am 42 years old and this woman has kept track of him.
She knew how many children he had.
She knew where he was living, where I could find him.
I found him within 5 minutes with the information she was
telling me over the phone. I just found him on Facebook and
I send her a picture of him. I was like, this is him.
(28:44):
And she's like, Oh yeah, that's him.
That looks just like him. Oh, it was just so surreal.
Like she. I just couldn't believe her.
It was all right there. She claims that he knew all
along that she had a baby. Her story goes that when she
found out that she was pregnant with me, she told him and he
(29:07):
wanted nothing to do with it. Gave her $600 to have an
abortion. And I was like, well that's very
specific number and $600.00 is alot of money nowadays.
Back then, that would have been,I mean, East Germany 600, I'm
(29:30):
assuming German marks back then,but that would have been almost
like a little fortune. And for her to be like, oh,
yeah, he wanted me to have an abortion, goes right back into,
oh, she went to the abortion clinic and was on the chair and
was going to have the abortion and then didn't.
And here we are. So that that's the story she's
(29:52):
sticking to. Then she does claim that
afterwards once he basically said, I want nothing to do with
it. Here's the money.
She ended up going to fake that and saying, OK, this is what's
happening. And he said, I'll take care of
you. I will race this child as my own
(30:13):
and we'll just make this work. They claim that fake.
That was the one that decided tonever tell me.
On the 1st phone call we had they literally said in a very
joking funny way, like it's all a big joke to them, that we
would have taken this to the grave.
(30:34):
How could we have ever known that there was going to be DNA
tests and you're ever going to find out?
I couldn't even ask them any detailed question because I I
was like I don't even know if I'm getting the truth from them.
There was another phone call that I had with her when I asked
her some follow up questions where she literally said oh I
(30:56):
blame your father fake that. I blame him for forcing me to
lie to you all these years. I blame new dad that he got me
pregnant in the 1st place and I blame you for being such a
difficult child. All within a 2 minute little
conversation that this is awesome after all these years.
(31:20):
Where are things at with her now?
I am not speaking with them. I ended up making contact with
my new dad. It's very difficult.
They don't speak German, I don'tspeak Italian, they don't speak
English. So everything we have
communicated so far is over textmessage and I will type out my
(31:42):
text message on WhatsApp in English, hit the translate
button and hope my message arrives in the same sentiment
that I mean for it to sound on their end.
Is he excited about you? Like what is his reaction?
About his story, he claims that he did have an affair with her.
(32:06):
There was a single one night stand versus all the other
claims of oh he was her little boyfriend.
He says at the time he had just met his wife that he's still now
married to. He had just met her a month
before but they were still in the very early beginnings of
their relationship. He claims that he did not just
(32:32):
leave the country but was kickedout, that he had this
relationship with her, went backto Italy for vacation or time
off, and when he tried to come back, his passport and visa were
revoked. Now this is still eastern and
western Germany. There was a wall, so it's really
(32:52):
hard to travel in and out of Eastern Europe.
His visa was revoked and he was never allowed to enter the
country again. He does say that he did receive
a phone call from her after I was born, but she never said
anything about a baby. Neither one of their stories
line up. I'm going to say it was probably
(33:13):
in between those two stories. I do think he knew about me.
He texts me like once a month and I know that's a lot to some
people. I always want more but he always
keeps saying how important his wife is to him and his wife is
his number one and this is not going to interfere with his
wife's relationship. He doesn't come right out and
(33:34):
say it but to me that means don't expect much out of our
relationship and I have asked about meeting him and there
hasn't really been any movement with that.
He doesn't seem to really want to go there.
He hasn't straight out said no, but anytime I brought up oh I'll
come and visit to Italy, it's not like jumping on it.
(33:55):
Whereas I have now found out I have two brothers, actually two
more brothers and the one brother is actually older than
me. So new dad had a child with
someone in Spain, then had a child with someone in Germany,
and then married his wife and had another child in Italy.
(34:16):
Well, the wife does know about the other child from Spain, the
brother that's older than me, but there's no relationship
there because he is in jail. But the younger brother does
talk to me, and he has expressedan interest in meeting me,
although only his wife speaks a little English.
(34:37):
So he's always keep saying, oh, she'll have to translate and
brush up on her English. And I think in this day and age,
it would be really easy to find a translator to come along on a
visit or, you know, find someonein town that can kind of
facilitate a meeting. I don't see a big problem with
that. But every country has different
(34:58):
cultures. I know nothing about about
Italian. I know nothing about MyHeritage.
I'm really sad about not ever having connected with that part
of myself. What are you really hoping for
in your relationship based off of what you know today?
(35:20):
I've settled down in my expectations a little.
