If you’ve made a shocking family discovery, it likely threw you off balance, maybe even knocked you down. You may have been—may still be—bewildered, angry, hurt, confused, anxious, depressed, or ashamed. You may have experienced all of these emotions and others in succession, all at once, or in an unpredictable pattern. You may feel overwhelmed and unable to make sense of all the feelings and at a loss about how to communicate your thoughts. That’s why licensed therapist Eve Sturges created Who Even Am I Anymore: A Process Journal for the Adoptee, Late Discovery Adoptee, Donor Conceived, NPE, and MPE Community. Host of the popular podcast Everything’s Relative with Eve Sturges and an NPE (not parent expected) herself, she’s deeply familiar with the many ways the revelation of family secrets can sideline a person. It’s not a substitute for therapy, nor was it intended to be, but this first-of-its-kind journal is just the tool many need to help them on this unexpected journey; and for those who are in therapy, it can play a role, helping them think about their reactions and improving their ability to articulate their feelings. Sturges doesn’t provide answers. Instead, she offers prompts to stimulate your thoughts and kickstart self-expression. She asks questions and provides a safe space in which you can explore the answers, either privately, within a group, or with a therapist. Deceptively simple, it’s a crucial resource that’s certain to make a difference for thousands of NPEs and MPEs.BKJ

Born a member of the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, Vicki Charmain Rowan was adopted at two by a white couple who renamed her Susan. Already, at two, it was as if she were a child divided.

Susan Devan Harness has spent most of her life straddling two worlds, never having a secure footing in either, learning early that “It hurts to be an Indian” in the world in which she lives. Her extraordinary memoir, Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption, is evidence that one can pluck a living thing from the soil in which it grew and plant it elsewhere, and though it may survive, surviving isn’t the same as thriving. Her account is a reckoning of a bitter isolation and a harsh record of a tenacious search for a sense of belonging. It’s a story streaked with a particular kind of loneliness, the kind that takes hold not in solitude but among people in whom the author can’t see herself reflected.

Raised by a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic father, Harness sees herself as different from those around her, and she’s acutely aware that she’s perceived as different, not only by the townspeople, but even by her father, whose lexicon is laced with ethnic slurs and who speaks derisively about Indians, describing them as gold diggers, deadbeats, “goddam-crazy-drunken-war-whoops.” She’s aware she’s not the cute little blond-haired blue-eyed girl her father says he always wanted. And at the same time that she feels hatred toward him, she’s aware of a self-loathing coiling inside herself.

She encounters few people who looked like her growing up, and she’s reminded at every turn that she doesn’t fit in. She lives in a kind of a gap between cultures where a question took root early: what did it mean to be Indian if she wasn’t raised in an Indian family? “The Indians don’t want me; the whites don’t accept me. They push me into each other’s court, always away from them. I am isolated; I am in-between,” she writes.

Harness fantasizes about finding her “real parents,” and yearns for them to feel real to her. “It is important they feel real because being Indian, living in this white family in this white town, and going to school with these white kids reminds me not only how different I am but how I will never be one of them.” So she dreams of the life that might be more authentic, “where I was ‘real’ instead of ‘adopted; a life where my skin color was the same as everyone else’s and I wouldn’t stand out, isolated; a life where ‘American Indian’ meant something more than ‘I don’t know.’”

When she’s a teenager, her father tells her her biological parents had been killed in a car accident, but years later, when she obtains a hard-won file of information about her adoption, she discovers there’d been no accident—that her mother, Victoria, is living only 30 miles from where she lives. In fits and starts, advances and retreats, Harness embarks on a quest to learn where she came from. She wants an origin story, a glimpse of her childhood, to find out what it means to be an indigenous person—the things no one in her family can tell her. She searches for her birth family and finds strangers. She tries to make meaning, but comes up hard against facts she can’t make sense of. “I don’t know why I was taken from a chaotic family filled with alcoholism and dismembered relationships and placed in a family with alcoholism and dismembered relationships,” she remembers. “My experience is that when I was removed from my blood family, then my birthrights, my membership in a family and a community, and the sense of who I was in the world were also removed from me.”

Although she develops a relationship with her mother and other members of her first family, there’s no place where she isn’t isolated, where she fully belongs, where she isn’t “other.” Still, she retains empathy for the family she can’t fully rejoin and is clear-eyed about the jagged complexity of reunions. “I had been flung to the waiting arms of a world who found Indians repulsive, with our lazy, drunk, promiscuous ways. The wounds I was left with still bled under the right conditions. And my being in her presence put me in emotional limbo. I had longed for this moment, fantasized about it when I was six, dreamed about it when I was fifteen. But my soul filled with dread as the reality check of who I really am seeped into the cracks of my fragmented identity.”

