With Great Talent Comes Great Responsibility

Speaker 1: (00:00)

Um, in a way that people who have been through it felt seen and people who haven’t been to, it felt like, you know, I mean, I hear this all the time. Like, it was so important to me that people understand, um, because it’s not an instant, instantly relatable thing. It’s not, you know, I mean, my other memoirs, it was like marriage or my kid was sick or, uh, you know, my father died. This was like a whole other, like, what you, like, what does that feel like? And I felt such a sense of responsibility because it felt like it was my story and I’m a writer and I had to write it. So 

 Speaker 2: (00:43)

Yeah, you just answered all my questions. So I have to do any more interviews. Um, yeah. Sense of responsibility is, um, is important. I think, I think people, I think it, I think it lands differently with different people obviously, but, um, but it’s interesting how many, how, how people are choosing to channel their other own NPE experiences and what they’re doing with it and what, and, and mostly for the, you know, I’m mostly interested in the creative side of things. Um, the writing and the, uh, I guess it was probably movies and there’s podcasts and, um, there’s a magazine at least one. So, um, yeah, so that’s something that has really come out of this 

Speaker 1: (01:27)

More and more. I mean, we can talk about that. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, nature, abhors, a vacuum and four years ago when I made my discovery 2016, so like going on like four and a half years ago, there was like very, very, very little. And now, I mean, somebody wrote high school, friend of mine wrote to me yesterday saying that a friend of hers just made this discovery and is there anywhere that I could point her to? And I was able to point her to, um, Brianne Fitzpatrick who has watershed DNA and who has all these resources and, you know, there’s therapists who are specializing in this now that did not exist. Um, so, and that’s, that’s no time at all, imagine what it’s going to be like in another four years. So it’s great. It’s yeah, 

 Speaker 2: (02:14)

Very quickly, um, very, very quickly. And, um, so, so I’m going to back up just a little bit, um, and make sure everybody knows I’m talking to Danny Shapiro. I didn’t even realize we were recording it. Um, well I started recording, you know, we were sort of in the middle of talking and I, um, this is always how it goes on my show. It’s only a little bit, um, scrambled. So, uh, so yeah, it’s, I’m talking to Danny Shapiro, I’m here with her today. She’s the author of the book inheritance, which is, um, what I describe as a very hot book in the NPE community, DNA discovery world. She, um, she is a writer of many books, many fiction books, and a series of memoirs that a lot of people are familiar with. And then she, um, stumbled into her own DNA discovery, uh, the way that so many of us do through a male in recreational DNA kits. 

 Speaker 2: (03:15)

Um, and she wrote about it. And I don’t, I think almost everybody probably that’s listening to this has read her book. So I don’t want to go over the whole story. Um, I don’t, I don’t need you to tell me you’re holding it, you know, um, NPS story, which is what a lot of this podcast often is. It’s people relating their stories. Um, and I, but I do, you know, I just want to say she, you know, you discover that there’s a, uh, it’s a late discovery, don’t donor conception distort story. Um, and I think what people, the, the, the facts of the chronological story are about discovering it, and then the journey you go on and then the things you find out, and then what that means, but what people, what resonates with people so powerfully is your emotional experience and the way that you describe it, um, and you, I could be wrong, but I think it’s the first book to come out on a sort of wide market popular, um, platform that, that made it so accessible for people to understand what you, uh, what you went through, what most, if not everybody goes through with these experiences, and then, uh, with what the feeling is my, um, side note, my mom read your book before me actually, and she read it because she was trying to understand what I was going through, which I thought was very sweet and admirable of her. 

 Speaker 2: (04:42)

She’s really putting in some effort. Um, she didn’t get it when it felt like such a, um, such a, like example of the, of the disconnect between so many parents and their children or adult children that are, that are going through this. Um, but she had, I think she enjoyed it as a memoir, but didn’t, it just had some sort of funny things to say. Um, but it’s an excellent book.  

Speaker 1: (05:08)

I think so many parents who have, um, uh, you know, sort of kept this under wraps for most of their lives. Um, and then, you know, just there’s this, uh, you know, the, the kind of injury of the fact that there’s, there are these DNA tests and they’re commercially available and they’re inexpensive and people do them many, many, many hundreds and hundreds of thousands and millions of people. Um, and then parents grappling with, you know, having thought their lives were going to go one way and then having to pivot. And there’s, I think, I mean, I’ve seen this and heard this a lot, often a feeling of, of like very threatened, like what’s, what difference does it make, like in your mother, your was your father. It doesn’t make any difference and, you know, like just let sleeping dogs lie and, and, you know, don’t, you know, don’t rock the boat and, um, there’s certainly that reaction, but there’s also the reaction.  

Speaker 1: (06:09)

And I’ve had this, a lot of parents have NP is reading my book. And like, I remember once while I was on book tour back when we could do such things being in Chicago and this young man came up to me and he asked me if he could speak to me privately. And we went into a corner of the bookstore and he started crying. And he said that his father had read my book and had sat him down to tell him after reading my book. And I I’ve had a lot of that too, the feeling of a parent reading it and thinking, Oh, this is actually important. And this, you know, knowingly or unknowingly, this has shaped my child’s life. And, and they’re going to find out anyway, which is the big medic. Like the really, like, can’t get around that piece. Right. They’re going to find out in all likelihood, somebody’s going to do an DNA test at some point. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s going to be revealed.  

Speaker 2: (07:16)

Wow, that’s a powerful, um, sort of vehicle for the situation that I had not thought about. I had not considered the parents might read it and think, Oh, I better.  