I was very excited because I never felt like a connected with
my origin family very well. So knowing that there is a
different piece of me out there genetically that might be like
me would be really exciting. And I was like, oh, I'm going to
(35:41):
meet all these people. I'll go to Italy.
And I've always wanted to go to Italy.
There are certain things, For example, Germans are known to be
very white. They don't tan very well, right?
My whole life, as you can see right now, I'm very tan.
My whole life. Everybody always was like, Are
you sure you're German? Because you, you look very tan.
(36:03):
Like I thought, German's on tan.I'm like, yeah, German's tan.
Look at me. I'm also German and I'm, I tan.
And now I'm like, no, I'm Italian.
So I would love to go. I would love to go there.
I would love to hug them. I would love to know that as
difficult as my mom was, I am not her.
I'm more like them. I'm actually a very happy and
(36:25):
sunny individual overall. I'm really excited that my truth
finally came out and it was a good truth because now I'm like
fake that is has nothing to do with me.
He is a sad man that made a horrible choice in his life.
(36:47):
And it's not just that it's it'snot like we had a close
relationship to begin with. Same with my mother.
There was nothing close. There is now nothing that I miss
anymore. I have stopped talking to them
in any meaningful way. They're already occasional
she'll try to send me an articleabout something political and
(37:07):
it's like, oh, what do you thinkabout that?
And I'll ignore her. And however, I still have to
deal with their finances over here, so there's always going to
be some connection that has to stay in place, which is
unfortunate. But my husband says just cut
them off and be done with it. I just can't take that last
step. So I try to find a nice balance.
(37:31):
I don't call them anymore. They've stopped calling me.
I'm just done with them. They had their chance.
They had their chance to build ameaningful relationship with me.
What I thought was 1/2 sister. I now have no sister.
However, I I have shared that story with her and she was very,
very sweet and we're still in contact so.
(37:53):
She's now. She's now a good friend and
probably still a sister. There's beautiful people in the
world. I have a really great
relationship with my children and I would never put them
through what my mom put me through.
What advice do you have for a parent who may be keeping a DNA
surprise from their child? Don't do it, parents.
(38:15):
There's two groups. One is the most modern parent
who knows that the tests are outthere.
So I think that is just going tobe a non issue.
But for anybody listening that might have still not told their
child, just have a conversation with them.
The most hurtful thing really was when it's it's not that they
(38:38):
didn't tell me my whole life shethey claimed there was never a
good spot to tell me. But the moment I said I am
taking this test, it will come out.
It's just a matter of weeks. And they said nothing.
That is so painful to know that these that parents could do
that. So don't do it.
Just don't do it. And what advice do you have for
(39:00):
someone who just uncovered a DNAsurprise?
Take your time, sit with it for a minute.
I'm a person that likes to just tackle everything right away.
And you know, if I have new information, I just want to
share it and act on it. But sit with it for a minute.
It's such a shock. There's so many emotions that
(39:20):
are go through you one day afterthe event, a week after the
event, a month after the event. And even now I'm eight months
past actually finding out and there's still so many emotions
that will come up randomly that are normal.
And this community has really just been such a backbone and
(39:42):
helping me figure out, are thesefeelings normal?
Are these feelings valid? Trust your intuition.
Take some time, sit with it and really think about what this
means to you and how you want toproceed.
Louisa, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
sharing your story. I am.
(40:03):
So impressed with the compassionthat you have for everyone
involved while still looking at it through a very realistic lens
and the way that you've cared for yourself throughout this.
I hope that you make it over to Italy, whether that's to connect
with your father, your new dad, or just to explore and have some
of the yummy food. Yeah, please keep me posted on
(40:26):
how things are going. I wish you the best.
It's always a developing story, so we'll see what happens in the
next year. And it's just, I'm just happy I
now know when I can find it all out and explore.
So I love exploring. Thanks again to Louisa for
sharing her story. If you have Adna Surprise that
you'd like to share, please submit your story at
(40:48):
dnasurprises.com and for early add free access to episodes,
join me 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
(41:09):
Josh Ourselt, Siren Recording Studios.
So I try to find a nice balance.I don't call them anymore.
They've stopped calling me. I'm just done with them.
They had their chance. They had their chance to build a
meaningful relationship with me.There's beautiful people in the
world. I have a really great
relationship with my children and I would never put them
through what my mom put me through.
(00:22):
Welcome to DNA Surprises, a 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 outthat I'm an NPE, a person who
has experienced a non paternal event.
(00:43):
In other words, my biological father isn't who I thought he
was. Join me as we explore the
stories of NP, ES, adoptees and donor conceived people and their
families. Get ready to unravel the
astonishing journeys that begin with a simple DNA test.
