07: Family Secrets Revealed: How a DNA test brought one woman home to herself

A few years ago, Alexis Hourselt took a commercial DNA test. She was hoping the results would help her with some ancestral research about the Mexican side of her family. But the day she got her results became the day everything she knew about her family changed forever. 

Alexis Hourselt is the host of the podcast DNA Surprises, a show that talks to other people who learned their biological truth through DNA tests.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

Julia Winston: does your family have a story that has become a kind of lore within your family? Maybe it's a funny story from childhood. Like when my producer Claire was a kid, she was on an airplane with her family and asked if they'd be able to see the black lines that divided the states from up high. Her parents and brothers still laugh about this.

It could be a little scandalous, like the time in high school when my stepsister and I threw a party while our parents were on their honeymoon. We got busted by the dog sitter and our parents tried to ground us, But when best friends become sisters, getting grounded just means basically staying home and keeping the party going.

So that's what we did. A lot. 

Sometimes these stories of family lore are more than funny anecdotes. There are origin stories. 

Alexis Hourselt: I would say we had a pretty quote unquote normal family when I was younger. 

Julia Winston: This is Alexis Hourselt. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona with two younger sisters and her parents.

Alexis Hourselt: my dad is Mexican. My mom is of European descent or white, and so growing up, my understanding of my identity was that I was multi ethnic, Mexican, American, and white, basically, and that was always a huge part of, of who I was and how my family defined itself. 

Julia Winston: Growing up, one of the family stories Alexis heard was how her parents met and started a family.

Alexis Hourselt: When I was eight years old, I remember my mom telling me that my parents got married after I was born. But she explained that she got pregnant shortly after they started dating. And then when I was nine months old, they decided to get married. And so that was the story that I always believed about my origin story. And my mom only put her name on my birth certificate. And the reason for that I was told was because she wasn't sure if she was going to stay with my dad.

Julia Winston: This story had an impact on the woman Alexis grew into as she got older because it made her look up to her mom a lot.

Alexis Hourselt: I thought my mom was like this badass feminist woman because she was like, I'm not just going to marry you because I'm pregnant. And she went on, to have me and you know, luckily it worked out, but I had really romanticized their relationship because I truly believe that they chose each other and they didn't just get married because of a baby. And that was a big part of my identity, I think, in shaping who I am, because I identify as a feminist 

Julia Winston: alexis lived for 35 years with this story, letting it shape how she viewed her family and herself.

But stories aren't always fact. Sometimes they're fabricated to cover up the truth. A few years ago, Alexis learned that this story was a lie and her entire perception of herself and who she thought of as family came crumbling down.

I'm Julia Winston and this is Refamulating, a show that explores different ways to make a family. As we've been making this show, I've come to think of refamulating as a process of transformation. It's the way your family is changing on the outside and the way it's changing you on the inside. For example, when I donated my eggs and became Juju the fairy godmother, it expanded my family and it changed my identity.

I'm very much still navigating these changes. And the reality is re reformulating also involves accepting that your family might end up looking different than you expected.

Today's episode is a story of profound transformation from the inside out. When Alexis learned the truth about how her family started and the truth of her existence, she not only looked at her current family members differently, she saw the entire world through a new set of eyes.

And that all started with a commercial DNA test that was on sale.

Alexis Hourselt: I'd had it on my Amazon wish list for years. Nobody bought it for me, Then it was Prime Day, June 2021, Prime Day hit, and for whatever reason, that moment I decided I'm just going to buy it for myself, and it will be interesting, and I'll see what the results are. 

Julia Winston: When and why did you take the DNA test and what were you hoping to learn from it?

