Julie Rogers: 0:06

No one ever said life is easy, but I believe by giving yourself permission, you will find you have more control over your life than you realize. I'm Julie. I hope you will join me by taking responsibility for yourself, by only controlling the things you can and letting go of the things that you can't. By doing this, you will have discovered the secret to having happy, healthy and more fulfilling relationships. This is Nearest and Dearest Podcast. I'm Julie Rogers and you are listening to Season 3, episode 11, NPE - Not Parent Expected.

Julie Rogers: 0:50

NPE is also known as a non-paternity event. Genetically speaking, this means there was a situation in which someone who is presumed to be an individual's father is not, in fact, the biological father. For me when I shared with you in my first episode, Owning My Truth, it was very freeing to acknowledge that I found my biological father, but what I didn't give you in detail was how I processed this revelation. For anyone who has gone through this life-altering experience, the one common thread that speaks loudly is your life will never be the same again. I have had both positive and negative emotions. Overall, I feel very grateful. I always felt different in my family not just because of my physical traits compared to my dad and siblings while growing up, but other genetic traits that are behavioral, like my personality and creativity. I felt like I was looking at my dad and trying to find something that connected me to him.

Julie Rogers: 2:18

After my parents divorced, I really only saw him on Sundays at his home with my stepmother and siblings. When he remarried, he called us after the ceremony and wanted to come by and pick us up to celebrate. I was around 12. I remember feeling so mad that we weren't invited to the ceremony so I didn't go to that celebration. It was a moment of me feeling disconnected to him. On those Sundays, dad would pick us up and we would visit with him from lunch through dinner. Then he would drop us back home to where we lived with our mom. As I got older and busier with my own teen years, I didn't always go on Sundays. I just wasn't close to him. I felt unenthusiastic whenever I was around him.

Julie Rogers: 3:25

By the time I was 17, mom moved my youngest sister and I to Connecticut. Once there, I married the following year and lived there for over 20 years. I didn't see my dad very often throughout those years. Even when I would come back to New York to visit family, I didn't always take the time to go and visit with him. There was this weird thing, though, about my actual birthday. For quite a long while I was told my birthday was February 2nd, Groundhog Day. It was always a funny joke in my family, but eventually I came across my birth certificate and it clearly said February 1st. Even though I showed the evidence of this, my dad and siblings would hold on to that joke, that I was born on Groundhog Day. To this day, I still don't understand why Dad claimed that.

Julie Rogers: 4:33

I was used to him not feeling comfortable in the presence of my mom.

Julie Rogers: 4:48

I had always known Dad's anger towards her after the divorce was always there, coming up to the surface if any of us asked him for money as kids, and he would say that's why I give your mother child support, meaning, don't ask him for any. So I didn't. I started babysitting at 12, and I would use that money to buy myself the things I wanted. My parents worked hard their whole lives and were raising six kids. There wasn't much extra to go around. We just knew how bitter Dad was towards Mom. It was an unspoken truth. I never took the opportunity to ask him why he was so angry when it came to our mom. I didn't have that kind of relationship with him to talk about real concerns or things that bothered me. I can only speculate. It affected our whole lives. Even once we all started having our own families, we could never have had both mom and dad in the same bleachers for a sporting game, let alone sharing any family celebrations together. It just wasn't going to happen.

Julie Rogers: 6:12

Because of all of this, I was grieving a close father-daughter relationship that I never had with my dad. I'm not saying it was toxic or mean-spirited. It was just not fulfilling for me. On the flip side, I was extremely close to my mom. She introduced me to community theater, something that we both loved to do. I sometimes was able to go to her rehearsals and watch her. She came to all the plays I was in. Even though it was going to be my senior year in high school when we moved from New York to Connecticut. I wanted to see her happy. When her relationship ended with a man who couldn't commit to her and she moved back to New York with my youngest sister after I got married. I understood her pain. My mom was always the most constant, positive, loving mother I could have ever asked for.

Julie Rogers: 7:32

I will never know why she didn't tell me that there was a chance that dad wasn't my biological father. Again, I can speculate. It comes up every now and then, especially when someone who has listened to my podcast or have shared my truth with asks the question did your mom think you had a different father? It's been over eight years since I did the sibling DNA test with my youngest sister, which catapulted me to start processing the fact that I have a different biological father compared to my other siblings. This realization wasn't a real surprise to me or my siblings, but at the other end of this truth was a hidden, deep-rooted secret inside my mom. Was it shame? She was in an unhappy marriage with my dad. She was 30 years old, raising my three older brothers and dealing with an alcoholic husband.