This is DNA surprises dad, bio dad, genetic father or just
(01:11):
father. After people connect with their
new found biological fathers, they often struggle with what to
call them. And what about the dads we grew
up with? Raised dad, stepdad, birth
certificate dad. Then there's the well meaning
but perpetually frustrating phrase.
(01:32):
Your dad is still your dad. Love that one.
Many of us do continue calling the dads we grew up with Dad.
But what if your relationship with your raised father is
traumatic? What if you were always distant
and there's no real love lost? After uncovering Adna surprise
(01:54):
in this week's episode, Louisa shares a name I hadn't heard yet
on the show. Fake Dad.
She shares how she uncovered herDNA surprise and the impact that
it had on her relationship with her parents, as well as the
biological father she was able to identify.
He's called new dad. By the way, a quick warning
(02:17):
before this episode begins, there is mention of childhood
sexual abuse during our conversation.
Thank you for sharing your story, Louisa.
My name is Louisa. I currently live in Ohio, but I
was born in Germany, actually East Germany behind a wall, and
we moved here to Ohio when I was13.
(02:39):
I grew up in East Germany with abrother.
He was three years older than me.
My mom, my dad, which we will call fake that as it turns out,
and my career mom all in the same household.
It was a pretty normal upbringing.
A few incidences that I kind of remember growing up that looking
(03:01):
back now are really weird and they will kind of set the stage
for what I will find out later. The first one was my fake dad's
dad's funeral. So my grandpa on fake dad's
side, he had passed away and everybody went to the funeral
except for me. I was left behind at home.
It was so upsetting to me that Itook up my dress, this beautiful
(03:25):
dress that I owned. I was probably about six years
old at the time. And I cut it all up to show my
anger and a destructive way that, you know, I thought would
hurt my parents for leaving me behind.
They, of course, explained it. Oh, it was because I was so
young and kids shouldn't be at funerals, which the old I got, I
was like, oh, I guess that's understandable.
(03:47):
Another incident that's very pronounced was I saved my pin
money. I was probably 8 at the time and
it was during the times when catalogs was a thing still and
everything got ordered off catalogs and I bought Fake dad
this Christmas tape that I thought would be a really
(04:08):
exciting opportunity for us to listen together.
I was really excited about it. It was a big deal to me.
I remember feeling so heartbroken when it was kind of
rejected. It was he doesn't need this, so
why would we waste our money buying this?
And it like really hurt my feelings because I thought it
was a great gift. And it was just like this
(04:30):
rejection from these adults that, you know, that are
supposed to live here. And there's other things.
My mom growing up there was a story about that she would bring
up all the time when I was beingdifficult how she was going to
have an abortion and she was laying in the chair and
(04:51):
something told her not to and here I am and how I should just
be very thankful that she changed her mind at the very
last minute and I shouldn't evenbe here.
The story has been told even before I found any of this out.
Kind of like accompanied me my whole life.
Similar another story is that she always claimed she had found
(05:12):
me in the bushes and that's why I was so different.
How did you feel hearing those kinds of things?
I mean, hearing that your mom almost had an abortion and that
didn't, and then here you are. I mean, how did that affect you?
I can't even tell you because that is one of those stories
that you've always been told. So you just like, I don't
(05:36):
remember how it first made me feel because I was probably
really young when at first when she first normalized telling
that story. And now looking back, it makes
sense. But it's just like I even if I
ever thought about an abortion, I would never tell my kids about
that. I would never.
(05:57):
Like not a prop that in. There, Yeah.
Wrap that in their face and makeit part of their growing up,
essentially, which is now it's hurtful.
Like now with now that I have all the information, it's just
very hurtful. I feel like it wasn't a very
close relationship with anybody.Me and my brother were close
(06:18):
enough but far enough apart. We were just always kind of
bickering with each other. So there wasn't a lot of love
lost. I feel like the closest
relationship I had was with my grandmother, my mom's mom.
She actually had a really rough family history.
She has a lot of PTSD that I think she knowing now what I do
(06:39):
about PTSD and how it's a generational trauma.
I understand how that influencedmy mother's behavior in certain
ways. So my grandma, she actually grew
up in Prussia and when World War2 happened, she was a young
teenager and they were originally from Germany and the
(07:00):
Russians started entering World War 2 and they started bombing
in the towns and kind of like migrating West in hopes of
defeating Hitler. And so my grandma and her family
were caught in the middle of allthis, of these two mega forces
battling it out right where theywere living.
(07:21):
And I remember her telling me how they had to pick up all
their belongings and actually walk all the way to Germany from
Prussia. Many family members died.
It was really tough growing up for her, and it really scarred
her in a lot of ways. Growing up.
She would always hide when we had fireworks in the city
(07:44):
because it reminded her of the bombs falling, and it was really
hard to watch her and hear her tell these stories.