More than an account of her own story, Bitterroot is equally a biting indictment of the brutal assimilation policies of the U.S. Government and the historical injustices—the laws and treaties that dispossessed Native Americans in myriad ways. Harness comes to study anthropology  and labors to bring about change in the child placement policy. She works with other transracial adoptees to shed light on their experiences of living in a white world as American Indians and explores their collective pain of not belonging.

Bitterroot is exquisitely written and deeply moving. It’s essential reading—achingly beautiful prose that will resonate with anyone who’s ever felt they weren’t enough, who’s had to fight for the story that should always have been theirs, who’s ever struggled to find a place to belong.

By Kathleen Shea KirsteinAt the end of each Wednesday evening writing class, the instructor gives us a prompt to write on for the following week. She instructs us to write for 20 minutes and limit editing. We need to have the piece ready to read at the next class gathering. The last prompt was to write about “a lie I told.” I’ve never been good at telling a lie, so this was a hard assignment. When I was a kid, I got caught whenever I told even a little white lie. There wasn’t any point in lying, so I stopped. It took me a few days after getting the assignment to remember a lie I had told.

I needed a passport because I was planning to go to Cancun, Mexico in September 2005.  I applied and later received a letter in the mail saying my application was denied because I hadn’t submitted documentation to explain why my birth certificate was filed 14 months after my birth. The first call I made was to my mother to tell her my passport had been denied and ask if she knew why my birth certificate was filed so long after my birth. She said it must have been a clerical error and hung up. I called the town clerk’s office in the state where I’d been born. The person who took my call couldn’t help and advised me to contact the probate court. I called the court and was told to write a letter to the judge stating dates of the trip to Mexico, including the passport application denial and the reason for the denial. I was hoping the court could actually find the documentation explaining that reason. I wrote and mailed the letter the next day

After this experience, I began to wonder if I was adopted, so I left some messages on adoption reunion boards with basic information, such as the year and location of my birth, hoping to connect with someone who might have some information about me. At that point, I was willing to try anything. I just wanted an answer to this mystery. I’d mentioned to my family that I might take a day off from work and go sit at the Probate court to see if I could get an answer to my letter.

Then I had an idea. I’ve always gotten my medical care at the clinic in our town—the clinic where I’ve worked for years—so it occurred to me to go to the medical records department and review my chart. I spent my lunch break on August 22, 2005 reading my medical records. The first line of the last page in my chart—essentially the first page documenting my life with the Sheas—said “Adopted Baby, 4 lbs 4 oz.”  Finally, I had confirmation that I’d been adopted.

Armed with this new information, I called the probate court and asked them to search for my adoption records. Hopefully, with the information they contained, I’d then be allowed access to my birth certificate and could get my passport.

I scheduled a lunch meeting for two days later with our clinic psychologist to problem-solve how to approach my parents. Forty-nine years is a long time for them to keep the secret. I wondered what kind of defenses they’d built up. I wanted advice about whether I should tell them I knew I was adopted.

I was surprised when my Dad called me at work on the morning of August 24 and asked me to come over to the house right away. My intuition kicked in. Somehow, I knew my parents were going to tell me the truth about my birth. I grabbed a long stem red rose from the gift shop on my way out the door to give to my mom. Dad clearly remembered that I said that I might go to probate court to see if they would hear my case sooner. He must have realized I’d find out the truth, so he likely convinced mom they had to tell me and they had to do so that morning. They were not aware that I’d read my chart, so the timing of his call was coincidental.

I left work and arrived at my folks house a little after 9 am. Standing in the living room, Dad asked, “You know why you are here?”

“Yes, I said. “I’ve known since Monday I was adopted.”

Mom then told me that the state did home studies, even back in 1957, and that caused the delay in filing my birth certificate. She remembered that she wanted to make a good impression, and since she loved to sew, she made me a new dress for each meeting with the state worker. Once the home studies were satisfied and my placement approved, the court finalized my adoption when I was 14 months old with a little ceremony that changed my name. I can’t help but wonder if that’s similar to what happens when a person enters the Witness Protection Program. What did I witness that I needed protection from? My original mother?

My mother was upset. She told me the day I won the trip to Cancun was the worst day in her life, and that she felt like her life was over. I think in that moment our roles reversed and I became the mother, making sure she felt secure and nurtured. Nurturing was never her strong suit. She was better at keeping up appearances.

I reassured my parents and told them that nothing in our relationship was going to change, and it became my job in a way to forever prove my loyalty until they died.

And that was the lie I told. That nothing would change. Because everything changed.

I thought of them in a different light. That’s when I realized they’d kept me at arm’s length most of my life. Over the years, even my kids have observed I was treated differently than the sister I grew up—their biological child. The pedestal I kept my parents on began to crumble. When the truth came out, I kept thinking about how they lied to me on those occasions when I point blank asked if I’d been adopted. I was consumed with wondering how they could have lied for so long without giving something way, especially after I learned from my mother’s cousin that my mother had the entire town under a gag order. My friends all knew.

