By Diane Turturro
Ironically, the shadows in a strand of DNA are lighter than the main bands.
My two dads were both born on June 24, 1938. One dad born in Brooklyn to Italian immigrants and the other born across the river in New Jersey to descendants of Chaim Wolf from Lyubeshov, a village then in Polish Lithuania, now in Ukraine. Thirty years later, the paths of these two men would cross, altering my life forever. The consequence of this encounter would take more than 50 years to unfold.
I don’t believe in chance encounters. We all have a path.
I remember never fitting in and I asked when I was about ten years old if I was adopted. My mother nearly fell off her chair in the kitchen. I can still see the look of terror and shock on her face.
I remember the mandatory family dinners at my Italian grandmother’s house. Eighteen of us seated around a table that took up most of the house. I would stare at them and think, “How am I related to these people?
I was never able to connect with them.
I didn’t look like them.
I didn’t think like them.
Fast forward to the pandemic.
My son was attending college remotely. In his first semester he had a history class that required a final project about our family’s personal migration story.
Terrific! We had plenty of material. It started with a trip to Ellis Island when my son was eight. Since then, genealogy research on my family became an obsession. Countless hours were spent poring through online data bases, obituaries and old newspapers.
One night, I suggested that we add DNA testing to the project to compare the paper trail with biology.
“It would be a different and novel approach to the project,” I said to my son.
So, we ordered our kits, spit into tubes and sent them off. About five weeks later, we got our results.
You are:
13% Italian
85% Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish
Trace Middle Eastern.
This had to be a mistake!
I showed my husband. He laughed.
“I told you those home test kits are for entertainment only.”
I called Ancestry a few weeks later to complain. Why was my father’s lineage not represented?
They carefully and gently explained things to me, essentially telling me it was not a mistake.
“You would be surprised how many calls we get like this,” the agent stated.
I hung up disgusted, feeling robbed of my $99. Unlock the secrets of your ancestry! Baloney!
I saw thousands of matches and yet only recognized three names.
Who were all these people?
It’s funny how the human mind works.
Here I was in the medical field. I understood DNA, yet I totally discounted it as it did not match my story. The story I knew to be true.
I shut the laptop and never looked any further at the results.
Almost a year passed and I decided to update my email on the DNA website.
I once again closed the computer.
On February 27th, I received a notice on my phone: You have a new message at ancestry.
My son was born on October 27.
My husband on January 27.
And now I would be reborn on the February 27.
The message was from someone named Anthony who explained that we matched on the DNA platform, and based on our DNA, we had one of the following relationships:
Grandparent/grandchild
Aunt/uncle
Niece/nephew
Half sibling
I immediately called my mother.
Then I called again.
And again.
I must have called her twelve times on day one alone, questioning her about everything.
I am not one to give up, ever. And my mother knew this.
My mother finally called, unable to breathe, crying on the phone.
“I never wanted to tell you. I would have taken this to my grave.”
Another four minutes of hyperventilating and crying.
“You know I had trouble conceiving,” she continued between the sobs.
This wasn’t a family secret. She had told me that it took five years to get pregnant and, having children was my mother’s entire world. She told me about all the testing she went through and the trips to a fertility doctor in the city, but that was all. I never really thought much about it.
“Your father had — I think they called it something with motility.”
“You mean his sperm had motility issues.” I stated.
“Yes.” She started crying again.
“And you had artificial insemination?” I asked.
“What’s that?”
OMG. Please tell me I was adopted came to my brain once again.
I had to explain fertility treatment to my 79-year-old mother. Apparently, this was not explained to her nearly 54 years ago.
This fertility doctor used donated sperm.
She became pregnant on the first attempt.
She was never the problem.
Forty minutes of explaining still left her confused.
“I don’t understand what this all means.”
She had to hear it plain as day.
“Your husband was not my father.”
Silence.
“Did you ever know? Did you ever suspect?” I asked.
Silence.
Grief hit me like a truck.
Relief, confusion, anger.
I hung up the phone and cried.
I opened my laptop and looked with new eyes.
Half-sister
Half-brother
Half-brother
Half-sister
Half-brother
Half-brother
It had been there right in front of me the entire time.
Why had my brain rejected this information?
At 53 years old, I found out that the man who was buried nearly 10 years ago was not my biological father.
The man who abused me.
The man who cursed at me.
The man who made my childhood a living hell was not my father.
I could not understand all the emotions that came at once. My brain flooded.
We never got along as a father-daughter should have.
There was no warmth or kindness, no love or compassion, but I accepted it, accepted him as merely my biological father. Now, he was not even that.
This confirmed things I had always sensed. I always felt “other.” Something was off.
My body knew what my mind had not accepted.
Was this why he was so angry?
Did he grow weary with resentment and hatred at his inability to father a child?
Did I pay the price of my childhood for something that had nothing to do with me so my parents could have the perfect family?
I was born with a role to play, a price to pay for being conceived.
Who was I?
Why does my mind work like this?
Whose nose did I have?
I was literally shaking.
How do I process this?
I am an only child. I was an only child.
Was I still an only child?
I could fill this page with all the questions I had at once.
I called my husband immediately.
As usual he listened more than he spoke.
“Well, he said sympathetically, “you got your wish.”
“What wish?” I sniffled.
“You always said, ‘Please tell me I was adopted!’”
Life is never normal after finding out you are donor conceived.
I begin my daily search.
I log into four different sites looking for any new matches.
Then I check my messages for responses. The silence feels personal somehow.
Still, I keep looking.
Then, I check my emails.
Somewhere out there is my father. A man who perhaps has my smile, my nose.
The need to know consumes me.
And I do not give up easily.
Diane was born and raised in New York and currently resides in New Hampshire. She is a late discovery donor conceived person. She is the mom to one son and is currently retired. She enjoys photography and traveling and is trying to discover she who is becoming.