Alexis Hourselt: That actually goes back to my paternal grandmother as well. So she died in 2009 and when she died, she had been doing a lot of research into the indigenous side of the family. So for people who don't know, Mexicans generally descend from indigenous people and Spanish descent as well. And she died suddenly in a car accident. And so she didn't really get very far in her research. And so as Ancestry and 23andMe and all of those tests really got popular, I was intrigued to learn more about that side of myself. I just thought it was going to be this interesting research and maybe I find out something kind of fun, see who I was related to, maybe I was related to somebody famous, or maybe there was some part of my cultural identity that I didn't know about, and I just really thought it was going to be fun.

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The day that I got the results, I was sitting at my computer waiting to join a work call. and I get a notification on my phone that says your Ancestry results are ready.

And so I'm thinking, okay, I've got like 10 minutes before this meeting. Let me just click in and the first thing I saw was the cultural DNA piece. And it's this huge map that shows where all of your DNA comes from. And I, so I look at it and instantly I'm like, this is wrong because there was nothing Spanish and there was nothing indigenous. There was nothing colored in, in the Mexico region or anywhere. anywhere, but what was colored in was a lot of Africa and also North Carolina. 

Julia Winston: Alexis first reaction was, this is a mistake. Someone else's DNA got attached to her account and now she's going to have to call the company and sort it out.

Alexis Hourselt: So I then clicked over to my matches and I saw a parent child match. I did not recognize the person. I did not recognize the name. It was a group photo, so I couldn't tell who in the photo was supposed to be this match. And the name was a username that was like a name plus a bunch of numbers, so I didn't really know who the person was at all.

And again, I'm just like, this is, This is wrong. And I started scrolling down, and I matched with a sister that I did not recognize, and I matched with a brother that I did not recognize, and then I saw my mom's brother, my uncle. And, you might think that my reaction then would be, this is real, but instead my reaction was they mixed up half somehow, I don't know how that's possible, but there's, this is a partial mistake.

And I was kind of just going through all these mental gymnastics to try to make it make sense. So, at that point I started freaking out a little bit and I called my sister. Amanda, And I said , I just got my DNA results back and it's saying that dad isn't my dad. And it's saying that I'm black. she was speechless. She did not know what to say. She was like, I don't know. I think maybe you need to call mom. 

Julia Winston: So Alexis calls her mom, tells her she took a DNA test, and that the results are saying her biological dad is someone else

Alexis Hourselt: And she said, that's so surprising, but she said it just like that. That's so surprising. And. I was just like, that does not sound like it's surprising to you. Um, but I kind of just said, is there, is there any possibility that this could be real? And she was like, I, I don't know. Which test did you take? I said, I took an ancestry test. And then she said, well, those seem pretty accurate on the Maury show.

And I couldn't tell if she was, like, trying to make a joke or if she was just shocked. I didn't really know, but I was just kind of, like, mortified that she would say that in that moment. So I said, I'm going to order a paternity test for dad and me. Can you please talk to him? Because at that point, I started to think that maybe she had a secret that she had hidden from him.

Julia Winston: Like, maybe her mom cheated? Or slept with someone else at the beginning of her relationship with Alexis dad? Who knows, but at this point Alexis was really confused. 

She called her best friend, her husband had quick emotional phone calls, and then jumped back on her work meeting. She tried to just go back to her day as normal, but that didn't really happen.

Alexis Hourselt: I was pretty much just alternating between crying, dissociating, and denying. That was basically the cycle. Then I would feel completely removed from my body. And then I would Say, is this real? Is this really happening? This is not really happening, right? Like this, there must be some sort of mix up. My sisters came over that afternoon to support me and that was kind of the loop that they witnessed, was just me constantly going, is this real? Freaking out and trying to like, take care of my kids and not let them see me really upset. 

So trying to hold a lot of it inside. 

My mom texted me that afternoon and said, I talked to your dad. we were both seeing other people when we started dating. So it is possible, but you are still his daughter and he loves you. 

And I was just like completely devastated by that. My dad was always really close with my kids. He was my son's favorite person, and I felt like this was being taken away from him very suddenly, that biological connection to my kids. 

