It was a Wednesday night when it happened. Earlier that day, I had been invited to start a trial period for a new position in NYC (that would begin the very next day!) Since I was primarily based out of Philly at the time, this was going to be a pretty big move, and a lot to figure out overnight. I would need not only to read through the (long) contractor handbook (and figure out what I was going to wear the next day) but also determine someone I could crash with (at least through the end of the week) and pack for that time period. And yes, ugh, that would mean getting up before 5am in order to get ready and catch the train and be there in time for their daily 8:15am “stand up” meeting. At minimum, this would be two weeks of crashing with folks in NYC. At maximum, it would be highly interesting (yet time intensive) work through the end of December.
I was fortunate enough to pretty quickly solidify arrangements for where I would crash through the rest of the week as I frantically began to pack. That said, I was still working on where I would stay for the following two weeks, but couldn’t focus on that part just yet.
About 30 minutes into packing, as I was trying to decide which dresses to bring that would be least likely to get wrinkled (my ironing game has never really been “on point”), my phone dinged me with an alert.
I grabbed my phone to read the notification. My heart seemed to stop, then began racing a mile a minute as my world shifted yet again.
Holy-ajfljsdflksajdf, my 95%-likely-half-sister is reaching out to me on Facebook!!!
What could she want to say? Will it be good or bad? What if she’s writing to tell me they don’t believe me and never want me to contact them again? What if everything I’ve done so far to reconnect with them will have been for nothing? Or, what if she wants to actually talk and this is my one chance to make a good impression but I screw it up because I’m stressed about silly packing and starting a new job tomorrow?
Oh right. Packing. Yes. A welcome distraction. Let’s just pretend nothing is happening here and all I need to do is pack because evvvverything is normal and fine!
I launched into full-on fear/denial-mode as I continued to pull work dresses out of my closet. “Everything is fine. This is fine. No big deal. Nothing to see here!”
Anti-Reality-Me answered: “Nope, none of that is possible because that didn’t just happen right now! Nope, totally your imagination that you got a message request! Carry on, this fictional reality will still be here once you’re done packing!”
Other-Me replied: “But what if this is your only chance to talk to them? What if they’re not available later on tonight and the moment passes? This is really important. It’s finally happening, so take a breath and embrace it. Just breath. It will be okay. No matter what, you will find a way to be okay. Just TRY.”
For the umpteenth time, I mustered up all of my courage and hit “accept” on the message request. As it turns out, they had sent a duplicate message from all three of them, but I only saw this one at first.
They wanted to let me know that the attorney they had been speaking with unfortunately decided to not move forward with taking the case at this time. While that was extremely disappointing, the one positive that came out of the decision was that it meant that they no longer had to avoid direct communication with me. The communication wall had suddenly, yet finally, been lifted.
They also wanted me to know that the only reason they hadn’t reached out sooner was because the lawyer had insisted that they refrain while he was considering taking the case. Their silence had nothing to do with their interest level in getting to know us—in fact, they’ve been just as curious about us as we have been about getting to know them!
Finally, and importantly, they wanted me to know that they were interested in both me and Keith getting an official, legally recognized paternity DNA test done.
The entire message was such a relief to hear. Phew! So far at least it wasn’t the worst case scenario that I was so fearful of, and as I had suspected, they just couldn’t be in contact because of the former potential lawyer. They want to know us, and want to know the truth. It was finally time.
I had actually already purchased one more AncestryDNA test that I could gift to them so that we could finally have closure on understanding our biological relationship to one another. At least closure on the first step—are they my siblings, and is their Dad our biological father. As much as all signs point 95% in the direction that Keith is our biological father, I didn’t think it was fair to any of us in the long run if we didn’t find out for sure, and DNA is the only way to know 100%. However, I didn’t know how to bring it up to them and had been holding off on asking since I didn’t know how they were feeling about everything to start with. I didn’t want to push the envelope and overstep since I had already pushed a million tiny envelops just to get to this point.
But C, K, and S (I’m using initials for my half-siblings) and I were on the same page. They proposed an official DNA test, which would be better, since the results would be completely definite, leaving no questions. Also, unlike going the AncestryDNA route, the test results could be viewed in as little as 5 days (as opposed to MONTHS). K took care of coordinating the test (and generously paying for it), which was unbelievably kind and such a gift given that I just started a new job and have been traveling (thus my own personal funding was certainly not at an all-time high).
I let them know that I was 100% down to take the test, and was so glad to finally be in contact with them! And apologized that I barely knew what to say.
After a couple of minutes of talking, my heart stopped yet again:
Whoops, whoops. Oh yea, that. Minor detail about my life…I sort of happen to be blogging about some of it.