So I can accept the fact that her trauma probably influenced
how my mom grew up. My mother always said she had a
very difficult relationship withmy grandma.
When I was 13 years old, my parents decided to take a job in
(08:08):
America. My daddy's job offered him a
position here in Ohio. This is after the wall had come
down and they economy was in turmoil and then they thought it
as a good opportunity to do something more with their lives.
Especially both of them grew up behind the wall and it was very
(08:31):
restricted living behind the wall.
So they saw this as a great opportunity while they moved me
and them to America and they left my brother, who's only 16
at the time, behind in Germany by himself.
He actually moved in with my fake dad's grandmother.
Back then it was all explained away and in an orderly fashion
(08:51):
why this is happening. But looking back now, I would
never leave my 16 year old in a different continent.
What did you think about moving to the United States during that
time? Were you excited?
I was. Excited and you know, you see
some of the movies at that time,it was a little after the wall
had come down. So the Western TV started being
(09:13):
on and you saw all these series and Western life and you're
like, oh, that's, that's really cool.
Especially America. It just seemed like a really
neat opportunity. Before we move, I walked in on a
conversation that was happening in the kitchen.
I was 13 years old and I think it was grandma and the parents
(09:35):
and my brother. And they were talking about a
sister and I was like what do you mean a sister?
And they were like oh Louisa walked in on us.
Now we have to tell her. Apparently there existed 1/2
sister that was the same age as my brother, and the story goes
(09:56):
that my dad got two women pregnant at the same time.
He was seeing both of them and his parents made him choose one
of the women. He ended up choosing my mom, but
they were both pregnant. They both had their children.
She had a daughter, my mom had ason.
Shortly after my brother was born, they actually ended up
(10:17):
getting married. Now my mom claims she was forced
into that marriage by fake dad'smom.
If it was really up to her, she would have never ended up
marrying him. So the daughter at that time
would have been also 16 like my brother.
He was never in her life. He did pay child support and
(10:38):
that's actually the conversationI walked in on.
How will these child support payments keep flowing once
they're moved to America? And I'm like, well, who cares
about that? I want to meet the sister.
I have a sister out there. I've always wanted a sister.
I only grew up with a brother, and we always had a very
contentious relationship. Maybe she looks like me.
(11:00):
Maybe we can be friends. I was over the moon.
I was so excited. I was the driving force that
finally got us to meet her. I begged my parents that I
really wanted to meet the sisterthat I had, and it ended up
being me, my brother and my mom that ended up meeting her at a
restaurant. And I want to say fake that this
(11:26):
is after we had already moved tothe US and because it takes a
little time to, you know, establish the relationship and
get to a point of where you wantto meet somebody.
We all met with her at a restaurant and it was lovely.
She was a really sweet person. We don't look anything alike.
(11:46):
I was kind of a bummer for yearsand I was looking for
similarities, but and that was really that.
So when we're living in America,we had been here for a year now,
that fig that assaulted me, it wasn't a rape, but it was a
sexual assault. And I was so young at the time.
(12:06):
That's how I processed it is like, oh, he didn't rape you.
It's OK. You can just forget about it.
You don't need to think about it.
It will be OK. And I completely just black that
out of my memory and I'm so. Sorry.
Thank you. I would go about my business.
You know, you're you're in high school, you're starting.
(12:29):
I'm trying to learn a new language.
I didn't speak English when I moved here, so I'm trying to
learn English. That happened.
I'm trying to make friends. Being a teenager and finding
yourself in a new friend situation is so difficult.
And it was a very volatile time.I wouldn't even know even if I
wanted to tell somebody besides my mother who was out of town
(12:53):
when that happened. And when she came back, a few
days had passed and I'm just like, OK, it's gone.
We're just moving on. It's just us 3 here.
Like these are the two people that I rely on in my life.
I have literally nobody else. It's not like I know any any
teachers that I've known for a few years or any friends.
(13:13):
I wouldn't even know how to communicate something like that
to anybody. It's incredible what your mind
does. And I just went about my
business. However, it really took a toll
on our relationships further andthe next few years were really
volatile. Lots of fights.
He was always still traveling, so it was all me and my mom just
(13:37):
fighting and we didn't see eye to eye.
There was times when we got intophysical alterations just hard.
There was a lot of talk of you're a difficult child, you
always want everything. You are just complicate.
You make our life complicated ina sense.
(13:59):
I was when we were still living in Germany.
I was running around with teenagers that also didn't like
their home life. And we met on the streets and
we're just out and about at all hours.
And I felt more of a connection to those people than my own
parents. I've run away from home once
(14:19):
just for one night, but it was like I just couldn't take it
anymore. It was a moment where me and my
mom had gotten in a lot of fights, yeah.
