Family Ties

In the first days of finding out I was donor conceived I felt strongly that I didn't want to know or have a relationship with my biological father and half siblings.  I already had a wonderful father and 2 wonderful sisters.  I felt a lack of interest in knowing these other DNA relatives and a betrayal to my family if I did look for any of them.  However as those first early days turned in to a week, then two weeks I felt a nagging feeling to know who these people were.  What did they look like?  Did we have things in common?

I ended up messaging all of the half siblings on Facebook.  Four of them wrote me back and we had small, somewhat awkward, conversations.  There was an immediate spark of interest and I craved to know them better and to keep the conversation going.  By the end of January when I discovered who our sperm donor was I put all five of us in a group chat and dropped the bomb shell on who he was.  That traumatic revelation has seemed to cement a sibling bond between the five of us.  None of us have ever met in real life.  We all have vastly different upbringings but in that moment we all came together.  The revelation of who our biological father was became a glue.  We started talking about small day to day things, about our children, our spouses, our jobs, and education.  We've discovered many similarities in our personalities, our likes, and our dislikes.  All of us have said at one point how much we all mean to each other.  If we didn't have the support of each other none of us could go through this traumatic experience.  In one short month there have been talks of hopefully getting together and meeting in person.

As the weeks have gone on the siblings that have not responded to our messages become a more sad thing.  The desire to know that sister or brother becomes stronger.  One sister who has been quiet and guarded has started to show signs of interest.  It's hard but we are letting her take her time.  We've also met new siblings.  A new sister popped up on a DNA website.  We messaged her and introduced ourselves.  She was open to getting to know us, accepted our Facebook friend requests, and accepted the invitation to our 'secret' Facebook group.  I know some of us siblings will move at different paces as they pop up and others may never want to know their other siblings.  That may be hard to accept but something I will have to learn how to do.

I hope as time goes on that the siblings I have met and formed bonds with will continue to grow and that someday we can all meet in real life.  This journey is a wild one, a traumatic one, but the whole experience is not entirely negative.