Speaker 1: (07:26)

Oh, wow. They came to my events. I could, I started to be able to spot them. They were there when my events started, right. When the book came out, like I remember from the very first event I walked in and it was like wall to wall people, first of all, which was a surprise. And there were people there that were not my usual demographic, you know, it wasn’t a room full of young women. And there were elderly men. And I was like, inwardly, my, my, my inner chatter was going, sir, who are you? And why are you here? And then there were like these couples, older couples sitting there holding hands, looking really stricken. And then there were all of these people of all ages, just looking like, almost like, like intensity was sort of radiating off of them. And so what I found over time, because I, eventually people started coming up to me was the elderly men were very often, donors were all of a sudden thinking, Whoa, boy, I donated as an anonymous donor many decades ago, never thinking that offspring of mine would ever be able to identify me, find me. 

Speaker 1: (08:45)

Um, it was something I did casually or I, something I did for money or whatever it was. Uh, so there were those gentlemen coming to my events, but then there, these couples, um, who were really starting to, and I remember it being in California, um, a bookstore in Laguna beach and this really early on in my book tour, and this woman got up during the Q and a, she was crying. She had come with a friend and she said, I’m realizing I have to tell my daughter and my daughter. And that just really started happening. And then the people, the people who just looked like, like, like intense and like stuff was just like a radiating, you know, what I’m going to say was like, those are all the NPS, right? My very first reading, the very first question, when I opened it up to a show of hands, it was this, this, this guy.  

Speaker 1: (09:37)

And he sort of turned kind of tables on me. And he looked out at the crowd and he said, how many people here have made DNA discoveries? And all these hands went up. And I was like, Whoa, Whoa. Um, something is like, it, it was, it was miraculous and actually really wonderful once it stopped being totally surprising that, because my book was the book that wasn’t is still the book that people would be like, this happened to you. Here you go. I’ve got a book for you. Yeah. Um, so the events became gathering places in a way that, you know, I think we long to gather, we long to like, have these conversations with other people who have been through something. So experience that resembles ours, and there was no place to do that now, increasingly there’s, you know, there’s some private groups, there’s Facebook groups, there’s, you know, there, there are other avenues to find other NPS, but that for me was actually one of the most healing things in my journey was that I got to ma I got to make a difference. Yeah. 

 Speaker 2: (10:55)

Yeah. I mean, that theme comes up again and again is, um, the healing sort of the healing power of being of service. Um, being able to help others can be so healing and yeah. And the, and the immense power of community has, uh, and I’ve, I I’ve been through other things in my life, but this has been the thing that, um, I have, I have needed and craved and been sort of healed the most was by, by connecting with other people over the situation. Um, and yeah, so I don’t, I don’t know what it is about the, about the NPE experience. Exactly. That makes it that way. But, um, but yeah, 

 Speaker 1: (11:33)

Theories, I mean, and I can only speak for myself, but you know, when you make a discovery and, and it’s something that you never knew about yourself and, you know, and I really have to differentiate there because one of the things I realized was that adopted people or adoptive parents in particular, um, if they hadn’t read the book and they just were hearing me on the radio or hearing me speak, they, they, they would like leap to the conclusion that what I was saying was that biology is all that matters. Right. Which would be a very, very, very threatening thing to a adopt. I don’t feel that way at all. Not even a tiny little bit, but a secret was kept from us. Right. And I, you know, I spent my life with no reason to doubt that my dad had was my biological father. 

 Speaker 1: (12:28)

And my mom was my biological mother. And it, this was the family that I came from biologically. And these were the ancestors that I came from biologically to make the discovery that that was not the case. The feeling was of being in pieces. Like my, my, my foundational story, we all have foundational stories. And our foundational stories are the ones that are told to us from the time that we can understand anything. This is, this is you, this is who you are. And when that foundational story is actually woven around an absence or an untruth, or, um, a lie or a secret, however, whatever you want to call it, um, for, for whatever reason it’s been kept. I mean, in many, many cases, it was kept because people were told that it was best for the child, but when you make that discovery as an adult, um, and I think this goes to the reason why community is so important or community is also having your experience reflected back at you. 

 Speaker 1: (13:33)

You know, this is a big deal. You know, I felt that way too, or I feel that way too, or that’s how I felt as a child too. You know, there’s so much emotionally that NPS share, even if the experiences differ wildly, there is thing. I mean, I’ve heard so many people say I grew up feeling like something didn’t quite fit in about me. I grew up feeling like I didn’t quite belong, but that didn’t make any sense because of course I belonged. So I had that feeling that I didn’t, so I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt effective. I felt other. And I mean, I, I don’t think I’ve had a conversation with a single NPE where that, that was not a shared experience. And so that’s huge to be able to begin to put those pieces back together and go, Oh, I was feeling that way because this was the ground beneath me that I didn’t know, this was the air that I was breathing that I didn’t know. 

 Speaker 2: (14:44)

Yeah. Well, yeah. And it, and I think, I think you’re absolutely right. It’s from one kind of isolation, the feeling like you don’t fit in, which is incredibly isolating too, then the NPE experience, which is incredibly isolating as it happens to then discovering that you’re not isolated at all, but you have this connection with all these people. Um, so, so yeah, to go from isolation to community, um, is a part of it, for sure. Absolutely. 

 Speaker 1: (15:10)

Well, and when people contact me, you know, and, you know, it’s, the book created a situation where I could not write back in kind like long,  

Speaker 1: (15:23)

But what I, what I would do. And I mean, on my website, I searched, I have a place where people can find other resources, but also if I was ever encountering someone who was saying, I like, I just discovered this in my world is in pieces. The thing I found myself saying again, and again, is you are so far from alone. Hundreds of thousands of people are making these discoveries. I, you know, I, I heard a statistic recently that probably only about a third of the people who are NPS know it yet. And there are millions. So think, I mean, just like, yeah, it’s going to, I mean, there’s going to be a point, you know, I, I think of this time that we’re living through, it’s actually incredibly fascinating that we’re living through it. Right. I mean, it’s a sliver in time. It’s the people who were not told. Um, and that still exists. I mean, people are still having babies and they’re still doing it. That is actually the only thing that makes me mad. I’m not mad at my parents. I’m not mad at your mother. I’m not like I’m not mad at people plugging in my computer, keep talking. Yes. Um, I, people who made their families at a time when, um, it was conventional wisdom that this is, yeah, I’ve, I’ve really made my peace with that. It’s um, you can’t judge the past by the standards of the present. 