That's but you know, I just wantto say because I think sometimes
children, but you were a child hear that.
And the reality is you, you werea kid.
(14:40):
Yes, my husband put it really nicely.
He said, because my oldest is actually one of a different
relationship. So he, my husband and him are
not related. But he met him when he was three
years old and he is now almost 20, so they've been in each
other's lives for a long time. He really opened my eyes.
(15:01):
He said it's the same as me blaming your son for us not
getting along at certain times. And I'm like, you're right, no
kid should have that put on their shoulders that they're the
reason this relationship is so difficult.
So I'm living in America. I'm kind of trying to figure out
(15:23):
how to make this relationship with my parents work.
It's just as three. None of the other family ever
really like kept in touch. The only one that sent me
letters was my grandma on my mother's side that used to live
with us. Other than that into this day I
have 0 relationships with any ofthem except my brother, his
(15:45):
daughter and then my ex half sister.
I was probably 17. I went back to Germany for a
visit because my grandma was dying on fake that side.
I went to visit her and she justhad no idea who I was.
I was like, oh, I'm your granddaughter.
She was struggling with dementia.
She said these words and they haunt me to this day.
(16:07):
She says, but I don't have a granddaughter.
I have asked my brother, did sheever not remember you?
And he's like Oh no, she knew she even to the end like there
was dementia moments but like the people around her she would
still kind of register. And later I put it together that
that's fake Dad's mom. And of course she didn't have a
(16:27):
granddaughter. More along the lines of my mom
and me fighting is during one ofthese fights or it might have
been a series of fights. She took all my baby picture
albums and ripped them all up. I have 0 pictures of anybody
with me as a baby. They're all ripped in half and
(16:48):
all that was left behind was just my picture.
Nobody else in the picture, evenherself.
She ripped the doll in half and took all the people out of all
the photo albums that she's leftbehind, which is just I, I can't
even like, I always put myself in her shoes.
And when I think of my own children and doing that to my
(17:10):
children, I just want to cry. Yeah, that's unbelievable.
Always in our fight, she would leave little Nuggets of your
real dad never wanted you. I'm going along with the
abortion claims from early in mychildhood and it got set a few
times. It kind of like stuck in my
head. So for probably 1520 years, the,
(17:33):
the all these thoughts always circling in my head.
I'm going about my life, I'm building my life, I'm going
through college, I meet my husband, I get my CPA, I have a
very good career. I'm building my life here.
We get married, we have two morechildren.
We now have three children. And I take a job in a nonprofit.
(17:58):
It deals with children and thereare also troubled children
there. So as an employee of this
nonprofit, we received what is called trauma informed Care,
which is a seminar that you takeand we went through it for a few
days. And during that seminar they go
through certain exercises about your life and what are some
(18:20):
traumatic and triggering events.And we go through this exercise
and my mind is just like, guess what happened to you?
This is what happened to you. Do you remember this?
It was almost like I experiencedit for a second time as an
adult. I am glad it happened because
who knows how long I still wouldhave cut that part in my brain
(18:42):
off and and filed it away. Now it's about over 10 years ago
now. From that moment on, it was
just, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It was constant, my thoughts constantly, like he did this and
this and this and this and what do you do now?
What do you do? I have my own life.
(19:03):
I still try to maintain a relationship with my mom and
fake dad because they're the only family I've left,
especially on this continent. I don't really have any other
connections to my origin family besides my brother.
So I'm still making it work. It's very anxiety driven.
(19:23):
They've never really gotten along with my husband in the
beginning either, so their relationship has always been
very volatile. He never knew about any of it
until a few years ago when I finally opened up to him.
He is actually very encouraging of just just cut them off.
They're not adding any positive value in your life.
So it was very stressful time. I started seeing therapists and
(19:48):
life coaches and kind of trying to get to a better place in
2020. So five years ago, my mom and
fake dad moved back to Europe. They ended up leaving the US and
might I say the only grandchildren they actually have
and moved not to Germany but to Hungary to live out their
(20:12):
retirement years over there. It's been five years now.
I've only seen them once. That was two years ago.
So two years ago was the last time I seen them.
And I've just been going throughout my life as normal
when last August, my brother suddenly texted everyone and
(20:33):
there is a group chat going on between all the different people
all over the world. And he texted how great his DNA
test turned out. And here's all the regions that
popped up and and look at this and I'm German.
Just as we expected, they're picking up the Eastern European
from grandma side and the rest is all German.
(20:55):
There's some Great Britain in there.
Where did that come from? It must be from someone else's
family. He was so excited and he just
kind of like opened Pandora's box because the moment he sent
that text, I jumped on it. I was like, oh, what DNA test
did you use? And he was like, oh, I used
MyHeritage. That's the most popular in
(21:16):
Germany. So I went with that.