Julie Rogers: 8:54

I found out by asking my oldest brother, Mike, who is nine years older than me, where Mom worked in the summer of 1965 when I was conceived. I had no idea she was a cocktail waitress at a local bowling alley in Watertown. Having to talk to my sisters about this, they remember her sharing this particular job over the years with them, but she never shared that info with me. By revealing this knowledge to my biological father,J oe, in October 2019, when he was trying to piece together how my mom knew him, it started to spell things out. Joe was in the Army at the time. He was back home from the service. He told me he would go to the bowling alley a few times a week that summer along with some of his friends. By giving her name and a photo of when she was younger, he remembered her fondly.

Julie Rogers: 10:16

I believe my mom was looking for a distraction. From what my brother, Mike, told me, she didn't work at the bowling alley for long. Dad didn't want her working nights and wanted her home with the boys. Mom left working there and never saw Joe again. Could it be that she put that moment of indiscretion so far away in her mind and focused on trying to survive a challenging marriage? How could she have not noticed how very different I looked, with no resemblance from my dad? Why couldn't she tell me there was a real possibility that, because of that moment of indiscretion that she chose, could have led to my conception when I asked her years prior to the beginning of her dementia?

Julie Rogers: 11:28

Speculation is what we tell ourselves when we don't have all the answers we long for. I have used it over the years when trying to understand my mom's thinking and my dad's anger. I have been reflecting more about how I didn't go into a depression or have any anger towards my mom. I think because of my age at the time of discovery, 50 when I had the proof from the sibling DNA test and 53 when I found Joe, along with the fact that my mom was battling dementia, in the last stages of her life, gave me more gratitude and peace. I had the power within myself to intentionally ask the hard questions, stir up difficult realizations from my family's past and do the work to discover the unknown which would link me to what I deserved to know. As human beings, each of us deserve to know where we came from. We can't choose our biological identities, but what we can choose is to decide, no matter how the truth finally comes out, what to do with it. I have had those moments when I wonder how my life would have been if I knew earlier in my life who my biological father was. I can't help but feel I have missed out on some relationships that could have contributed to my overall well-being.

Julie Rogers: 13:33

Since Joe has been in my life.

Julie Rogers: 13:36

I have met a lot of my extended family over these last five years. To start with, seeing such familiar looking faces that match some of my own physical characteristics has been surreal. I have been hearing stories, along with photos, about my grandparents and great-grandparents. My great-grandparents were the first to immigrate from Italy through Ellis Island. Both my paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Italy. The fact that the Storinos were living in Watertown, the same city I was while growing up, is unbelievable to me. To be honest, I wasn't looking for a new family. I love my family. It wasn't about them. It was about me needing to find my identity. I remember watching TV shows like Long Lost Family, which aired in 2016, and feeling very emotional.

Julie Rogers: 14:59

My dad passed from lung cancer in 2003. There was something inside me that longed to find my answers. So, with dad gone and mom battling Alzheimer's, I knew I had to be Sherlock Holmes, with the hope of finding all the puzzle pieces that would connect together. I have no regrets about my journey. Having Joe and Sharri in my life is a true gift. I have met wonderful relatives who have shown a genuine interest in me.

Julie Rogers: 15:49

I went to Italy last year and visited the Calabria region where my paternal ancestors are from. I even have an interest in trying to locate some family that still may reside in that area. A friend who has relatives in the same area, who speaks and writes Italian, is doing a search for me. Through a website she found, that could possibly help. I gave her my great-grandparents' names and date of births, along with the areas they were born.

Julie Rogers: 16:34

A lot has changed in my life since I found Joe. I got to have closure with my mom before she passed. I have gained parents, along with another family that has been very loving to me, my husband, my children and grandchildren. I don't believe there can ever be too much love. I have recently joined a Facebook group called DNA Identity Surprise and This NPE Life. I want to read other NPEs journeys and feel that connection, that only others like me, have experienced. I have always believed, that by connecting with others who have experienced similar journeys, no matter how difficult, challenging or gut-wrenching those life journeys are, can help us feel we are not alone.

Julie Rogers: 17:44

Alesia Weiss, who is a retired RN, Army vet, writer and is the creator of this Facebook group, also is the creator of the Resource Center website called N-P-E-N Nursing for NPEs. Alesia also was on a podcast titled Beyond Well with Sheila Hamilton. She shared some of her own personal NPE journey that she discovered in a recent episode. I will share hyperlinks under my show notes if you would like to learn more about the Facebook group or the website she founded, which is to help other NPEs navigate this forever life-changing process that keeps evolving, along with a hyperlink for that podcast episode she was on.

Julie Rogers: 18:48

If you would like to share your own experience that you are navigating through as an NPE not parent expected, please send me an email at julierogers@ nearestanddearestpodcast. com. You will also find a hyperlink for my email address under my show notes as well. If you would like me to share it on a future episode of Nearest And Dearest Podcast, I would be honored to do so. Thank you for listening. The views and opinions expressed by Nearest and Dearest Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Nearest And Dearest Podcast. Any content provided by Julie Rogers or any other authors are of their opinion. They are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything. Thank you.