Once again…
I really hadn’t known how to broach that subject with any of our “new” family, since the blog had been started long before I had finally found them—before I knew if it would ever even be possible—and had been such a powerful processing tool for me. I was hoping against hope that I wouldn’t have to give it up, especially since I had been writing it anonymously and (trying to) carefully change most names and whatnot, but I also didn’t know how everyone would ultimately feel about it. Already it was hard bringing up to my Mom, who is an exceptionally private person. So when and how would be best to bring it up to my additional branch of family now that I’ve found them? I already was essentially pushing the envelope of comfort zones and risking sounding like a rando crazy person by stating how I’m biologically related, surely breaking the news that I’m also writing about my search at the same time might cause even more hesitance? Certainly I never intended to withhold that part forever, but figured that a.) it would probably be best for them to get to know me at least a tiny bit first and b.) I’d like to be able to tell my immediate “new” bio family members about this part myself rather than through the grapevine. I would just have to be cognizant of writing as anonymously as I can to protect their privacy, too, in the meantime.
Regardless, apparently my half-siblings are just as excellent at internet-sleuthing as I am (genetic? haha), because they were able to find my blog on their own. Fortunately, my panic attack didn’t last too long, because C followed up by graciously saying that she had been reading it for two hours and found it to be really insightful. She explained that being able to read through the documentation of all the research I had conducted so far had been really helpful. I thanked God again for the mercy shown.
We talked via group-chat for 3 hours that night (mostly C, K, and I—poor S was included on the convo but wasn’t around at the time, yet I’m sure his phone was blowing up a mile a minute with messages between his the rest of us). We started talking about everything, comparing our likes, similarities, childhoods, and photos, looking for the threads that bind the paternal side. I’ve always been fascinating by the interplay of “nature vs. nurture”, yet it was still mind-blowing to see the similarities we’ve shared as siblings who have never met. We also shared health information, spoke of additional “new” family members, and figured out who else in our lives we knew in common—we grew up just 40 minutes away from one another, after all.
It was incredible to finally have a conversation that could just as easily have never happened—we could have gone our WHOLE lives never knowing that our own siblings exist—yet somehow, some way, between fate, an incredible amount of effort, luck, and mercy, the first conversation of many became a reality. The fertility process, which was meant to create a family, had effectively rendered us strangers, but we finally had the opportunity to begin changing that. How quickly things can change, and how quickly humanity and care can be restored, undoing a process that had, in many ways, attempted to erase and deny the fact that biological kinship inherently also matters. We may not have grown up together, and our relationship to one another will likely look different as a result, but we never needed to be strangers to one another in order to be family to those who raised us. The parameters of my love were drawn for me out of fear, a fear that was heightened by my parents’ fertility doctor when she encouraged my parents to use an anonymous “donor” and never breathe a word to us or anyone else. When the doctor’s orders were shame. But being brought into this world is a beautiful thing, and there never needed to be any shame in that. To encourage that secrecy was the first step in making it appear as though something was “wrong”. Those who choose adoption are generally not encouraged to hide that from their children, family, and friends, and yet there is no question in those instances that the parents who raise the child are their parents. Why would this be any different?
We just have an extra branch to our family tree, just as they do, and should feel encouraged (and not shamed) to pursue understanding and connecting with our histories, just as adoptees are. Our other branch doesn’t need to be seen as a threat, and in fact this is the least healthy thing a parent, doctor, and/or society at large could ever teach a child.
What we really need is to have a little more faith in each other as human beings and in the power of the relationships we’ve spent our lives cultivating. When we do a good job of loving one another, adding to the family equation should be a happy thing for everyone—if we love unconditionally, how could it not be?
Back to my half-siblings. They know by now that I can be a little bit ADD, and certainly I digress from time to time.
Anyway, after excitedly talking for hours, we said our farewell-for-nows as I finished getting ready for my first day of a new job. I went to bed with so much potential on the horizon. I might not have gotten a ton of sleep, but I slept soundly. Life had more in store.
While I plan to not quote my siblings and “new” family members on the whole, since I’m still not exactly sure how they’d feel about THAT, hopefully they’ll forgive me for this one part.
As we said goodnight, C said:
I instantly smiled probably one of the biggest smiles of my life. It took all of 33 years, but I now finally had sisters. (And a third brother.) 🙂
Thank you for being so welcoming and amazing, even though all of this has been messy and hard. You have been beautiful, and I’m so glad that my life has expanded to include the three of you in it.
With that, I dedicate this post to you, C, K, and S, with love. May it add to all of our lives, for the rest of our lives.
🙂 Your other sister