I was like, oh, I'm buying me one.
I want to, I want to see. And in my head I'm like, I'm
finally going to get my answer. I'm going to get my answer to
these questions that have just been sitting in my head for
decades. And so I run out the same day I
grab the test or I order it, andit took forever in the mail.
(21:40):
And every day I'm looking on theapp, just waiting, just waiting.
I wake up usually about 4:20 in the morning to go to the gym.
And so I'm waking up at 4:20 andwhat's sitting in my inbox is
the test result that just changed everything.
(22:01):
Turns out he's my half brother. And immediately I'm like, I knew
it. He's not my father.
I I just knew it. And my husband, you know, I wake
him up right away and I'm like, hey, the test is here and I'm
right. I've been right my whole life.
And he's like, well hold on. It could also mean that maybe
your brother isn't his and you are really his.
(22:22):
And I'm like, Oh my God no, thatwould make no sense.
I can tell it was such an emotional moment for you.
Was it relief? Was it upset?
Like what? What were you feeling was just?
Disbelief. It probably took, it took a few
hours. The first moment was I knew it
(22:44):
and then I was like, Oh my God, this just changes everything.
And then I'm like texting them because I'm actually six hours
behind. So they are already awake.
It's 10 in the morning for them.And so I'm texting my brother.
I'm like, have you seen the results?
And he's like, no, no, I'm at work.
I'll look later. And I'm like, I need you to look
right now. And he's like, OK, give me a
(23:06):
minute. And I'm just standing there in
my kitchen and like, Oh my God, Oh my God.
And he's not responding. So I'm like, I got to go to work
and I got to go exercise. It just took my mind off the
whole thing. It was so relieving.
I'm so glad I went because the rest of the day was just pure
health. So I go to exercise and I
(23:28):
finally come back and he's finally answered me.
And he's like, what in the worldis this?
What does this mean? And I'm like, it says we're only
half related. And his first impulse is he
calls them right away. They don't answer.
We tried twice to get them on the phone right away.
They don't know at this point that I have received my results.
(23:50):
However, they did know that I was taking the test because when
I said, oh, I'll do it too, I said that in the group chat.
So they knew that this was aboutto come out and they didn't say
a single word. And again, they didn't answer
our phone calls. Finally my brother ended up
texting them and saying like what does this mean?
(24:13):
Where you know, she's my half sister.
Like you got to you got to call us and there was no response.
But you could see that they saw the message and I'm like, what
is going on? Took them another two hours
before I finally received a textmessage that they are now ready
for me to call them. And they are saying this in the
group chat. They're like essentially telling
(24:35):
my brother, it's none of your business.
We're now talking to Louisa, please call us.
And I'm like, what just happened?
They literally took their time and made me wait to get their
story straight. That's literally all that's
going through my head. We call them up and they're just
like, this is what happened. We all know that fake dad had a
(25:00):
affair on my mom, and she got back at him and I'm like, what
does that even mean? And she's like, oh, I had this
affair with an Italian guy. And I was like, oh, hey, well,
I'm three years younger than my brother and you guys are already
married. And she's like, oh, yeah, your
(25:20):
dad's out of town. And he was a patron at the hotel
that she worked at. And she just slept with him and
she claims he got her pregnant on the first drive.
And that's the end of it, apparently.
Come to find out, the whole family knew about this.
Everybody knew I was not his daughter, which now makes so
(25:44):
much sense because nobody ever really bothered to keep in touch
with me. When I was about I think 18
years old, My aunt and uncle, which is a fake dad's brother
asked me not to call them on, did not go anymore and they just
framed their oh, we're too old for that.
Just call us ex-wife. I always thought that was kind
(26:05):
of bizarre. But you know, different people
have different opinions about things and if they want to be
called that, then I can appreciate that.
Sure, I can do that. Looking back now is Oh well that
makes a lot of sense now becauseit probably bothered them that I
was calling them aunt and uncle when they were really weren't a
(26:28):
fun fact. I have never heard from them
again since I found out that's. What I was going to say like I
everyone certainly is entitled to their own reaction, but just
the idea that that these were your your aunt and uncle now
they knew correct they. Knew.
About this so they were holding it and then once you found out,
(26:50):
disowned you. Pretty much.
I mean, it's not like they came out and said, oh, we won't talk
to you anymore. But there's before there was at
least a Christmas message or a, you know, Christmas past.
Now my birthday is coming up. We'll see what kind of reactions
we get there. But my brother is actually very
close with aunt and uncle, said aunt and uncle and he went to
(27:12):
them the same day that I found out.
And that's how we found out thateverybody knew.
And they claim that this Italianman was her boyfriend.