 Speaker 2: (17:00)

There’s no way my parents knew Facebook was going to be invented 

 Speaker 1: (17:03)

Or river, or the idea that, you know, that, that children had rights or that, you know, that, that, that what we don’t know can hurt us and that they’re toxic and all of that, their generations and generations and generations of parents didn’t know that, but we can judge the present by the standards of the present and in the present. When I hear stories that I hear all the time of people who are having babies with donors, and these are the, these are most often couples and, and, and straight couples, three couples are the only people who can do this. If you’re a single somebody else somewhere, if you’re a gay couple, there’s somebody else somewhere who assisted, uh, you need an assist. Um, but if you’re a straight couple, uh, and you’re going this route to use a donor, an egg donor, or a sperm donor, um, and you’re choosing not to either not to tell your child, or maybe you’ll decide later whether you’re going to tell your child, or maybe someday you’ll tell your child. 

 Speaker 1: (18:14)

Like to me, that’s when I start feeling really, um, upset with people because they’re a, because we know better, we should know better be, there are no secrets. Your child is going to find out and see there’s so much support now. So there’s no, there’s no, I mean, my parents, if they had told me when I was a child, there would have been no support for me. And I think actually it would have been a catastrophe, even bigger unicorn than I already felt. Um, and there would have been no way of ever identifying my biological father. There would have been no way of ever finding other people who were having the same experience because every, everybody was keeping the secret. But now, yeah, 

 Speaker 2: (18:58)

Yeah, yeah. Now, no. And I actually, um, I’ve interviewed a few people who, who are, um, who, who are even in, you know, I would say like in the, in the, in the more progressive and more liberally educated, uh, field of thought, and they even, aren’t taking it very seriously as, as parents using donor. 

 Speaker 1: (19:19)

Um, well here, here’s something I very recently heard from, um, uh, actually from, from, uh, uh, a therapist who’s very involved in this field, which is that. So there is, I mean, this, this just blew my mind. It was like one step further than anything that I’ve considered. Um, there is embryo donation when, um, a couple has used IVF to have their own children biologic, and they’re finished making their family. They’ve had two kids or three kids, or have any kids with, or one kid, well, however many kids they wanted to have with IVs, they can, instead of destroying those embryos, they can donate those embryos to another family. Okay. So, well, I’m good. I’m on the birth certificate of those embryos, which are then implanted in the, um, you know, in the intended mother goes to the intended parents names, which is unconscionable. I mean, that’s, that’s a lie, right,  

Speaker 2: (20:25)

Right. Because the child, yeah. The child actually isn’t related to the,  

Speaker 1: (20:28)

The woman did not birth certificate. I mean, when I realized that my, my birth certificate was a false document, when I realized I was, I was doing research on the history of reproductive medicine. And I realized that there were, I mean, it was there plainly written in medical texts that the couple would go to, um, uh, you know, to, to, uh, uh, a doctor or a clinic to do the procedure and, and, and use a donor. And then the, uh, mother future mother would go to her obstetrician and never tell him so that the obstetrician would be able to sign the document, the legal document. There’s nothing more foundational than your birth certificate. Right. Thing. It’s a thing you bring in when you have to get your passport is the thing you need to bring in when you get those new fancy driver’s licenses with the stars on them, like foundational document of identity. And the feeling I had when I realized that was a false, was an, is a false document. My father was not my biological father and that’s what’s on there. And, and that, that is still happening. If you think of all of the ramifications for that, the genetic ramifications, the medical, if nothing else, I mean, let’s even put aside the emotional, the psychological, the more subtle, the spiritual, you know, all of the, um, you know, sort of more, you know, harder to really wrap your hands around, but you talk about medical and genetic issues. 

 Speaker 2: (22:15)

Yeah. You’re right. Right. If your foundational, if your foundational document cannot even be trusted, then who are you when it couldn’t be yeah. You know, scientists scientifically or literally, and then existentially, it’s just, um, yeah. Yeah. We really ought to maybe rethink that, rethink that rethink the birth certificate process, whatever, you know, whatever. 

 Speaker 1: (22:41)

Well, that’s, that’s part of what energized me when I realized that I was, I mean, when inheritance came out, which was in January of 2019, so two years ago, um, I went on a book tour. I was on a book tour for like six months nonstop in like 30 cities, something like that. I came home and my publisher was like, do you want to go back out again? Because this is really working. I went back out again. I did another, I was on the road until, until the pandemic struck and I was still, the paperback had just come out and I was supposed to start traveling internationally. I was supposed to go to Paris for the French publication and to Sydney, Australia, um, to speak about it at the Sydney, at the Sydney writers’ festival and like all this stuff. And the thing I started feeling was a profound sense of purpose. 

 Speaker 1: (23:30)

I was tired and it was, I mean, it was exhausting and it was a lot, it was also exciting and thrilling, but the sense of purpose was I would look out at a crowd of people and I would tell them the statistics. I would tell them, I mean, I started becoming more politicized as I went on. I would Howard it totally empowered to share information. I mean, I remember being in DC and, um, giving, giving a talk at the Smithsonian there and our Congress woman, um, Johanna Hayes, the first, first term Congresswoman from the state of Connecticut who I know a little bit socially, but, you know, she walked in and I thought I’ve got the ears of a congressperson now. And, but like the, I would, I would tell people the statistics, I would tell them, you know, however, however many million people it was at that point, uh, had done home DNA tests and that around 2% of those discover an NPE, I would explain to them what an NPE was. 