Julia Winston: The next day, Alexis's mom and dad came over. She gave her dad a big hug. She gave her mom a more timid one. She was still thinking that maybe her mom had been lying and hiding something from her dad. Then the three of them sat down in the living room, 

Alexis Hourselt: and the first thing that my dad said was, I met you and your mom at the same time.

Julia Winston: which completely blew up the story Alexis grew up with.

Her parents didn't conceive her and get married later when they knew they wanted to commit. Her mom had actually been a single mom and her dad. He'd always been, well, technically a stepdad.. 

Alexis Hourselt: so the story as I know it now is that my mom and dad were in the air force in Spain. That's where they met. That's where I was born. She had been dating someone and it was an abusive relationship. And when she became pregnant, he did not want a baby. He was not interested and they broke up. So she went through her pregnancy alone. Um, had me alone, like with just a friend in the hospital and a couple of months later met my dad and my dad was like, I want to raise her as my own. They said he fell in love with me first and decided to raise me as his daughter and they agreed that that's what they were going to do. 

Julia Winston: Race becomes important at this point in the story. Remember, Alexis's mom is white and the dad who raised her is Mexican. So we're back in the living room and her parents explained that when they got together, they believed Alexis's biological father was that abusive boyfriend who was Puerto Rican.

 Because of that, they figured they could pass her off as a biological child between the two of them. This DNA test also created a surprise for her parents. The story her mom and dad told themselves for 35 years was also untrue. The abuse of ex boyfriend was not Alexis's biological father. The DNA test proved that there was someone else in the mix at that time. Someone who was African American.

Alexis Hourselt: So that twist was news to all of them and brought up a lot more emotion because they'd been doing this thing for What they thought were noble reasons, and then they were actually keeping me from somebody else.

my biological father, I believe, was somebody that met my mom in a club one night. And they probably had a one night stand. Neither of them remember each other. So, he was also in Spain, also in the military. After whatever happened, happened, he went on to meet his wife and have kids of his own and he had no idea that I was out there and she didn't know that it was him. So they, I mean, I shouldn't say that they're nothing to each other, but it's kind of just a random relationship. 

Julia Winston: During that conversation, Alexis also found out that her parents had told other people what they thought was the truth. Her grandparents, aunts and uncles all knew her dad wasn't her biological dad her entire life.

Alexis Hourselt: so that really wrecked me, um, finding out that everybody knew something about me that I did not know about myself. I felt like completely untethered. And then to find out that actually what you thought you knew about yourself was completely wrong, it completely disrupted my sense of identity. And I know a lot of people will say things like, you're still you, this doesn't really change anything, but it completely changed my Where I come from, my history, my medical history, the things that have happened in past generations, the failed attempts at connecting with a heritage that really did not belong to me. 

Julia Winston: Alexis was shell shocked. It's dumbfounding to learn that something about your family isn't what you thought it was. And it can be deeply painful to discover that other people did know what you didn't. I shared earlier this season that my parents got divorced when I was a child and that years later I learned it was because my dad was gay.

 During the years when it was still a secret, I could tell that something was off. I didn't know what the secret was, but I could feel the secrecy happening. And it's unnerving to finally learn the truth. It's kind of like the bottom drops out from under you. 

When we come back, Alexis meets her biological father and embraces her new racial identity.

So Alexis has taken a DNA test. She's discovered that her dad is not her biological dad, and that her biological dad is a black man, which means that she has a totally different racial and ethnic identity than the one she grew up with.

Alexis Hourselt: Growing up, people would always ask me, what are you? I would get that a lot because I'm kind of ambiguous looking, I guess. And so I would get questioned if I was Black, I would get asked if I was Italian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, any shade of Brown person, basically. And I always just said, this is how I turned out. My dad's Mexican, my mom's white, and you never really know what's gonna happen with genetics. And I look like my sister's. I thought I looked like my dad. I thought I had features of his. And I never questioned anything about it. 

I really wanted to fit the, the Mexican side of my family. I did not speak Spanish, but I always wanted to learn. And I think I was always seeking and just feeling like it never really fit. I never felt super close to that side of my family, like outside of my dad.