They literally called him her boyfriend.
And I don't think you do that when you have a one night stand.
There has to be more connection for the other family members to
(27:35):
call him her little boyfriend. When I pulled up MyHeritage
results and I saw my brother wasmy half brother, it also popped
up all these Italian people as my closest connections.
We know nobody in Italy. So I didn't actually think
anything of it until she said, oh it was an Italian man.
(27:57):
He was at my hotel, he got me pregnant.
I slept with him because I was angry at your father, is how she
worded it. And her next sentence was, Oh my
God, you look just like him. I was like, oh, that's nice to
know. So who is he?
Oh, he is such and such. He lives there and there and you
can find him online. She gave me all this information
(28:21):
and I am 42 years old and this woman has kept track of him.
She knew how many children he had.
She knew where he was living, where I could find him.
I found him within 5 minutes with the information she was
telling me over the phone. I just found him on Facebook and
I send her a picture of him. I was like, this is him.
(28:44):
And she's like, Oh yeah, that's him.
That looks just like him. Oh, it was just so surreal.
Like she. I just couldn't believe her.
It was all right there. She claims that he knew all
along that she had a baby. Her story goes that when she
found out that she was pregnant with me, she told him and he
(29:07):
wanted nothing to do with it. Gave her $600 to have an
abortion. And I was like, well that's very
specific number and $600.00 is alot of money nowadays.
Back then, that would have been,I mean, East Germany 600, I'm
(29:30):
assuming German marks back then,but that would have been almost
like a little fortune. And for her to be like, oh,
yeah, he wanted me to have an abortion, goes right back into,
oh, she went to the abortion clinic and was on the chair and
was going to have the abortion and then didn't.
And here we are. So that that's the story she's
(29:52):
sticking to. Then she does claim that
afterwards once he basically said, I want nothing to do with
it. Here's the money.
She ended up going to fake that and saying, OK, this is what's
happening. And he said, I'll take care of
you. I will race this child as my own
(30:13):
and we'll just make this work. They claim that fake.
That was the one that decided tonever tell me.
On the 1st phone call we had they literally said in a very
joking funny way, like it's all a big joke to them, that we
would have taken this to the grave.
(30:34):
How could we have ever known that there was going to be DNA
tests and you're ever going to find out?
I couldn't even ask them any detailed question because I I
was like I don't even know if I'm getting the truth from them.
There was another phone call that I had with her when I asked
her some follow up questions where she literally said oh I
(30:56):
blame your father fake that. I blame him for forcing me to
lie to you all these years. I blame new dad that he got me
pregnant in the 1st place and I blame you for being such a
difficult child. All within a 2 minute little
conversation that this is awesome after all these years.
(31:20):
Where are things at with her now?
I am not speaking with them. I ended up making contact with
my new dad. It's very difficult.
They don't speak German, I don'tspeak Italian, they don't speak
English. So everything we have
communicated so far is over textmessage and I will type out my
(31:42):
text message on WhatsApp in English, hit the translate
button and hope my message arrives in the same sentiment
that I mean for it to sound on their end.
Is he excited about you? Like what is his reaction?
About his story, he claims that he did have an affair with her.
(32:06):
There was a single one night stand versus all the other
claims of oh he was her little boyfriend.
He says at the time he had just met his wife that he's still now
married to. He had just met her a month
before but they were still in the very early beginnings of
their relationship. He claims that he did not just
(32:32):
leave the country but was kickedout, that he had this
relationship with her, went backto Italy for vacation or time
off, and when he tried to come back, his passport and visa were
revoked. Now this is still eastern and
western Germany. There was a wall, so it's really
(32:52):
hard to travel in and out of Eastern Europe.
His visa was revoked and he was never allowed to enter the
country again. He does say that he did receive
a phone call from her after I was born, but she never said
anything about a baby. Neither one of their stories
line up. I'm going to say it was probably
(33:13):
in between those two stories. I do think he knew about me.
He texts me like once a month and I know that's a lot to some
people. I always want more but he always
keeps saying how important his wife is to him and his wife is
his number one and this is not going to interfere with his
wife's relationship. He doesn't come right out and
(33:34):
say it but to me that means don't expect much out of our
relationship and I have asked about meeting him and there
hasn't really been any movement with that.
He doesn't seem to really want to go there.
He hasn't straight out said no, but anytime I brought up oh I'll
come and visit to Italy, it's not like jumping on it.
(33:55):
Whereas I have now found out I have two brothers, actually two
more brothers and the one brother is actually older than
me. So new dad had a child with
someone in Spain, then had a child with someone in Germany,
and then married his wife and had another child in Italy.