 Speaker 1: (24:42)

And then I would do the math and say, I think at the time it was that’s around 235,000 people a year who are making these discoveries. And then I talked about the way that in this country, we have no registry for sperm donors. We, the only country in the developed world that does not have a registry that limits the number of offspring that a donor can produce. Um, you know, in everywhere else. Like in some places that number is one in certain parts of Asia. That number is one in a lot of Europe, Western Europe, it’s 10 or 10 there’s 25, there is 25, but you don’t have a situation where it’s like 137, you know, a friend of mine who’s a continuing every week brings new half siblings. And then I like, look at people’s faces and they’re shocked. I mean, their draws were just dropping. 

 Speaker 1: (25:43)

And I felt like, you know, I’m actually, if, if I can activate people to think about this, you know, every once in a while, somebody, especially in Washington, DC, somebody would say to me, you know, well, what are you going to do about it? And I was like, this is what I’m going to do about it. We’re going to continue to tirelessly travel the world and tell people what’s going on because I’m a writer. And I wrote this book and that’s what that’s, that’s what I can do. Like that, those are my tools and that that’s my toolbox. And that’s how I can try to make a difference. Yeah, 

 Speaker 2: (26:21)

Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t know how much, I didn’t know until this experience and, and, and then, and meeting everybody else and starting to dig into all of this. I didn’t, I had no idea. It never occurred to me. And I think it’s probably a part of the sort of long winding complicated, uh, layered history that, that we have with sex. And that if we’re talking about fertility is talking about sex. And so we don’t talk about it. So now nobody knows about sperm banks, because that’s about masturbation 

 Speaker 1: (26:50)

Shame. It’s shame it’s underneath. All of it is shame. You know, I mean, my biological father is a elegant area. Dite man, and he’s lovely. And we will never have a simple relationship because I am the result of his having masturbated into a, you know, into a, into whatever 

 Speaker 2: (27:16)

I was, what they always say as a cup guest, who knows. 

 Speaker 1: (27:20)

And because of that, there’s, um, a kind of, there will always be a little bit of an awkwardness or an unease. Um, even though we have a really lovely friendship, it’s, you know, and the people who kept these secrets, um, they kept some, because infertility was shameful. Male infertility was super duper shameful. It was so painful that around the time that I was conceived, it literally didn’t exist. No doctor would test for it. Um, the, the Institute where my parents went was run by a scientist who was roundly disliked. 

 Speaker 2: (28:03)

Right. He was like the rogue. He was 

 Speaker 1: (28:05)

The rogue guy. He just wasn’t, I don’t think it was very likable. I mean, people just like him, but part of why the medical community didn’t like him was, Hey, he wasn’t a doctor. He was a, he wasn’t a medical doctor. He was a scientist. Um, but B um, he, um, studied male and fertility, which was the easiest thing in the world to study. All you had to do is look at the sperm under a microscope. Right. It’s so amazing. It took that long and they would sooner do invasive tests on women to figure out what the problem was. Then just simply look at the sperm.  

Speaker 2: (28:42)

Of course. Hmm [inaudible] yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing. So we have to start talking about all of this, if we’re going to talk about the rights and the, and the birth certificates and the laws and the science of, of genetics and who we are, it includes sex and sperm and wombs and vaginas, like all that stuff is in there. And those are incredibly uncomfortable things, uh, as a whole, 

Speaker 1: (29:07)

Especially if part of what’s going on is something about that doesn’t work.  

Speaker 2: (29:10)

Right. Right. If there’s a flaw in ingestion of a flaw. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Um, so I actually reached out to a few of my NPE, um, communities and asked them if there were any questions they wanted to ask you hope that’s okay with you, um, that hadn’t been asked yet. Cause I know that you, you do a lot of talks about this book and you’ve already said you’ve gone on multiple tours. And, um, I was trying to think of, um, of things that would, that would offer something different. Um, so I wrote couple down, so I don’t want them all down. Um, I thought we could do those questions and, um, and that would be a, sort of a fun way to, um, talk about it and the, and, you know, and, and sort of close up, close up our time together. Um, yeah. All right. So these are the questions I wrote them down in no particular order. Um, and some of them, I bet you have been asked, but that’s okay. These are what these are, what people were curious about. Um, how would you have handled things differently if your parents were alive at the time of your discovery?  

Speaker 1: (30:13)

I think so many things would have been different. Um, you know, it’s interesting, there’s a, there’s a movie in the works, um, of inheritance and, um, my husband, who’s a screenwriter and a director actually ended up writing the most recent draft of the screenplay and in the screenplay, my mother’s alive.  

Speaker 1: (30:36)

It’s a lot more dramatic, I guess, that’s that story. Right. But you know, what was really interesting about that? Is it allowed for the opportunity of thinking, you know, what would my mother, how would my mother have reacted? Um, I’m pretty sure I I’ll never know, but I’m pretty sure that my mother would have been of the root of that didn’t happen. Um, because she was of the generation that was so completely, um, what’s the word, uh, great efforts were taken to make couples who came in at that time and used a donor to basically kind of either forget that it ever happened or think maybe it didn’t happen, you know, by, by mixing sperm, by confused artificial insemination by, uh, telling the, the here’s something that I found out after I finished inheritance, um, the, the, the woman wants successfully pregnant would often be told, you know, wonderful news your blood work shows that you’re pregnant, but the levels show that you must have already been pregnant when you got here. 

