Who is Your Daddy: Part 2

To read part 1, click here

Darn red tape.....no money for a family law attorney....and well I guess maybe in Heaven I'd finally be told my missing story while standing at the pearly gates.

On my mothers side, we've been able to trace the family history back to coming over on the Mayflower from Ireland. So I did have that side at least to cling to. But otherwise, nothing to jump up and down about.

One afternoon during my favorite time of the day, aka nap time...I switched on TLC. They were airing a recent series called Long Lost Family. Most of the people they casted were those who came from adoptions.

You know....ones that had a better paper trail to track down. You hear about these cases all time. My entrance in life is either a rarity or not something which is talked or brought up about. Although with advancing fertility technology and same sex couples who seek a donor for one piece of the reproductive equation....I wonder if cases like this will be brought to light more often and laws put in place to give rights to the offspring from said donors.

In this show, they were using Ancestry.com quite a bit. You may have seen their commercials running before, with another company called 23andme.com. They were pushing their DNA test to see what your ethnic background was comprised of. It sounded neat....but not $100 neat. So I disregarded like a lot of pushes for products.

As I continued to watch, they were bringing up a DNA database to find any leads for someone searching.

Wait....DNA database?

.....then I became very still and became overwhelmed with emotion when it dawned on me that the door to my bio dad may not have been permanently shut.

I begged Matt to please get me the test as a Mother's day gift (yes, I ask for weird things as gifts from him). At that time we was game for it, but was uncertain as to where the money would come from to swing it. Then he found a couple weeks later, they were running a sale and knocking $20 off the price.

I guess that was the tipping point.

The box came with instructions to spit into a vial and send it back in a little white box. Done and done the same day I received it. My main goal of this test was to find at least one half sibling. In no way was I holding any hope it would result in any more or that the donor was registered with the site. Then I waited.

And waited.....

.......and waited some more.

I had no clue how fast this whole process of testing would take. Matt finally gets an email from them and....

.....I didn't give them enough spit and they were sending another test out.

UGH!!!!!

No expedited shipping or processing the second time around. Weeks continued to come and go, with only a few little updates that they'd received it, but hadn't undergone any testing yet.

Fast Forward to the night of July 8th....

We had been out late doing some shopping and the kids went to bed late. I decided to wind down with a little adult coloring before knocking out. I had just got settled when I hear Matt holler to come down stairs to see something.

Um....it can wait. Show me that funny FB meme/comment/comic etc later. I was not in the mood to move. Then he shouts that my RESULTS ARE IN!

Well then....I think I can be inconvenienced for THAT!

My ethnicity results were not showing up, but except a swirling progress circle.

Man...what a buzzkill!

But what we were able to find there were a few folks registered on Ancestry who were in the "close family to 1st cousin" category. Now the measured units they use for the test has to have at least 30 of them to register as being related in some way. THe folks listed were in the 1400 and up category with 100% certainty.

I sent a few of them a general message about the two mystery paternal sides to see if either one had an relation to them.

Next thing I know, one of them responds quickly with news I couldn't believe....

I was speaking to one of my sisters....and I have 12 other siblings! Some from a marriage(s) and the other half from being a donor that they know of thus far.

Oh.....and the one I spoke to said they've found the donor!

Holy COW!

The last 24 hours have included many many facebook chats, exchanging of pictures as kids and our kids....

LOADS of questions about each other....

And the best part....

In just 24 hours, I've spoken to my bio dad twice today!

Here he is!

He is an OBGYN in California.

Use to live in Poway just down the street where I was born

Says I look just like one of his sons from his first marriage...but with a wig on lol.

Here is a testimony to answered prayer...

I have been praying for almost 34 years for this day. 

From feeling left out for years before being accepted by my father in law.....

Finding old school papers talking about my wishes to meet my real dad...

Teased for who I was and my background.... (turns out I'm 64% west european, 9% trace and the rest Irish)

All has been revealed in a swoosh from no where. I can say very much so with confidence that I feel more more "whole" on this earth...and maybe slightly normal...but some may say the jury is out on this one ;)

The other siblings have all met each other last year....and I hope to make the trip at some point to meet everyone at a reunion and hopefully hug this man I've longed for more than I wanted to wait.

God is so very good....even 34 years later :)

On a side note from the Kindergarten Cop movie......I guess I can really say that "My dad is a gynecologist"

BUHAHAHAH!

Who is Your Daddy and What Does He Do? Part 1

Ah....a memorable line from a classic Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Growing up, I wasn't able to ever answer that question. Father's day was nothing more than a day where I knew none of my friends would be available to play around the neighborhood. There certainly wasn't much point in participating in the yearly Father's day card craft where you make the front look like a shirt collar with a tie.

I knew very early in my life of the fatherly void.

And my mother was not shy in keeping any secrets about how my existence became to be. I was conceived by methods of artificial insemination through an anonymous sperm donor.

For years and years I would dream of finding out who this mystery side of me was. Just even a picture was all I wanted. I borrowed friends fathers where ever I could to relish and savor in any sort of way what it might be like to have one of my own.

Families came and went from the neighborhood, and so did the future activities I could live vicariously through.

When I turned 18, I sought out whatever information I could on the donor through the fertility clinic which was and still is in business. What they were able to release to me was not much. Nothing really identifying or tangible which I could cling to was found in that cold white single letter.

In college I struggled with my faith and what having a Heavenly Father really went and felt like. I still was clenching some sort of hope of someone who I'd never met or seen but made up 50% of my genetic material. My mother would be the one to give her blessing to Matt to ask for my hand in marriage. It would be my uncle to walk me down the aisle.

It came down to the point where I had to lay this hunger to know who my biological father down at the cross. If I didn't pick up the notation of any chance of finding out....I wouldn't have to fight to let it go.

Our wonderful kids came later....

And I was giddy of the fact of knowing these close family members were the newest and most directly related to me and my past.

Where does this come from?

Matt doesn't have these features....

Who do they take after on my side that I can't even compare to?

There would be a silent cry inside when members from Matt's family would comment on physical features and the family lines they most resembled. You know....the usual things proud family members do when a baby is born.

I'd have to fight the defensiveness in me to defend my unknown genetic material. "Well how do you not know it came from my fathers side!?" 

But due to legal restrictions....I was at a dead end of knowing anything more.

TO BE CONTINUED....