Looking back, I see there had been a few close calls when I was growing up. I worked in a multidisciplinary clinic as an oncology-certified RN and administered chemotherapy to patients. The time I pushed medication in to patients’ IVs was always a chance to chat and get acquainted. Talking to one patient, I mentioned that I knew her daughter-in-law. She asked what my parents’ names were, and when I told her, she said, “Oh, are you the one they adopted”? I said I didn’t know, but I didn’t think so. I called my mother that night to ask, but she insisted I wasn’t adopted. “People are always confusing us with a family in town that adopted a baby the same time you were born,” she said. I didn’t think my mother would lie to me, so I believed her. And I thought I had her hands and looked a little bit like her, so I trusted what she told me.

I wonder what would have happened if those close calls had been fully realized and if I’d pressed my mother harder. If I hadn’t blindly trusted my parents, would I have known sooner? Would knowing sooner have a made a difference? I didn’t realize it then, but I lied to myself and my parents that day in their living room when I told them nothing in our relationship would change.  Everything has changed. Nothing could be the same because the person I was changed in those moments.Kathleen Shea Kirstein was born in Vermont and raised in New Hampshire. She lives in Troy, New Hampshire. She’s a late-discovery adoptee, a mother of two boys, and a registered nurse.

By Tom Staszewski

January 15, 2022 marked the second anniversary of the enactment of New York State’s Clean Bill of Adoptee Rights law allowing adoptees over the age of 18 unrestricted access to their sealed birth certificates. With that legislation, New York State became the tenth state in the US to allow open birth records.

When I first read about this new “open records adoption law,” little did I know it would have a direct impact on me. As I read the details about the legislation, I remember thinking it was rightfully so, that adult adoptees should have the same equal access to their birth records as non-adoptees. There should be no difference between treating one class of person differently than another based solely and entirely on the circumstances and events of their birth.

I certainly realize adoption is a complicated issue. Whether or not to place a child up for adoption is a difficult decision and a situation that often has no right or wrong answers. But it’s a topic that has been on my mind ever since 1970—the year my daughter, Victoria, was born.

Ever since she was adopted, and throughout all of those years since my high school days, I thought about her regularly and hoped and prayed she was alive and well. I always wondered if she was having a good life.

New York State open records law enabled Victoria to obtain her original birth certificate (OBC) and to then find her birth mother, who then subsequently gave her information that led her to find me as well. May 15, 2020 was a very happy day for me. I was surprised to find in my mailbox a letter postmarked from New York City.  “Hello, I’m your daughter,” it said. As I read her letter, I was elated to learn that she was well, healthy, accomplished, successful and physically fit. She’d completed nine marathons, including the prestigious NYC Marathon. She also works out at a boxing gym with full contact sparring. And she’s earned a master’s degree. After I read all of the details about her life, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was a blessing that she was able to find me and for me to finally know that she’d had a good life.

I’ve long believed that a college degree is a passport to a better life and opens more doors of opportunity throughout one’s life, so I was extremely pleased to learn about Victoria’s level of higher education.

Unlike some adoption searches that lead to rejection, I was ecstatic to be identified, located and contacted.  I fully recognize and acknowledge the role of her adoptive parents, now deceased and I’m thankful for their outstanding and exemplary job in raising her. Through their hard work, she developed into a very accomplished adult and a productive contributing member of society.

On the other hand, I readily admit, that as a foolish, silly, goofy, immature kid back in 1970, there was nothing I could have provided her. I had no job skills, no talents, no credentials. An awkward teenager, I didn’t realize the importance of personal responsibility and accountability. In addition to being an irresponsible kid, I lacked empathy, social gifts, and concern for others.  I finally learned, acquired, and implemented those important empath type skills, traits, characteristics, and effective social skills when I was in my mid-20s. Therefore, I am so glad and thankful that her adoptive parents had the resources to provide a solid and stable life for her.

I was also very glad to see the letter’s origin was from Brooklyn, NY. I love NYC having visited there more than 25 times. It’s a much better location to visit rather than, say, Wyoming (with no disrespect meant toward that fine state). It’s just that I’ve always loved and am very comfortable being in large densely populated major urban cities.  And my wife, Linda, and I have a longstanding tradition of going to Manhattan during the December holiday season. So I began to think of now being able to visit Victoria in NYC in just seven months. But of course, in December 2020 we had to cast aside our tradition because of the COVID shutdown.

After I read all of the details about her life and breathed a huge sigh of relief, I couldn’t help but also notice that her letter was well crafted. She expressed a strong command of the English language and had an exceptional vocabulary. Her writing was clear, concise, and coherent.

Please don’t misinterpret my positive critique of my own daughter’s first correspondence to me. As a career academician, I’ve read and graded thousands of graduate-level term papers, research papers, portfolios, and projects. It was only natural for me to notice her proficiency and the important skills displayed in Victoria’s first letter to me.

