After discovering I was an NPE, I wanted to look at my mother’s life. I wanted to understand her more. My mother hated the name Martha Lee. She lived her life avoiding it whenever she could. I remember my grandmother sometimes calling her M.L. Mom felt M.L. was much better than the grating “Maaatha Lee”…
I’m sure you don’t need three guesses to guess what the DNA results were to my youngest brother. His results came a few weeks after I compared with my sisters. Of course, he was a full sibling to my other brother and to my sisters. Which meant, of course, he was only a half-sibling with…
I was checking the 23andMe website three or four times a day. The first results that came in were for my oldest sister. She is twelve years older than me. I decided to wait for my other sister’s results to come in so that I could look at them together. Hers came just a few…
I think of those 18 months I kept this crushing secret entirely to myself as a period of complete denial fueled by panic. Besides being a world champion in compartmentalizing, I am also a master multi-tasker, so my life went on doing my routine tasks. You didn’t find me curled up in my bed, hiding…
Before I go deeper into the journey of my DNA discovery that my Dad wasn’t my biological father, I want to tell you a little bit more about my Dad. And just to clarify — when I use the word “Dad,” I am always referring to the Dad who raised me and loved me. My…
I stared down at my iPad and started to shake looking at the 23andMe comparison between my brother and me. Estimated relationship: Half-sibling What does it feel like to discover that you aren’t really your Dad’s child? It felt like I had been punched in the stomach and while I struggled to catch my breath,…