 Speaker 1: (31:58)

Oh, so, Oh yeah. Like I haven’t heard that one. Yeah. It was. I mean, really, um, it was done in, in like in a, in a protective way, wowing this couple to feel like, uh, this baby was biologically theirs, but boy, would it with your head? So confusing, so confusing. So I believe that if my mother had been alive, that that would have probably been a dead end too much to her, um, that she had con I think that she had largely convinced herself that I was my father’s biological child. And I think if my father had been alive, it would have been a very painful conversation. Um, and I don’t know that as a conversation I even would have had with him, you know, I might not have one thing I’m sure of is that if my father had been alive, I wouldn’t have written inheritance. 

 Speaker 1: (32:49)

I just, I would have felt that he so desperately wanted this to be, um, a secret that he took to the grave with him, uh, that I, I would’ve waited. Um, I might’ve written it after, after he was gone, but I wouldn’t have written while he was living. Um, and I also think that the, the, the, the mystery so much of the mystery for me, part of it was whose my biological father, but I solved that incredibly quickly. Um, so the mystery that was the, the deeper one that kind of consumed me was what did my parents know? How much did they know? Did they raise me kind of with a consciousness about this? What went into their decisions? I don’t, you know, I I’ve talked to enough people now that I actually really don’t know that I would have gotten satisfaction about that even had they living it’s, it’s nice to think that we would have had this like deep reckoning and talked through everything, but, you know, we actually didn’t have that relationship with it. 

 Speaker 2: (33:57)

Yup. Yup. I relate to that. A lot of people ask me when my, when my experience first happened, they said, um, was happening. Like when I was in the, in the throws of the first, uh, days, people kept saying, well, have you asked your mom, have you, have you asked your mom, you know, so many people said that. And I was like, uh, no, no, because that, that would not be, um, a conversation that could, I can’t just call. Yeah. It’s just complicated cupcakes. And there are people who can, 

 Speaker 1: (34:24)

And I think there’s also a feeling of, like, you kind of want to understand as much as you can on your own before. Like, I remember a friend of mine who’s very plugged into the whole world of like the best psychics in the world and the best mediums. I mean, really like the ones that the FBI And, um, and, and she said, you know, we can get, we can get Laurel and Jackson on the phone, you know, we can, uh, and I was like, I don’t want to do that. I don’t, I want, I won’t trust it anyway. And I, the only thing that I feel I can trust in this entire experience are my own deepest instincts and like that deep, deep knowledge about things that continues to evolve, it’s evolving four years later and it will probably evolve for the rest of my life. 

 Speaker 2: (35:18)

Right. Right. Well, and I think part of the process for so many people, and I think, I think what you, you talk about in, in one way or another is about, um, recognizing intuition as such and, and creating a relationship with it after your whole life being told to ignore it, um, passive aggressively by the world, by your parents, by the world. Um, 

 Speaker 1: (35:40)

Because I had the intuition things I haven’t talked about much is that because I’m a writer and I’ve written 10 books, nine books before inheritance, I can go, I have proof of my intuition. I can, I can go back to the very beginning of my life as a writer and read, look at my first novels, which I did do. And it was breathtaking to me because on some level I knew. Absolutely. It’s just there, it’s there in black and white. That’s cool. It’s really cool. Yeah. I mean, it’s, and it’s, it’s like, hopefully some graduate student will do a study someday. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like the unconscious is there on the page, like a trail of breadcrumbs that lead all the way to ultimately the discovery, but I didn’t make the discovery because I suspected I made the discovery because as you said, recreational DNA, fun 

 Speaker 2: (36:38)

Science, fun science. Yeah. Wow. Um, someone wanted to know, have you discovered any more siblings and, um, I believe in the book you connect with your sister, sister through. Um, but they want to know if you’ve had any more connections with any more siblings 

 Speaker 1: (36:58)

I have not, which makes me pretty unusual. I think I have not been any, um, half siblings materializing. I’ve got my DNA up on all the sites. Um, and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but time goes on. It becomes less likely, I think, but I, but it certainly could be the case, but, um, I think that my biological father didn’t, didn’t donate that many times. It’s really possible that I’m the only, that I’m the only one 

 Speaker 2: (37:35)

Very possible. He didn’t fall into the 137 category. No. Um, let’s see. How do you think it would have felt if you had not been able to discover who your biological family was so quickly? 

 Speaker 1: (37:50)

Yeah, I’ve thought a lot about that because it was such a wild, like kismety fast. Um, like everything just clicking, like clicking, like the combinations of a lock or the way that it happened. And I was aware of how unusual that was. Um, and that I had exactly the right number of clues to be able to put it all together. And if any, one of those clues had not been there, if the first cousin had not been on my ancestry.com page, if my mother had not mentioned the word Institute and Philadelphia, if right. Like that conversation, by the way, I mean, people will sometimes ask, do you think your mother was trying to tell you something back then? Absolutely not. I think she was, she was triggered by the word Philadelphia. Like it just came up out of left field, you know, when somebody said, I, you know, I’ve come from Philadelphia and out of her mouth just came, my daughter was conceived in Philadelphia and the minute she said it, she would, I’m sure she would have loved to just like stuff, those words. 

 Speaker 1: (38:51)

Right. Um, but I remembered that conversation without that conversation, I would have been left in the dark. So, so I’ve thought about it a lot. I think it would have been really hard. And I, I, I just have so much compassion for people who are looking and struggling and trying to find and hitting dead ends or finding someone who rejects them or finding someone who is incredibly threatened and just thinks, you know, as, as virtually everyone is when they’re contacted my biological father was too, it’s like, you know, what do you want from me? It’s a primal thing. Um, but you know, to, to know, I can say from the vantage point of knowing it’s not everything, you know, um, but it’s definitely a comfort because it, um, it confirms things, it confirms, Oh, that’s why I look the way that I do. That’s I see my gestures. 