I responded by telephone, and since then we’ve communicated by, phone, and e-mail, and we’ve exchanged dozens of photographs from various stages of our lives. But more important, we finally met in Midtown Manhattan on December 4th, 2021—a very happy, momentous, and memorable day indeed!

Throughout my academic career, I’ve always been fascinated by the ongoing debate about heredity vs environment, nature or nurture, and genetics in general. As we got to know each other, I was intrigued to find that we have many similarities and have had mutual experiences. We both were raised as Catholics, had paper routes, played the accordion, worked at McDonalds’s as young kids, and while in high school worked in delis. We’re involved in local politics and registered to vote with the same political party. In school, math was (and is) a mutual weakness.

Ever since I was fifteen years old, I’ve had a passion for being physically fit, spending long hours each day exercising and working out in health clubs and gyms. So I was very impressed when I read that Victoria was a long-distance runner and completed nine marathons. The grit, determination, mental-toughness, persistence, and hard work she exhibits as a competitive long-distance runner are qualities and traits I’ve always admired and respected in others.  I was also impressed that she practiced boxing and full contact ring sparring. So maintaining health through physical fitness is yet another interest we share. In my estimation, our many similarities lend credence to the premise that human behavior, preferences, and tendencies are genetically determined.

According to the Adoptee Rights Law Center, Minn. MN (2022), many non-adopted people do not know that an original birth certificate (OBC) is the initial birth certificate created shortly after a person’s birth. For most people, it’s their only birth certificate. For persons born and adopted in the US, a new or “amended” birth certificate replaces the OBC once the adoption is final. I strongly believe other states should follow New York’s lead and pass legislation that would equalize the fundamental right of adults to access their own pre-adoption birth certificates.  To deny that access is unfair and unwarranted. Adult-aged adoptees should have the same right as non-adoptees to obtain their own birth records.  I applaud all of the New York state elected officials who rectified the unfair treatment of adoptees. Thanks to them, it’s an inequality that’s been righted.

Other state government entities should realize that the rights of adult adoptees to be treated the same is mainly an equality issue. The core issue behind open OBC legislation is not just about searches and reunions; it’s about the removal of a discriminatory barrier to a legal document. I believe that continuing to treat one class of persons differently than another based solely on the circumstances of their birth is not right and must be corrected…the sooner the better.

I realize the controversy associated with this issue and know that not every search results in such a positive outcome as it did in my situation. But I firmly believe the benefits outweigh the risks. Without that access, adopted people are unfairly left wondering about their identities and origins. It leaves them without valuable and factual information about their very existence. The law undoes decades of discrimination. That alone is justification for such legislation to occur.

I understand there may be privacy concerns after decades of secrecy. In previous decades, adoption records were routinely sealed as there was a prevalent societal norm of shame and scorn directed toward individuals who had teenage pregnancies. And in past generations, the commonly used negative and condescending label of illegitimate birth was the norm.

But, thankfully, societal attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about the adoption process have shifted. Judgmental negative viewpoints are changing and the stigma is lessening.

Victoria is truly wonderful! She’s remarkable, accomplished, talented and beautiful. I’m so glad that I had an opportunity to finally be with her and hug her. I can’t wait to walk back md forth across the Brooklyn Bridge with my new daughter on my next visit to New York.Tom Staszewski, EdD, lives in Erie, PA with his wife, Linda. He retired in 2014 following a 35-year career in higher education administration. His doctorate in higher-education administration is from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Total Teaching: Your Passion Makes It Happen, published by Rowman & Littlefield.” Contact him at tomstasz@neo.rr.com.

By Mark OverbaySo what are we supposed to do the day after—the day after our lives are upended by a call, an email, a Facebook message, or by clicking on new DNA results?

Mail-away DNA kits promise adventures of discovery, mysterious and exotic cultures, and inspired histories of relatives once lost; they are instead Pandora’s boxes and, once opened, can never again be closed. My kit certainly led to discovery as promised, but not the kind seen reflected in carefully crafted and nostalgic commercials. In my case, half of my family tree, meticulously constructed over decades, lay in pieces on the floor, leaves violently stripped from limbs in a sudden storm. The father who appeared in my now fading childhood photos and forever inscribed on my birth certificate, prominently positioned on the first branch in that tree, hadn’t, I discovered, created me. His leaf was the first to fall. I numbly stared at the screen as each of my four paternal half-siblings faded entirely away. A full-sibling transformed into a half-sibling. My paternal tree was bare.

DNA tells no lies, and the truths it reveals can be shocking. Day One, Discovery Day, raises questions rather than answering them. What the hell just happened? Who is my father? How does one deal with a half-empty tree at 58 years old? How does one process a nearly sixty-year-old lie? With these and countless other questions racing in my mind, I did something counterintuitive and went to sleep, my brain pleading for time to decompress.