I think I tried further to connect with that Mexican side like after I had my kids. I'd take them to like the south side of Tucson to go grocery shopping where there's like a lot more Mexican community. I started like taking Duolingo lessons to try to learn Spanish. Spanish, and just really tap into that part because I did want my children to be more connected maybe than I was.

Julia Winston: In the first few weeks after getting the results, Alexis had so many thoughts swimming through her head. The Mexican culture she grew up around and was most familiar with wasn't hers. Instead, she was black.

Alexis Hourselt: Growing up, I always felt connected to like African American culture and like all of these different things. And I always felt like, well, that's not for me. I shouldn't, you know, appropriate that and then to learn, well, actually that is your culture and also actively denying my culture for a long time because I was always being asked, what are you? Are you black? And saying, no, I'm not. I'm Mexican. This is just how I turned out. And to reflect on the fact that for 35 years I denied it. And now all of a sudden I'm supposed to say, Oh, actually, just kidding. I am. And to try to find connection to that. 

Julia Winston: While Alexis was wrestling with the truth around her new racial identity, she was also coming to terms with the lies her family had told her. Family was always really important to Alexis. She grew up in Arizona, briefly lived in North Carolina, ironically in her twenties and moved back to Arizona when she had kids.

So she could be close to her parents. Now she felt like she didn't really know them the way she thought she had.

Alexis Hourselt: It just made me question everything. If you could lie about that and keep that from me, what else could you keep from me? And how could you do that? That is such a huge betrayal. So it completely disrupted my family. Um, and there was a lot of distance between me and my parents after that.

For the first year afterwards, my parents thought that I wanted space, and so they didn't really talk to me that much, and it was very uncomfortable when we did spend time together. And so I think that that really hurt our relationship, because I felt abandoned, and I think from their side, the last conversation we had where they were sitting on the couch across from me, I had said, I need some space to think about this.

And they took that to mean like, don't talk to me anymore, which is not at all what I meant. I meant like literally in that moment, I needed a moment and they kind of disappeared for about a year. Um, we tried to like have family functions and stuff, but it just didn't feel the same.

Julia Winston: While she and her parents were taking space, Alexis was interested in learning more about the biological family members who were listed in her DNA results.

Alexis Hourselt: I joke that I was like prepared for this because I have very good internet sleuthing skills. And so when it came time to find my biological family, I got straight to work like that weekend. I was like, I'm going to figure out who this is.

I started digging through ancestry, looking at his family tree, trying to make connections. And I saw someone's name, someone that had died. And so then I went online and I looked up an obituary. I found an obituary for them. And then on that obituary, it broke out who So who they were survived by, and they were one of 12 siblings, and there were, I think, four living brothers at that time.

I found Cliff, my bio dad, and he had listed like every place he'd ever lived on his Facebook page and every place he'd ever worked.

I would say he's like such a good boomer because he just like outlined everything for me. And when I saw that, I saw that he was in Spain in 1984 to 1985. I was born in 1985. So I'm like, got him. So then I tried to find out as much information about him as I could without contacting him. Because when I was talking to my best friend, the therapist, she said, I'm only going to give you this advice. And that is don't reach out until you are ready for whatever outcome there might be. Because he could have accepted me. He could have said get away, I don't know who you are. And I needed to be prepared for either. 

Julia Winston: Alexis found a therapist to help her process all of this and prepare to contact her biological family. But then someone in Cliff's family reached out to her.

Alexis Hourselt: I got a Facebook message request from my biological sister. Elena. And she said, Hey, uh, this like might seem weird, but I think we're related. Let me know if you want to talk. And I said, yeah, I think we are related. And I don't remember who called who, but we ended up talking for like 45 minutes and basically just confirming that she was my sister ,that Cliff was our dad that had a brother named Jeremy and another older sister from a previous relationship. 