(34:16):
Well, the wife does know about the other child from Spain, the
brother that's older than me, but there's no relationship
there because he is in jail. But the younger brother does
talk to me, and he has expressedan interest in meeting me,
although only his wife speaks a little English.
(34:37):
So he's always keep saying, oh, she'll have to translate and
brush up on her English. And I think in this day and age,
it would be really easy to find a translator to come along on a
visit or, you know, find someonein town that can kind of
facilitate a meeting. I don't see a big problem with
that. But every country has different
(34:58):
cultures. I know nothing about about
Italian. I know nothing about MyHeritage.
I'm really sad about not ever having connected with that part
of myself. What are you really hoping for
in your relationship based off of what you know today?
(35:20):
I've settled down in my expectations a little.
I was very excited because I never felt like a connected with
my origin family very well. So knowing that there is a
different piece of me out there genetically that might be like
me would be really exciting. And I was like, oh, I'm going to
(35:41):
meet all these people. I'll go to Italy.
And I've always wanted to go to Italy.
There are certain things, For example, Germans are known to be
very white. They don't tan very well, right?
My whole life, as you can see right now, I'm very tan.
My whole life. Everybody always was like, Are
you sure you're German? Because you, you look very tan.
(36:03):
Like I thought, German's on tan.I'm like, yeah, German's tan.
Look at me. I'm also German and I'm, I tan.
And now I'm like, no, I'm Italian.
So I would love to go. I would love to go there.
I would love to hug them. I would love to know that as
difficult as my mom was, I am not her.
I'm more like them. I'm actually a very happy and
(36:25):
sunny individual overall. I'm really excited that my truth
finally came out and it was a good truth because now I'm like
fake that is has nothing to do with me.
He is a sad man that made a horrible choice in his life.
(36:47):
And it's not just that it's it'snot like we had a close
relationship to begin with. Same with my mother.
There was nothing close. There is now nothing that I miss
anymore. I have stopped talking to them
in any meaningful way. They're already occasional
she'll try to send me an articleabout something political and
(37:07):
it's like, oh, what do you thinkabout that?
And I'll ignore her. And however, I still have to
deal with their finances over here, so there's always going to
be some connection that has to stay in place, which is
unfortunate. But my husband says just cut
them off and be done with it. I just can't take that last
step. So I try to find a nice balance.
(37:31):
I don't call them anymore. They've stopped calling me.
I'm just done with them. They had their chance.
They had their chance to build ameaningful relationship with me.
What I thought was 1/2 sister. I now have no sister.
However, I I have shared that story with her and she was very,
very sweet and we're still in contact so.
(37:53):
She's now. She's now a good friend and
probably still a sister. There's beautiful people in the
world. I have a really great
relationship with my children and I would never put them
through what my mom put me through.
What advice do you have for a parent who may be keeping a DNA
surprise from their child? Don't do it, parents.
(38:15):
There's two groups. One is the most modern parent
who knows that the tests are outthere.
So I think that is just going tobe a non issue.
But for anybody listening that might have still not told their
child, just have a conversation with them.
The most hurtful thing really was when it's it's not that they
(38:38):
didn't tell me my whole life shethey claimed there was never a
good spot to tell me. But the moment I said I am
taking this test, it will come out.
It's just a matter of weeks. And they said nothing.
That is so painful to know that these that parents could do
that. So don't do it.
Just don't do it. And what advice do you have for
(39:00):
someone who just uncovered a DNAsurprise?
Take your time, sit with it for a minute.
I'm a person that likes to just tackle everything right away.
And you know, if I have new information, I just want to
share it and act on it. But sit with it for a minute.
It's such a shock. There's so many emotions that
(39:20):
are go through you one day afterthe event, a week after the
event, a month after the event. And even now I'm eight months
past actually finding out and there's still so many emotions
that will come up randomly that are normal.
And this community has really just been such a backbone and
(39:42):
helping me figure out, are thesefeelings normal?
Are these feelings valid? Trust your intuition.
Take some time, sit with it and really think about what this
means to you and how you want toproceed.
Louisa, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
sharing your story. I am.
(40:03):
So impressed with the compassionthat you have for everyone
involved while still looking at it through a very realistic lens
and the way that you've cared for yourself throughout this.
I hope that you make it over to Italy, whether that's to connect
with your father, your new dad, or just to explore and have some
of the yummy food. Yeah, please keep me posted on
(40:26):
how things are going. I wish you the best.
It's always a developing story, so we'll see what happens in the
next year. And it's just, I'm just happy I
now know when I can find it all out and explore.
So I love exploring. Thanks again to Louisa for
sharing her story. If you have Adna Surprise that
you'd like to share, please submit your story at
(40:48):
dnasurprises.com and for early add free access to episodes,
join me 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
(41:09):
Josh Ourselt, Siren Recording Studios.
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