On day two of my non-paternal event (NPE) journey, I woke surprisingly calm and energized despite having no earthly idea what I needed to do next. I was accustomed to dealing with complex problems, but this was like no mystery I had ever tried to solve. I paused, took a deep breath, took inventory of what I had at my disposal, and was encouraged by what I found.

The abundance and quality of my DNA matches were tremendous assets. While there were no parent or sibling matches on my list, there was an individual labeled as a possible “1^st cousin” who had a publicly available tree with 1000+ entries. All by itself, that was a gold mine. I also matched with several dozen second and third cousins and noted the same surname repeatedly appeared in that group. A quick cross-reference with my first cousin’s tree found that same name within his first two generations, so the odds favored I was on to something important right away. Was that my father’s name?

While I technically had a free Ancestry account, I quickly discovered that I would need to upgrade to gain access to any of the choice information I needed to fill in the many voids in my understanding, so I paid for the cheapest version offered. The resources available through this paid account were immense and much better than expected, but I hadn’t opted for the more expensive plan that provided access to old newspapers. I quickly learned that was a mistake, so I did what any other mature and law-abiding citizen would do in my situation and became a Google and social media stalker.

I created a private family tree focused entirely on my new paternal side, buoyed by the perks and freedoms offered by a paid Ancestry account. In the beginning, this unique tree was winterized, not a leaf in sight. Despite that, it was comforting to know I could use this proxy as my personal DNA spreadsheet, adding or subtracting new names and dates as I experimented with various paternal hypotheses. There were also many unfamiliar terms and tools I’d encountered early on this path. What was a centimorgan, and why was that important? Who was an NPE, and was I one? What does “DNA Painter” paint? I needed to learn this new language of genetic genealogy and took up this study earnestly and with a focus that would have made my medical school professors proud. I cheated, though, and watched YouTube videos repeatedly until some of it sunk in. Please don’t tell them.

Armed with a new vocabulary and growing confidence, I added the names of the people I thought were my paternal grandparents to my proxy tree. As it turns out, they were very distantly related (5^th cousins) and, before marriage, shared the same surname. This explains why there were so many of my close matches with that name. While no one source identified all their children, I was gradually able to piece together a comprehensive list. They had seven children, six of them boys, spaced over fourteen years. Each son became a leaf on my proxy tree.

In the meantime, I sorted through my mother’s archives. My mother was the family genealogist, historian, and archivist. She’d neatly cataloged our lives by carefully collecting, storing, and displaying family photos and memorabilia. From my first haircut to her grandson’s kindergarten graduation, no momentous event went undocumented. Mom left behind crates and boxes of scrapbooks, photo albums, and genealogic records. Since her passing, I hadn’t looked at them, so years of dust added weight to these treasures. She was a packrat, and there were mountains of records to pour through. While I didn’t expect to find an envelope with my name on it containing a letter titled “Mark, this is the real story of your father,” I was sure hoping for exactly that. There was, of course, no such letter. Even though she, like me, was born in Tennessee, I knew after college she lived and worked for a few years in central Florida, in the same area that my newly discovered paternal grandparents had lived. That had to be an important clue, but if she’d ever told me the details of where she lived and taught, I’d forgotten them. I was looking for that kind of needle in this voluminous haystack. I didn’t find anything revealing in my first pass through her archives. On a second pass, though, on a card measuring a mere 2 x 2 inches, the name and dates of where and when she taught were printed. I had missed it the first time through. As it turned out, this unassuming little card was the key to unlocking my mystery.

My best guess was that my biological father was close in age to my mother and so, at least temporarily, eliminated a few of the possible brothers from contention. I had narrowed my list to the three most likely and began to dig deeper into each one. By sheer luck, the first Google search I started yielded an obituary that stopped me cold. When a photo is included in an obituary, typically it is one taken within a few years of the individual’s passing. This image, however, was of a much younger man who, to my eyes, looked just like me. Breathlessly, I read his biography. He had taught at the same school as my mother during the same time. The physician part of my brain reminded me that it wasn’t proof but was extraordinarily compelling evidence. The emotional side of my brain, though, knew I had just found my father. The author of this obituary had unknowingly left me breadcrumbs to find him.

I was both thrilled and unnerved. Many take years to find their father. I had found mine in just a few days. This had been too easy, and that made me nervous. I needed someone to look over my work to see if I had made a mistake. I contacted a group I read about in some genetic genealogy-related material. I turned over all my DNA information to a DNA angel, including my proxy tree. My angel was thorough, compassionate, and amazingly efficient. In just a few hours, she confirmed my research. I had found my father. She recommended that I ask a half-sibling to submit a DNA sample for a more visually comforting verification, especially for my new biological kin. This, however, would require a massive leap in my journey.