Julia Winston: It turns out one of Elena's brothers had taken the same DNA test and matched with Alexis. He told his mom and siblings, there might be another sibling out there. 

Alexis Hourselt: my brother and their mom told my sister Elena not to contact me. They said, don't go bothering her. She may not know, and she may not know that she's black, and she may not want to be black. And I thought that was super interesting, because that's not the world that I live in at all. But they live in the South. They live in Alabama. And so their experience of race and racism and all of those things is very different from mine. So she, said after our conversation, she told me all that. And I was like, no, I don't, I don't mind at all. Like that's, that was like the least of my concerns. I'm just so thrown off that like, this was hidden from me and all of that.

Julia Winston: Elena told Alexis that she would call their dad and tell him what was going on and see if he would be interested in talking to Alexis.

Alexis Hourselt: So eventually that week he did log on and then he sent me the nicest message and he was like, Hi, I just saw this. It looks like you're my daughter. You're so beautiful and here's my phone number if you would like to talk. And so I called him. And we talked and it was really weird, but nice. And in the beginning we talked often, like multiple times per week, just kind of trying to get to know each other. And then on veterans day, of that year, 2021, I flew to Montgomery with my husband and met him and my sister and brother.

I was hoping that I would feel a connection right away, that it would make sense. Talking to him on the phone, it felt pretty natural considering that we didn't know each other at all, but I was hoping that it wouldn't be awkward, that there wouldn't be these like weird pauses in our conversations or that we wouldn't run out of things to talk about.

That they would like me, I guess they would feel like I fit in with them. I was worried that we wouldn't necessarily get along. Um, they're all pretty religious and I'm not. So I was a little bit worried about like what that vibe might feel like. I was just worried that it wasn't gonna feel right.

Julia Winston: So describe the first time you met your bio dad and his family.

Alexis Hourselt: He met us at the airport, and I, Josh, my husband, was going to get our rental car, and like, I was getting my luggage or whatever, and I kind of just remember walking up and seeing him stand there. And we just gave each other like the biggest hug for a really long time.. 

 And then he escorted us to our hotel, um, and kind of just let us be there and like, let us chill. We are so similar in our approach to like, entertaining people, because he's very much like, let me give you your space, go do your thing. And like, we'll meet up for dinner later.

 I just took all of that in and then got ready for dinner and we met everyone at this really good restaurant. It was like elevated soul food place in Montgomery. And it was awesome. I got to meet my brother and my sister and her fiance at the time and my bio dad's wife and it actually felt okay.

Julia Winston: There weren't really any awkward pauses. It went great. And then the next day they went to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, which is all about the history and legacy of slavery. It takes people on a journey through America's history of racial injustice.

Alexis Hourselt: So it was like this really cool, sad. Beautiful moment where I got to really see, like, where I came from. Very close. And I was so grateful to them for that experience. Because it's like you learn it, you know, in school. But to actually go and see that, and like read accounts, and see photos. And to do that with my father, who, um, you know, grew up in the South and experienced some of the things that we were seeing and, and to hear him talk about that was very powerful. Um, and then that night we went over to his house and had dinner and it was just really special. It was very nice. 

Julia Winston: Wow. It's so striking that they thought to sort of, um, invite you into your new racial identity when they met you. Wow.

Alexis Hourselt: Yeah. That was really special.

Julia Winston: What has been your experience of learning and adjusting to a new racial identity?

Alexis Hourselt: I, I'm really still figuring it out. It's interesting cause I'm two and a half years in now and random things will still hit me. After I met my family, they invited me to their family reunion the following year. So in August of 2022, I went out to North Carolina, where my dad grew up, which was only about an hour from where I lived when I moved there, and didn't know that he existed. And I saw my aunts, and that was the first time that I ever really felt like I saw my face on somebody else, and like, saw my nose. You know, I always, um, was told like your grandma, she had a button nose and that's where you got it from, like my maternal grandmother. And I accepted that because when you're a kid, you accept what your parents tell you and you believe them. But when I saw them all at the family reunion, And it was like, there, I see it, like, that's who I look like, that's where my body type comes from. Like, I look so different from the family that I grew up with in that way. And it just made everything make sense. And so I think for me, while I don't necessarily feel like I've completely stepped into feeling completely connected, because I do feel like That was sort of taken from me because I have spent so much of my life not identifying with it. I'm getting there because I've been invited in, like you said, um, to be part of that family. And I feel really grateful for that.

