I was 45 years old when I learned of my NPE status. Both of my parents were dead, and everyone I asked about my paternity either felt sworn to secrecy, outright lied, or had no idea who could possibly be my father. Most people really wanted me to know that my birth certificate father (BCF) loved me. That felt strange. It was strange because there was nothing else I previously thought I was more confident about. I immediately started to wonder if I should question my dad’s love for me. Do I …
Client Stories
Eileen’s Story – Let the Leaves Fall
Eileen Hill was born on a snowy day in January 1963 in the back of her Father’s Taxi Cab as he was rushing her Mother to the hospital. She was the baby of the family, with nine living older siblings. Her brother Danny had died three years before she was born in a tragic accident when he was 10. She doesn’t think her mother recovered from losing her firstborn son. Eileen was close to her older sister, Kelly, four years her senior. Each of the older children had a younger sibling they were …
Ruth Ann Renner
When Ruthann was a child, she was jealous of her siblings going off for outings with their father. Beingthe youngest of 5, she would watch her older siblings and envy the relationship they had with their dad.But since he wasn’t her father, she would be left behind to wonder who was her dad. She grew up in apoor, dysfunctional family and she remembers vividly sitting on her cracked driveway, drawing in thedirt with a stick and thinking she would be better than they were. She would get out of Long …
Superhero Origin Story
Rachel, “Rayray” to many of her friends, is hilarious and good-natured. She is also donor-conceived. Her journey began with a surprise half-sibling result after a DNA test, and a difficult conversation with her mother. Like many Donor-Conceived Persons DCPs, particularly those from the early years of sperm donation, she had never been told about her genetic origins. Rachel shared that she handles her discovery with humor because as her son says, “it's like a superhero origin story!” Rachel …
Persistence Is Key
Persistence Is Key! Sheryl begins her NPE story not with her own AncestryDNA test but with her brother’s. His test came back with a much different ethnic background than she anticipated and then, after eventually figuring out what the cMs in common meant, Sheryl realized he was only her half-brother. Her other siblings were then tested and found they were half-siblings to her as well So Sheryl dove into her match list. She reached out to a cousin of her birth certificate father (BCF) who …
Lexie’s Story
Keep Looking and Never Give Up Lexie’s Story I met Lexie through one of our Angels, Kelly Grace when she joined our mentoring program to help new clients in the first stages of discovery. Lexie is perfect for this because she is a warm, genuine person with a beautiful story to draw experience from. Lexie is exactly the type of person you want when your whole life has just been upended. But allow me to start at the beginning of this tale. Lexie found out at 11 or 12 that her father …