I knew from the obituary I had five new half-sisters, but reaching out to one of them felt too big a jump to consider. Instead, I contacted my closest DNA match, who I now know was a half-nephew. He was kind and empathic while also protective of his mother and aunts. After thoughtful consideration, he agreed to share my information with his mom, telling me he had no idea how she would respond. Knowing that the road to biological family connection was littered with bad outcomes, I waited nervously for whatever awaited me, braced for denial, anger, and rejection.

Twenty-two days after my NPE discovery and five agonizingly long hours since I last heard from my nephew, I got the news. The youngest of my new half-sisters reached out through Facebook, warmly welcomed me to the family, and included three photos of our father. She volunteered to submit a DNA sample. We began to talk immediately. Three days later, I heard from another sister. She was equally kind and accepting. Many more photos and long conversations followed. Within a few short weeks, I had heard from them all. Each graciously shared photos, press clippings, and memories of my father. While we had no script, we began to process this most unlikely of unions through, at times, challenging but honest conversation, laughter, and tears.

I had been made whole again. The bare half of my family tree now had budding leaves. Together, we pondered what came next.Mark Overbay is a (retired) physician and in his second career as an academic school dean at a small college nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. He’s an avid reader, captivated by the wonder and complexity of the human condition. At 58 years old, an unexpected DNA discovery forced a reexamination of his prior perceptions of family and identity, and that ever-winding journey continues. Overbay is an amateur painter, novice writer, and a lover of freshly-brewed, loose-leaf Chinese teas. He met his wonderful and supportive wife while both attended medical school, and they have been inseparable for more than 35 years. They have one son and two high-energy Labrador Retrievers, Whiskey and Yona.

By Laura L. Engel

The author and her son Jamie.

In 2016, I was living a great life, newly retired after a 35-year career in the corporate world and enjoying the extra time to indulge in travel with my beloved husband. That spring, on a whim, we decided to submit DNA tests to Ancestry.com.

Privately I hoped for a miracle. I had a secret.

In 1967, I’d given birth to my first-born child in an unwed mothers maternity home in New Orleans, Louisiana. I had been a typical 17-year-old high school senior with plans for the future that evaporated overnight.

In the sixties, it was considered close to criminal for a girl to become pregnant with no ring on her finger. The father of my child had joined the Army, preferring Vietnam to fatherhood. After my parents discovered my shameful secret, I was covertly hurried away and placed in an institution for five months. There, I was expected to relinquish my baby immediately after giving birth to closed adoption and I was repeatedly assured my child would have a better life without me.

After his birth, I was allowed to hold my son three times. My heart was permanently damaged when I handed him over the final time. The home allowed one concession—I could give my baby a crib name. I named him Jamie.

***

For decades I privately grieved my son but never spoke of him. Many times, I furtively searched for Jamie but always hit a brick wall. Adoption records were still sealed in Louisiana, continuing the archaic shadow of secrecy.

In October 2016, while out walking my dogs one evening, a  ‘Parent/Child Match’ message popped up on my iPhone, causing me to stop me in my tracks as my knees gave out from under me.

After 49 long years, Jamie had found me. Who was he? Where was he? Would he hate me? How would this affect my life? My family? His family?

I had always dreamed of finding Jamie but never thought past that point.

My hands shaking, I gathered courage and wrote back to this man who now called himself Richard. Within minutes he answered. At first, we tiptoed around each other, answering basic questions, but soon we were pouring our hearts out. My son was back in my life, and I learned I had three new grandchildren. All the while shame and fear bit at me as tears streamed from my eyes, but simultaneously overwhelming joy and hope flooded through me.

That night I heard my son’s voice for the first time. The wonder I felt when he said, “I know your voice” transformed me. In minutes, the secret of my son changed from fear of anyone knowing about him to wanting to shout out to the world, “My son has found me!”

Between tears and laughter, our first conversation lasted four hours. It was torture. It was euphoric. I cried. He cried. A tremendous relief replaced fear.

All the reunion experts warn, ‘take your time—do not rush into your first meeting.’ Neither one of us cared what experts said. Within four days, Richard flew from Louisiana to California to meet me. That first meeting was magical. My son was back in my life, and suddenly I was whole.

We discovered we delighted in each other’s company, and nature trumped nurture in many aspects of our lives. Richard resembled me in appearance and personality, and to my delight his oldest daughter was my tiny clone. I was smitten and immediately fell deeply in love with him and his children.

My husband, children, and stepchildren welcomed Richard and his family with open arms, and I pinched myself. My life took on a whole new dimension as Richard and I tried to make up for lost time. Two thousand miles did not keep us apart.

For three years, we made multiple trips to see each other, spending holidays and time together. His family welcomed me with open arms, too. Both of his adoptive parents had passed away, and I sorely regretted not being able to thank them for loving my son and giving him a good life.

2020—COVID happened—suspending all trips back and forth. We called, we texted, and all the while I watched as this son of mine started to break down before my eyes. A messy divorce, loss of job, and unhealthy isolation began to destroy him. Depression had colored my mother’s life, and I watched with hands tied as it was destroying his. Desperately, I advised him as a mother, counselor, cheerleader—but this was beyond my mothering skills. He seemed unable to pull himself out of a dark hole and I worried daily.