 Speaker 1: (39:58)

I see. I, I can see the, that the constitution, you know, the, who I kind of constitutionally am, uh, comes from this person and this line of people, it doesn’t make me feel like I have a new father. It doesn’t make me feel like I have a new family. Um, I do feel like I have new ancestors because ancestors are just facts, chips. You know, I have, I do have, I have my old ancestors who are my psychological, emotional, spiritual ancestors. And I have my new ancestors who are in fact, my biological ancestors. And I find that all kind of fascinating. Um, and it’s comforting to know because it fills in some blanks. And it’s really hard to, I only walked around with those blanks for three days. And there are people who are walking around with those blanks and wondering whether they’re ever going to be able to feel any of them in. 

 Speaker 2: (41:00)

Yeah. The unknown is so hard to grapple with. 

 Speaker 1: (41:03)

Um, 

 Speaker 2: (41:05)

One woman does not have a question as I’m sure you’re familiar with that in the Q and a world. Um, she wanted to tell you that she was at your book signing for inheritance, um, on a whim. And then one week later her results came in and she discovered she was an envy. Isn’t that crazy? I bet that happens all the time. 

 Speaker 1: (41:28)

It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. And, but it’s, it’s because of the sheer numbers of people that this is happening to. I mean, it’s, we’re reaching a point where this, it may not be the NPE experience, but the DNA surprise experience is touching almost everyone. It feels like everyone, it might be by a couple of degrees of separation, but it is, it is touching everyone. Everyone has a story. Now, even if it’s a story of, you know, my friend so-and-so or my, you know, my old boyfriend or whatever, it’s, it’s just wild. 

 Speaker 2: (42:08)

Yeah. It doesn’t seem, I haven’t yet. And I talked about this a lot, but, um, I have yet to tell my story in, within a group of some, you know, whatever, wherever it is and not have one person within the group say, Oh, that happened to me, to my brother, to my cousins and my bartender to my, you know, somebody knows somebody. Yes, absolutely. 

 Speaker 1: (42:28)

And need to go back to the thing we were talking about about like this sliver of time that we’re in. I think, cause I kind of went off track there and started talking about my, my, my rage at people who don’t disclose there will be a point probably was in our lifetimes where this will be over. We are living in this like, wave that hasn’t Crested yet. Um, but it’s, it’s a big, powerful wave of this combination of secrecy, shame, DNA becoming easily accessible, the unintended consequences of people being able to, you know, find out all this stuff and a few generations from now, it won’t be, it won’t be done anymore. Like people, the psychology and the science will have caught up with each other and P and if there are, if there are donors, they’re going to be entirely transparent and there will be registries and no one will think that it’s okay to hide their child’s genetic identity from them. Partly because partly because it’s simply won’t be possible anymore. And partly because we will catch up with the understanding of how wrong that is  

Speaker 2: (43:55)

A hundred percent. Right. I think about that a lot about this sort of, yeah. A way a wave is a wonderful way to think of it as, um, graphically sort of like, um, yeah, we haven’t peaked yet, but, um, but yeah, eventually it won’t, it won’t be possible. So I am amazed when I do hear of people still doing it in different way, you know, still trying to hide things and I’m like, no, no, those babies are just babies. Oh no, no. The bell curve will not be over. Um, and one person wanted to know, do you have advice about writing and publishing stories? Because the more stories we have will a broader perspective 

 Speaker 3: (44:32)

Of the experience. 

 Speaker 1: (44:36)

I think that the reason why I was able to write inheritance is because I am a writer. Um, I’ve had a lot of people send me like versions of their stories and the details of their stories are, you know, heartbreaking and intense, but they don’t feel like stories. Um, because ultimately to be able to capture the story, the person doing it has to be in control of the storytelling. I could not possibly have written inheritance if it had been my first book I needed. It’s just going to ask you that possibly have written it. I have so many more tools in my toolbox as a writer. I mean, I found myself thinking, you know, what is universal about this experience? It has to be made universal for. I didn’t want to write a book that only NPS would read. I wanted to write a book that everyone would read. Um, I wanted to write a book that would concretize and make visible this experience for, for the people who say, doesn’t matter, your father is still your father. People who say, I don’t see what the big deal is for the people who say, but you know, you have a great life. You’ve had 

 Speaker 3: (46:06)

A great life. I mean, aren’t you just happy that you’re here 

 Speaker 1: (46:09)

For the people who essentially say, get over it, get over yourself. I wanted, you know, and I can’t, I can’t win anybody over if that’s going to be their attitude, but I wanted people’s eyes to be opened. Um, and in order to do that, I had to think what’s universal. And, you know, the, the, the details become riveting and, and, um, you know, kind of, we can really get inside somebody’s story when the, you know, the shape of the storytelling allows for that. And, you know, I mean, I threw out hundreds of pages of inheritance before I found the way to tell it the place from which to tell it. So I guess I would say, first of all, um, it’s never a good idea to think about Polish publishing something before you’ve written it, the world doesn’t need more accounts out there, the world, you know, somebody will come along and write another book at some point, but that person who does that well will be a writer. 

 Speaker 1: (47:22)

Um, and, and I just think that, look, there’s a difference between a kind of deep journaling that is very therapeutic and really useful, um, and is like, this is my story. I’m laying down my story. I’m telling my story. I teach that way sometimes. Um, I don’t know when this is going to, I don’t know when this podcast is going to drop this episode, but on March 6th, I’m actually teaching an online. I never do this, but it’s the first time I’m doing it, like an, a large online couple of hour retreats called secrets in memory. And a lot of, lot of that is going to be generative, getting, getting, you know, by all means generate. Right. You know, but, but to think, you know, I need to publish my story is like almost a short fire, route 10, not actually like to becoming sort of, so self-conscious that you’re not really telling the story anymore, right? 