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Julia Winston: It's crazy enough to discover that you have a secret biological parent and a new racial identity, but beyond the drama, there are also practical implications that come with not knowing one of your biological parents. Meeting Cliff allowed Alexis to finally understand some health issues she'd been confused about. 

Alexis Hourselt: After II had my kids, all of a sudden my cholesterol went up, and I could not figure out why. I was working with my doctor on making dietary changes, and exercising, and eating tons of fish, and doing all that stuff, and it was like making minuscule differences from year to year when I would get my lab work done.

So I went to my parents and I'm like, does anyone in our family have high cholesterol? And they're both like, no. It turns out after connecting with my biological father, that that is a huge piece of medical information that I was missing.

He'd had it since he was in his thirties, just like it came up for me. My sister has it. 

 It's just something that runs in our family. And I was able to take that information and go back to my doctor and unload all of this new information on her and then say like, yeah, this, this is what it is. And then finally she was like, Oh, well that explains it.

And she's like, you're the fifth person I've called. ever prescribed like cholesterol medication to, but you need it because it runs in your family and we're probably not going to be able to make a lot of other changes. it's because I was missing half of the picture.

Julia Winston: Alexis is a mom herself. Before the DNA test, she'd put a lot of effort into connecting her kids with their Mexican heritage. But suddenly, they weren't Mexican anymore. So how did this new information affect her children's racial identity? 

Alexis Hourselt: It's interesting because when I thought that I was Mexican, I checked off Hispanic for them without hesitating at all. Now that I have African American instead, I pause because my kids do not look Black. They, they don't. Um, and I don't know how they'll identify and I kind of want to leave it to them to figure that out, but I am very open with them about what happened.

I explained it to them in terms that I felt like they could understand. So I just said, You know, uh, grandma and Tata didn't make me the same way that me and dad made you. Somebody else made me with grandma, and that's my biological father, and he is actually, um, African American or black, and they kind of were just like, okay, like they to them. It wasn't really that big of a deal. I think my son did go, so are we black? And I was like, well, you know, I think that's something we just have to figure out. Um, but, you know, we've since visited my biological father, all of us, and like we went to the Rosa Parks Museum, and we're like learning these pieces that are age appropriate for them about our history.

And they've spent time with him. And I kind of just want them to decide what makes sense for them. And I feel like that's, that's kind of where I have to leave it because I understand how confusing it can be because I still haven't figured it out myself.

Julia Winston: Since finding out the truth in 2021, Alexis has started her own podcast called DNA surprises, and she interviews other people whose ideas of family have been shattered by a DNA test. It's helped her feel less alone in this experience. As for the relationships with her family, biological and beyond, they're constantly evolving. 

Alexis Hourselt: My relationship with my biological father is pretty great. We have visited each other a few times. I'm going back out for a family reunion this summer with my kids this time. We, I think, are, are similar in a lot of ways. There's just things that now I'm like, this, This makes sense. Like the first time when I went to go visit him, he sent me a list of like his preferred hotels, like in order, like, you know, here's, here's places you can say in order.

And I'm like, okay, this is like how I plan vacations and recommend things to people. 

I talked to my sister pretty regularly. We were connected like on social media and all that stuff. It's hard though, because of the distance. I think if we lived closer, we might be closer, , in our relationship. And And that's kind of something I've had to make peace with is that we just, it's hard. You can't make up for lost time like that. I can ask all the questions I want and write down all the information I want, but it's not the same as having been raised by him. And so there's kind of this radical acceptance piece when it comes to that. 