In February 2021, we had what would be our last conversation. Before hanging up Richard said, “I love you, Mom. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

I cherish that phone call. Two days later, the son I had mourned for 50 years, the son who had found me, left me again. He took his own life. Now I had lost him twice and this time was forever.

A year later and I have torn myself up over the “what ifs” the “could I have done more?”  My grief has been crippling, but slowly I have come to realize that as painful as his loss is, I am forever grateful for our fleeting time together and I would not trade it for anything. Without our magical and much too short reunion, I would never have known about his childhood, the good man he was, or felt the love he imparted to me. I would never have forgiven myself for leaving him, and I would never have known my beloved grandchildren. Through them, I still have Richard.

I wish I could speak to all the birth mothers out there, who continue to carry the shame and guilt that society placed on us. For those who refuse to allow their relinquished child back into their lives. I want to say I know your fear. I know your uncertainty. I lived it and still live it. It is deep-seated in us, regardless of the circumstances that resulted in us leaving our children. Please know if you are brave enough to welcome that lost child into your life again, you may create a peace and a bond worth all the fear and guilt. There is nothing quite like reuniting a mother and her child, and you may be giving a gift of connection to that child and yourself, as it should have been all along.

One thing I know for sure—the memories of those short years with Richard will uplift me the rest of my life.Laura L. Engel, author of You’ll Forget This Ever Happened: Secrets, Shame, and Adoption in the 1960s, was born and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and was transplanted to San Diego more than 50 years ago. Retired from a corporate career, she’s married to the love of her life, Gene, and is the mother of five beloved grown children and an adored Golden Retriever, Layla Louise. She’s the president of San Diego Memoir Writers Association and an active member of the International Women Writers Guild. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

By Michelle Talsma Everson

After wrapping season one of her popular podcast, and just in time for the release of the first episode of season two, Alexis Hourselt talks about her own NPE journey.Please tell us a little about yourself — what was your life like before your DNA surprise?

I grew up a military brat, mostly in Arizona. I lived in Tucson with my husband and two children and still do. I love the desert. Before my DNA surprise I would say I was part of a close-knit family—my parents live a few minutes away and my sisters are here too. My dad is Mexican and my mom is of European descent, so I grew up ambiguously biracial. My days were filled as a working mom, wife, friend, sister, and daughter.

Can you summarize as much of your personal story of how your DNA surprise came about?

I bought an AncestryDNA test in June 2021 as part of a Prime Day deal. I had zero suspicions about my dad—I was always told my parents were married after I was born. I look like my sisters. About a month later I got my results. I was first struck by my ethnicity breakdown—I was not Mexican at all, but African American. There was zero latinx in my results. Then I clicked on my matches and to my utter shock/horror I matched with a man I’d never seen before, my biological father.

When you tested, you had a parent child match. What was that experience like and what resulted?

It was really confusing because my bio dad didn’t have his name in his account – it was a username, so I had no idea who he really was (not that I knew him, anyway). I was way too afraid to contact him, so I called my mom and asked if she knew. She didn’t based on the username. I spent the next few days putting all of my internet sleuthing skills to work until I was able to identify him. I found him on Facebook and lurked everything I could find. I found an old podcast he appeared on just to listen to his voice. It was all very surreal. A few days into my journey my newfound sister contacted me and that really got the ball rolling in terms of building a relationship with my family.

You said at one point your mother apologized. That’s often not the case. How did this affect your relationship?

My situation, like so many of ours, is very nuanced. Both of my parents knew the truth about my paternity—or so they thought. They believed they were protecting me from someone, but that person is not my biological father. So, while I disagree with their choice to keep a secret from me, I do understand the initial decision. That empathy made it easier for my mother to apologize and for me to be open to receiving it. I do appreciate the apology but I am still processing everything. It’s not an overnight process but I hope our relationship can normalize.

You said growing up you didn’t relate to your Mexican heritage. Were you raised in that culture and still didn’t feel connected to it?

Yes and no. My parents didn’t deeply immerse me in Mexican culture, but I live in the southwest so it’s everywhere. Whenever we visited family in Texas I saw much of that Mexican side as well. I went to schools in predominantly Mexican areas, at times. I just never felt a real connection despite how hard I tried. I always felt like an imposter but I attributed it to being mixed race.

You talk about discovering you were Black. You said in the episode about your own story “It was like I knew but I didn’t know.” Can you talk about that and what you meant? 

I’ve always loved, respected, and admired black culture. From music to television to movies to fashion, what’s not to love? As an adult, I became deeply invested in anti racism. So much of who I am aligns with being black, but it never occurred to me that I was. So it’s like I always knew on some level, while never considering that it might actually be true.

How are you absorbing or exploring this new knowledge?