 Speaker 2: (48:23)

Yeah. Yeah. There’s a freedom in the deep journaling, um, that may, that may not exist, uh, with, with publication in mind. Yeah. Yeah. Um, um, my book proposal that I worked on with Claire, um, was for a memoir and, uh, it was roundly rejected by everybody, but, um, but my letter got a lot of responses, but, um, but, uh, but it was interesting because I felt before I even started submitting it, that something was missing. It’s about, you know, when it’s about, we’ll get into the details, but it’s about mother and, uh, my mother and me and my daughter and sort of this like relationship between the three of us and there was something missing. And it’s so funny because it was before my NPE experience. And as soon as it happened, it was like, well, that’s what was missing. You know, not that anybody ever said specifically that something was missing, but something just wasn’t there. And I think what I was trying to talk about with shame and secrecy, but I didn’t know, didn’t know it yet. Right. And, um, and, uh, yeah, so 

 Speaker 1: (49:31)

Send it amazing when that happens, because it’s suddenly like, Oh, now you have, like, you had all of the colors, but you were missing the color blue. You just did not have the color blue. You had all the other colors or like you had most of the puzzle and you had the, kind of, you had the edges done in the corner, but there were just pieces that were like literally just missing. 

 Speaker 2: (49:53)

Yeah. And I had a lot of feedback that was like, this is like almost there. This is almost good, but there’s like, yeah, it’s just, it was so amazing. So as someone who’s had my book proposal rejected 76 times. Um, I, but, um, yeah, the writing for publication is different. It’s a different experience and it’s very hard to get published. Um, and my aunt, uh, who was very supportive of me, she suggested asking you, um, what, what is it, what is it like for you to be a public person while suffering private trouble? 

 Speaker 1: (50:32)

Oh, that’s such a great question. 

 Speaker 2: (50:34)

She’s a writer, English teacher per se, 

 Speaker 1: (50:38)

Not like an, like an, like an empathetic person. Um,  

Speaker 1: (50:45)

It’s a complicated answer. I mean, it’s, it’s something I’ve thought a lot about. Um, you know, one of the great pleasures of writing memoir is that you’re taking the stuff of your life, the stuff that makes you vulnerable, the stuff that makes you, um, fragile, the stuff that makes the, you know, the stuff that’s hard and you’re shaping it into art. Um, which kind of goes back to my answer to the last question too. You’re not like splat putting it out there, you know? Um, it’s not all interesting. It doesn’t all belong. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re shaping it and making something coherent out of it. And you’re choosing what belongs. And that is actually not an act of confession. It’s an act of consummate artistic control when it’s done well. And that has always offered me its own protection when I’m on the road, because I don’t feel like I’ve done a strip tease.  

Speaker 1: (51:57)

I don’t feel like I feel like my vulnerability is my superpower. Like when I get up and I speak and I’ve, you know, I used to be terrified of public speaking and now I’m really comfortable with it. Uh, and that was like its own journey. And I didn’t do like Toastmasters. I didn’t do anything. I just learned that the more honest I was, the more myself I was, um, the more I would look out onto a sea of faces and see people tearing up and crying and nodding and, um, and, and, you know, empathizing, um, when inheritance came out about six weeks later and I was already on the road, my husband was diagnosed with a serious cancer. I remember this only from what you publicly said. Well, and, and I had to really think about, okay, um, I’m I, I was, I still had to be on the road.  

Speaker 1: (53:00)

And we were like, I was, we went through seven months of his having, you know, very serious cancer, very serious treatment, very serious surgery. And I was like in two modes that were diametrically opposed. I was with my husband and advocating for him and taking care of him and being with him and being terrified and being a caretaker, a caregiver, and, and being a mother to my son who was 17 years old and who was also frightened. Sure. No, he wasn’t 17. I’m making him younger. He was 2019. He was 19 going on 20, still very young, very young, very young. And in fact, close to the age that I was when I lost my father. So there was a lot, there were a lot of residences and then I would pack my bag and I would roll my suitcase through airports and I would put on cute clothes and I would go to the place and I would do the thing. 

 Speaker 1: (54:01)

And for that hour, I would be fully present for my job. But I, I realized really early on, and this goes to your aunt’s question that I couldn’t do that. If I was hiding that my husband was sick. Every bone in my body does not want people to know every bone in my body wanted to, um, just have this be our, um, you know, our cross to bear. And I felt very protective of him and I didn’t want, I just didn’t want people to know. Um, he cared about that a lot less than I did, but that was my, that was my first until I realized that what we were dealing with was very serious and it was going to be impossible to do that. And we were going to have to cancel things and we were going to have to move into New York city and all sorts of things.  

Speaker 1: (54:54)

But, but for me, I realized that if I got up there and was splitting myself off to do that, that I wasn’t going to be okay, and that I wasn’t going to do a good job either, but then I wasn’t going to feel, I can’t get up there and present a false self. Right. And so, you know, that definitely presented it’s moments where I would be about to go on stage and somebody would grab my arm and say, how’s Michael. Oh my God, not now. Oh my God, not there was, there was that kind of thing. And I had to find little phrases and things to say that would protect me and shut down conversations when I didn’t feel capable of having them. But I, my, my public self and my private self are not the same, but there was an awful lot of my true self in my public self. And, and that feels good to me. I don’t feel like I have to protect myself. I feel like that’s actually, um, that’s my superpower. And, and, and that’s what allows me to connect with other human beings, which is really all I want to do. That’s what I want to do as a writer is what I want to do as a person  

Speaker 4: (56:20)

That was very moving. That was very beautiful. Um, I,  

Speaker 2: (56:24)

Yeah, I really understand that, um, the true self in between the public and the private is the true self. Um, so thank you for sharing that. I’ll thank my aunt for the great question. Um, she lives in Portland, if you need to know. Um, so my last, my last question is not a question either. It’s just a, it’s just sort of a story. Um, so, uh, you’re my second interview today. And my first talk this morning was with a man named Fred, who, um, we connected just in the past few days. And he, he had said, Hey, I want to tell my story. And I said, great. I just happened to have this hour open. If you want it. We jumped on and him not knowing what my schedule was today at all, or how, and why would he, he brought up your book a number of times. 

