The adoptee and her DNA

This past summer Liam expressed interest in finding out more about his ancestral background, so we ordered 2 DNA testing kits - one for him and one for myself.  As the adoptees of the family, we felt this would be fun to do together; Hilary can trace her ancestry back pretty far, and when you see pictures of her with various relatives, there is little doubt that they are all genetically related.

Genetic connections have always fascinated me, probably because I grew up without any.  Seeing siblings that look alike, babies sporting great-aunt so and so's nose, and all the other observable traits in families have always been bittersweet for me.  I was taller, tanned more, had genetically impossible eye colour and different hair from my parents. I did have one cousin who everyone said I looked like, especially if you compared baby pictures of us.  That led to many adoption fueled fantasies about how we really were related but that there was a  big family secret that no one wanted to tell us about. (Spoiler alert: there wasn't)

I finally got a picture of my birth mother Iris and my half sister when I was in my 30's.  I poured over every pixel looking for a resemblance.  I was very disappointed to not find much.  Even Iris said that she didn't see any resemblance in us, but did offer up the nugget of information that she though I looked like I took after my father's side.  Unfortunately that was about as much information as she was willing to tell my about my birth father.

With the easy availability of DNA testing kits today, it seemed like a great idea as an adoptee to possibly fill in some missing information.  I knew the information would be quite generalized, a list of potential percentages from different areas of the world, but it was still more information than I had before.  What I didn't anticipate was some of the emotions that doing this would unearth.  When the kits first arrived in the mail it took me over a month just to be able to open it and read the instructions.  From there it took another couple of weeks to work my way up to actually registering the kit online, spitting into the little tube and mailing it in for analysis. Once it was mailed off I was able to bury the thoughts of it in an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of way.

Until the email came telling me that it was ready.

I had chosen to do our tests through Ancestry.com  Part of the decision was price, part was based on the other main stream test being geared more towards testing your DNA for potential medical issues and partly because Ancestry.com includes family tree software.  I knew going into this that one of the possible outcomes of having your DNA tested was being connected to someone who you were genetically related to that had also been tested.  The media has been full of stories of best friends finding out they are actually siblings and other adoption-reunion situations.  Of course in the deepest recess of my mind I held out a smidge of hope that I might become one of those stories.  I already knew that I have 5 half-siblings, and potentially any number of cousins, aunts or uncles.

I opened the email and started with my ethnicity estimates

No big surprises there.  Iris had given me some indication of where her family was from, so I fully expected Western European and British.

I very quickly moved on to the next section.

Here were real people, with pictures(!) that I was potentially related to. My closest match was a 1st cousin.  The Ancestry.com website has a message option that you can reach out to people that you have potential matches with so that you can connect and discover exactly how you may be related.  By this point I was all in, so I quickly put together an email about who I was and how we may be related and sent it off to 7 possible 1st cousins. 

Within hours I had heard back from someone.  I had enough identifying information about my birth family to confirm our connection.  Overall I have had contact with 3 of my cousins, one from my birth mother's side, and two from my birth father's.  

Since then I have had many emails back and forth, one phone call, been sent dozens of pictures (including a picture of my half-siblings on my father's side) and heard stories about my birth father and his family. I was also able to find out that my birth and adoption was not the well kept secret that Iris had thought it was.  Rumours and stories of my existence have made the rounds of all the family functions.

It has definitely been an emotional roller coaster, but I've learned over the years that most things associated with adoption are.  I'm so glad for the information and connections that I have from doing the DNA test, and it may open many other doors yet.

Balance

My word for 2018 is BALANCE. I see BALANCE being important in many aspects of my life.


Balance work and home life

I have the advantage of being able to work from home for the most part, so this really helps to balance my work and home life.  I still need to ensure that I don’t let myself get caught up in working too late just to finish something.  I also need to make sure that I am disciplined enough to be focused and working during work hours.  There are also changes coming in January to our lives that will make BALANCING work and home life even more significant.  Thinking outside the box and redefining how home life looks and runs will be key.

Balance food – the good and the bad

Being healthy continues to be important to me.  I am a strong believer though that getting healthy is not going to happen with a quick fix or a diet, it is a lifestyle change that I need to embrace.  That makes balancing good and bad food important.  I am not willing to completely cut out any one food from my life, but am willing to BALANCE the good with the bad.

Balance training time with down time

I will be training for 2 half-marathons in 2018.  One in June and one in September.  My training plan is about 16 weeks, so training will officially start in February.  Once my mileage starts to ramp up my long runs start taking over 3 hours on a Sunday morning.  Much like balancing work and home life, I do not want my training time to take over all of my free time, so finding a BALANCE in my training schedule to still have non-training down time is essential.

I will find and create BALANCE in all aspects of my life for 2018.

I am Strong

When I selected STRONG as my word of the year for 2017, I wasn't 100% sure what STRONG would look like for me.

I want to be strong in my resolve. I want to be strong in my convictions. I want to be strong in my relationships. I want to be strong for my family and friends. I want to be mentally strong. And yes… I want to be physically strong too. 

Now that the year is coming to a close, I can say with confidence that I am STRONGER than I was when the year began.

My relationship with my Mom is STRONG.  Mom and I spent a week long vacation just the two of us in the spring that culminated in our doing a half-marathon together.  Crossing the finish line hand in hand was a great moment for both of us.

My relationship with Liam is STRONG.  Having a great open relationship with him at 15 is so important to me.  I'm glad that we can talk about anything, even if there are times that he isn't so pleased about the topic choices!

Hilary and I continue to have a STRONG relationship.  We celebrated 24 years together yesterday.  We have managed big moves, buying houses, having a kid, illnesses, career changes and pretty much everything else that life has to offer.  All of it just makes us STRONGER together.

I am mentally STRONG.  I try to challenge myself both at work and at home, to keep my mind active.  Don't get me wrong, there is a good amount of time spent on mindless pursuits as well, but I think that recharging is just as important.

I am physically STRONGER too.  I completed two half-marathons this year and many other races as part of my training.  I joined a gym to work on strength training to help keep me injury free.  I can lift heavier weights now than I could a year ago. One day soon I might even be able to do a push-up.

2017 was a great year overall.  Thank you to all my friends and family who helped me be STRONG.