Julia Winston: This radical acceptance piece is a major part of Alexis's journey. She accepts that she lost time with her biological family. And she accepts that her relationships with the family she grew up with may never be the same.

Alexis Hourselt: We are not as close as we were before, even still.

Within the last few months, I would say things have felt like they were opening up a little bit more.

They're seeing my kids a bit more. We're doing things as a family and it doesn't feel kind of forced. It feels less awkward. And so recently I asked them. How did it feel to hold that for so long? Like, in my mind, I thought that maybe the lie had become the truth at some point, and they were just able to push it down so far that they kind of just didn't think about it anymore.

And I learned, you know, just about a month ago that They thought about it all the time, constantly. They lived in fear that I would find out the truth because it just went on for so long that they felt like the time had passed to tell me the truth. And so they were just constantly stressed out and worried and I told them, like, I just can't imagine what that must have felt like.

That must have been really hard. And that felt really good and I just explained to them that in the work that I do I Since my DNA Surprise, like with my podcast, and now I have a retreat for people that have gone through things like this, that my whole goal is just to reduce the shame and stigma that leads us to these situations.

And it's not about shaming my mom, because I feel so awful that like a lot of people Our views of sex and women are what lead to these scenarios and why women hide the truth. And so I could get on my soapbox about that forever, but really it's just, I have a lot of compassion for them and I want them to know that. And I think once that really sunk in for them, it felt like things have kind of been improving.

Julia Winston: I'm with Alexis on that soapbox. I understand why her mom might have felt ashamed to embrace the truth of her situation. I also understand why my parents might have felt ashamed or scared to be truthful about what was going on in my family when I was a kid. It was all coming from a good place. Parents just want to protect their children, of course.

But what I've learned, and I'm sure Alexis would agree, is that secrecy can hurt more than the hard truth. 

Alexis Hourselt: I just want people to realize that it's okay to be honest. There's no need for the shame. Like, we can reject the shame. associated with these things. I think all the time about how, as a society, I think generally we are accepting of people being in their 20s and having some fun. And that's what happens when people are in college or they're young or whatever. But as soon as someone gets pregnant, it's like the whole view changes and there is shame. Especially if someone doesn't know who the father of their child is. And that's something that happens for better or worse. It's just what happens.

 And there's all of these things that happen that parents hide from their children because of their own shame and stigma around parenthood and sex and Fertility, and I just want to normalize what it is to be human and these things happen.

It doesn't mean it's always okay that it happens, but we need to be open and honest about it because people have the right to know where they come from.

My story has taught me just how important it is to know who you are and where you come from, because I have never felt more authentically myself since discovering this information and working through it and integrating it into my life and accepting it, I feel more me than I have ever been.

Julia Winston: Thank you, Alexis, for sharing your story, your truth with us. Alexis podcast is called DNA surprises, and it's linked in our show notes. 

We know refamulating looks different for everyone. How are you refamulating? If you want to share your family story, send us an email or a voice memo to hello at refamulating. com. You can also send us a message on Instagram at refamulating. 

Next week we're talking all about being child free. We're choosing not to have children.

Heidi Clements: Even if I was the only single child free woman in America, I would not feel alone. It makes me feel different. What's wrong with being different? I think it's cool that I didn't choose the same path that everybody else did. Makes me unique, doesn't make me alone.

Julia Winston: If you like this podcast, please share it with someone. You can also write us a review. We want everyone who's refamulating to be able to find us as an independent podcast. We're also super grateful for any financial support. You can make a donation at our website, refamulating.

com. Refamulating is hosted by me, Julia Winston. Claire McInerney is our executive producer. Grace Berry is our manager of engagement. This episode was mixed and scored by Josh Gilbert. Our theme music was composed by Luke Top. Special thanks to Nadia Hamdan for editorial support on this episode.

Refamulating is a production of the Feelings Co. Network.