 Speaker 2: (57:09)

It was very interesting and it felt serendipitous for lots of reasons. And, um, and, uh, he, so he’s a big fan music fan, but he, you know, it’s like, it’s a fan, isn’t really the word I want. But, um, your book really resonated with him and really he really represented the, the, the way that your book has moved people within the NPE community in different ways. And so he wanted you to know, hi, you wanted me to say hello to you for him. And, um, he had tweeted about, um, he had the similar experience of having a first cousin and unknown cousin. Um, an unknown cousin is what revealed his NPE ex uh, identity to him. And what he discovered was that not, he wasn’t that he was not Jewish or half Jewish it’s that he is half Jewish after not knowing that. And, um, and so he feels a, a personal connection to you through, through those little details. Um, but also really loves your book. And I know he’s not alone, but it was really fun, um, to talk with him this morning and yeah, 

 Speaker 1: (58:09)

Yeah, that’s a nice, it’s a good story is a nice story. I love hearing that because, I mean, I think that when, when the book resonates with NPS it’s because, um, what we want is to be seen, you know, what we want us to be seen. We as human beings want to be seen, you know, everyone wants to be seen, it’s like, kind of, it’s our lot in life that, you know, that that’s, you know, that’s what intimacy is. That’s what, you know, that’s, that’s an amazing feeling when somebody sees you and the stranger and more idiosyncratic, uh, situation is, and the more alien self alienating. I mean, I think that the NPE initial discovery is for so many people. So, um, alienating from oneself, because the thing that, you know, the things that we thought made us us suddenly, aren’t what made us us, um, or at least that’s the feeling.  

Speaker 1: (59:14)

And so there’s something that’s very like alien in the experience. And, and so it all the more important and essential to feel seen or to feel like that experience is captured in language. And this goes back to the publishing question, right. In a language that illuminates it for you. It’s not, it’s not only about telling your story. It’s about like, Oh, like I remember after I met my biological father, I got really sad for a few days afterwards. And I couldn’t quite figure out why. And a few days later I was meditating, uh, early in the morning, which I do every day. And, and sometimes when I’m meditating, especially when I’m writing, I find myself searching for language. Like, like, like, like what, like, just trying to find the words for what the feeling is. And I was sad because I realized that this gentleman absolutely did not feel like my father to me. 

 Speaker 1: (01:00:26)

Like there was no feeling, you know, my, my dad’s been gone since I, you know, I, since I was 23 years old, I mean, he’s been gone a very long time. And there was not a feeling that this man that I was having lunch with was my father. My father is dead and he’s been gone a long time. So I was feeling sad. And then I was meditating. And all of a sudden the phrase, the language came to me, it’s like, he’s the country I’m from, and I’ve never been to that country. And I’ve never walked the land of that country. And I’ve never eaten the cuisine of that country. And I’ve never listened to the music of the country, but it’s the country that I’m from. And, and so there’s kind of a longing, you know, for like the land that I’m from and that, and, and that ended up in the book to me, that was like the great satisfaction of that was yeah. That nailed it. Like that nailed what that particular experience, which is one that only people who are, you know, sort of along this journey may have, 

 Speaker 2: (01:01:39)

Do you know the word heareth, I can’t even say it right here. Right. It’s a word it’s like Welsh. And it means the feeling of homesickness of a place you’ve never been. And there is that there’s an NPE community that hosts a retreat and it’s called heareth hope and healing on the East coast. And, um, so when you just started to describe that, I was like, Oh, I’ve never thought that that word would apply. Um, Hera. Yeah. It’s like a well shore Gaelic word, but I think it’s well, um, that’s beautiful. Yeah. The feeling of longing for a place you’ve never been, um, well, it certainly resonated with Fred, um, and it certainly has resonated with so many of us, um, in the NP community. So I can’t, I guess I can’t thank you enough for writing your book and sharing your story and, um, using your skills as a writer to, to do it so beautifully. 

 Speaker 2: (01:02:28)

Um, and skillfully, because it really has resonated across, um, like you’ve described all sorts of people connected or not connected to this situation. Um, it’s been, it’s been really great. And actually, um, I was actually on that, on that retreat last year at the here at retreat week at one of the things from your book that lots of people, you know, sort of quote or drop a lot is the, um, nothing has changed and everything has changed or, you know, nothing is different and everything is different. And it gets said a lot, um, you know, on the streets, on the NPE streets, that’s one of the things we, we dropped a lot. Um, yeah. Well, thank you so much. This has been so 

 Speaker 1: (01:03:08)

Amazing. Um, I’ve, I’ve completely enjoyed it. I mean, for me, these conversations are really healing too, right. It’s it’s, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re people who are traveling, um, this really complex, really deep, really unexpected journey together. Right,  

Speaker 2: (01:03:30)

Right. We’ve all found ourselves on this journey together, all unexpectedly. Um, 

 Speaker 1: (01:03:36)

Yeah. Yeah. 

 Speaker 2: (01:03:38)

Well, thank you so much for your time on a Saturday. I really appreciate it. 

 Speaker 1: (01:03:41)

Um, my absolute pleasure 

 Speaker 2: (01:03:43)

And I will be in touch with, uh, with you or your people about, um, the, the when’s and how is, uh, when this will go up, but, um, probably 

 Speaker 1: (01:03:50)

March. Okay, perfect. Yeah. 

 Speaker 2: (01:03:53)

All right. Well, have a wonderful rest of your day. 

 Speaker 1: (01:03:55)

You too. That was really great to meet you. You too. All right. Bye. Bye.