I am and I’m not! I do think about what it means to be black to me, without having been exposed on a real personal level very much at all. Sometimes I feel angry about that. I’ve joined social media groups, read, and talk about it a lot in therapy. It hasn’t been that long of a journey for me, so I try to give myself grace and time. I look forward to diving into my identity more in the future.

What aspect of your own experience was most difficult for you? Was it the secrecy? That others knew? The sense of betrayal? The not knowing who your father was?

It was definitely the betrayal by my parents. As I mentioned, I always felt really close to them, so to know that they kept something like this from me was deeply hurtful.

You said that your best friend gave you wise advice to wait before reaching out to anyone until you were ready for rejection. What did that mean to you and how did you get ready for rejection?

I really didn’t have time to get ready because my sister contacted me just four days after my discovery! The advice to me meant that I needed to wait until I was out of crisis. I wasn’t even present in my body when I first found out—not exactly the best state to reach out to someone who has no idea you exist. I planned to get into therapy, process my feelings, and come up with a sound plan for whatever outcome might occur. But as I said, my persistent sister is like me and reached out with open arms right away. I’m so grateful she did.

How does grief play into your experience?

Grief is a massive part of my experience. I grieve for the loss of the version of myself before this. I grieve for how it has affected my relationship with my parents. I grieve for the life and relationship I never had because of this secret.

How crucial has therapy been and why? 

Extremely. I wasn’t able to find a therapist who specializes in NPE/MPE but found a fantastic woman who specializes in grief and trauma. I called her almost immediately, within a few days of my discovery. We’ve done DBT and EMDR to help me process the event and I credit her for how well I’m doing right now (thank you, Susannah!).

Your own DNA surprise occurred fairly recently, less than a year ago, and you began the podcast only a few months later. How and why did you decide to do a podcast? Was the genesis of the podcast a way of working out your own feelings and understanding this new experience?

I used to have a podcast with a friend and it ended it July 2021. I’d wanted to create a new one but hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do…then this happened. I decided to start the podcast because it gave me a creative outlet during an extremely difficult time in my life. While telling my own story is a path to healing, more importantly, I wanted to help others tell their stories. Another benefit of doing the show is connecting with others. It’s been incredible to have conversations with every guest.

There are a number of NPE/DNA surprise podcasts — how do you describe yours?

DNA Surprises shares the stories of people who were shocked by a DNA discovery, mostly through modern DNA testing. NPEs, adoptees, and donor conceived people are welcome to tell their stories and so are their families. My personal mission with every episode is to center the storyteller. Everyone’s story is theirs to tell—I just want to help them tell it. Ultimately, my goal is to provide support to others in this situation. My dream is to reduce the shame and stigma that lead to DNA surprises.

What’s been the reaction? What are you hearing from listeners?

The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive! NPEs, DCPs, and adoptees have all reached out to me saying that these episodes make them feel less alone. I’ve also heard from people who have no experience with DNA surprises, which is really cool to me because it means we’re raising awareness about this issue.

What if anything has most surprised you in the course of doing the podcast?

I am amazed at how similar all of our feelings and experiences are, from the initial shock to our family interactions. No matter how different our stories are, there are so many similarities.

Why do you think it’s important for people to share their stories?

Stories are how we relate to people. They’re how we connect.

Why is it important for the story teller?

The storyteller gets to take ownership of their story when they tell it. It’s also helpful for processing their feelings about their DNA discovery.

And why is it important for others to receive those stories?

For anyone experiencing a DNA surprise, hearing stories makes you realize that you are not alone. It normalizes an extremely disruptive and isolating experience. I hope it helps people find some peace. For those who aren’t familiar with our community, I think the podcast is eye-opening. And even if they don’t think they know someone in this situation, it’s likely they do. This podcast will help them help others. I also hope it helps parents make different choices.

How if at all does it help you in your own journey? 

It helps me immensely. When I speak to guests, I connect with others who understand me. I learn about new resources and frankly, feel normal in an abnormal situation. I hope I provide the same space for them.

Are you looking for participants and if so, how should they contact you?

Absolutely! If anyone would like to share their story, please email dnasurprises@gmail.com.

From the people you’ve spoken to so far, what would you say are the most common difficulties they have after discovering a DNA surprise?

Almost everyone I’ve spoken to has spent a lot of time thinking about the life they missed. One guest said half of her life was stolen from her and that’s a recurring theme. There’s also a big struggle with who to tell, specifically around telling raised or birth certificate fathers. My dad knew, but for those who did not, there’s definitely a divide in whether or not to tell. I find that really interesting.Alexis Hourselt is a full-time truth teller. She is an NPE and host of the DNA Surprises podcast. Alexis is a communications professional, vacation enthusiast, and desert dweller. She currently lives in Tucson, AZ with her husband and two children. Find her at www.dnasurprisespodcast.com and @dnasurprises on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok.