How a Nurse Practitioner Survived a Second DNA Discovery

In Part One, Lisa shared her extraordinary adoption reunion story. A closed adoption, a lifetime of questions, a birth family who lived down the street, and the shocking discovery that she likely cared for her own biological grandfather in the ICU. It was a story about caregiving, identity, and the power of finally finding your roots.

Part Two takes us into a very different kind of discovery.

This episode explores the emotional fallout of her paternal DNA match. What begins with hopeful emails and a powerful moment of genetic mirroring turns into years of confusion, mixed narratives, addiction, emotional manipulation, and the painful truth adoptees often live with. Reunion does not guarantee safety. Sometimes it brings an entirely new wave of grief.

Lisa walks us through the relationship with her biological father, the intense early connection, the unraveling that followed, the trauma she and her daughter endured, and the strength it took to reclaim her voice again. It is an honest, vulnerable look at what happens when the fantasy of family meets the reality of human complexity.

And throughout it all, Lisa continues to ground herself in caregiving, advocacy, and her work as a nurse practitioner. As nursing faces new threats on the national stage, her story is a reminder of how much nurses carry for the rest of us and why their voices matter.

This is Part Two of Lisa’s story. If you missed Part One, we recommend listening in order.

Her book, The Adopted Nurse, expands on this journey with even more insight and compassion.

How a Nurse Practitioner Survived a Second DNA Discovery

What Listeners Will Hear

• The first phone call with her biological father.

• How hope and longing shaped her early trust.

• The intense bond that formed during their first visit.

• Signs that something was not right.

• The unraveling of the relationship.

• The impact on her daughter.

• The yearslong cycle of addiction, apologies, and emotional confusion.

• The night she and her daughter were kicked out with nowhere to go.

• How therapy and reflection helped her make sense of the narrative she was given.

• Why she will never know the full truth about her birth parents.

• How this experience deepened her work as an adoptee advocate and nurse practitioner.

• What she wants other adoptees to know before they take a DNA test.

• Her message of healing, strength, and reclaiming your own story.

Link to Lisa’s Book: The Adopted Nurse

If Lisa’s story resonates with you, or if you have your own Family Twist, we would love to hear from you. Your story matters. Your truth matters. And your voice deserves to be heard.

Transcript

Lisa reflects on the intense DNA match emails

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to Family Twist. It's Corey, and today Kennel and I are diving into part two of our conversation with Lisa, a nurse practitioner, adoptee, author, and frankly, survivor of more plot twists than a whole season of Grey's Anatomy. But before we jump in, we want to take a moment to say this again because it matters. Nurses are under attack right now. When you reclassify nursing so it suddenly doesn't count as a professional degree for federal student aid, you're not just hurting future nurses, you're hurting patients, families, and communities. And this is a hill for us to die on. Nurses deserve respect, funding, and support. And maybe some free stacks, but mostly the respect and funding. And Lisa? She's the perfect example of why nurses matter. Last week she shared the unbelievable story of likely caring for her biological grandfather in the ICU without knowing who he was. And come on, you can't make this stuff up. Well, she actually did write it in her book, The Adopted Nurse, which you should absolutely grab if you haven't already. So part one took us through her adoption, the caregiving thread woven through her whole life, and that stunning first DNA discovery. Today, things are about to get more intense. This is where the story veers into emotional whiplash territory. The charismatic birth father, the whirlwind connection, the unraveling, the trauma, and the years-long journey of reality replacing fantasy. So take a breath, grab some water, give a hug to a nurse in your life, and get ready. Here's part two of our conversation with Lisa.

Early details that drew her into the reunion

Meeting her birth father for the first time

Genetic mirroring and shared traits

Early red flags in the paternal DNA reunion

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Looking back, the emails were so intense, and knowing now what I didn't know then, he was a master storyteller, and the stories began. And he did not know Judy from what he was saying initially. I don't know who your birth mother was. And we set up time to talk the next day. So the next day, phone call came and um, very awkward, very crazy to be on the phone with this person. And I said to him 20 minutes into the conversation, I have a question for you, and you may not like it. And he said, he kind of sucked his breath in and he said, Okay. I said, My birth mother apparently has told the story that she was raped. And his immediate response was, Well, that can't be. That can't be. There was no penetration. Now, interestingly, someone who didn't remember her. This is a woman who's not known anything her whole life, who's been desperate for information and wants a different narrative. So the more details he gave me, interestingly, in that very first conversation, I grabbed onto and I ran with it. Fast forward to the next several months, he arranged to come and visit me two months later. But in the process of coming to visit me in the phone calls and the emails, the intensity was off the charts. And in the meaning, the frequency and the exchange of information. So it turns out he was a writer. He's published a few novels. Brilliant man. Ended up working for the government. He was a marine, was a hairdresser, and then ended up somehow working for the government with the government services administration. So FEMA, when there were disasters, things like that. And he actually retired young at I think like 58. So when I met him, he was 75. And early, early on in the first intense conversations, lots of information. He started to tell me that his wife was having a hard time and was jealous. In the meantime, I was kind of like on that whole, I want to meet her, I want to meet her, I want to talk to her. And he's like, Well, I'm gonna, I'm trying to handle this because she was having such a hard time with it, which gave me really mixed feelings. Like I didn't really understand this. In the meantime, he also didn't tell my brother about me. He wanted to wait until he met me. So he mentioned coming to visit me. I said, How's January? So he came to visit me. And it was actually in at the time, it was crazy. It was the genetic mirroring. I look exactly like him. I mean, it was crazy to look at someone and really see your features, mannerisms, not growing up with him and having the same mannerisms was crazy. So I was completely enchanted, enthralled, this biological connection, and he definitely constantly highlighted all of our similarities, but also looking back, was really identified me with my accolades. I published a textbook several years ago that's in fifth edition about the DNP degree, my degree. And he talked about that. He talked about the fact that I had a doctorate. He talked about, I mean, it was a constant and looking back, you know, recognizing that. But at the time, he also has that kind of personality where you feel like you're the only person in the room. And it was just I was completely my life was upside down. But in the mix of this was the constant my wife doesn't accept this. And pepper throughout the entire relationship that I had with him was the things that he would repeat back to me that she would say. It really set things up for me, never feeling like this was going to be okay. I did eventually get to talk to my brother. I eventually went there Father's Day that year and got to meet my brother. Um, things really started to things were things were not right from the very first conversation, but became much more obvious that things were not right about eight months in. I didn't know he was an alcoholic and he apparently had not been drinking for a couple of years before he met me and then started drinking, but I had no idea that that was a problem. You know, he kept saying, I'm gonna have champagne with my daughter the first time I meet her. And so come to find out, I think his wife eventually blamed me for the fact that he did start drinking. The next several years peppered with him going to rehab. I actually even went, my daughter and I went and visited him in rehab in California. Why California? I still don't really understand when they live on the in the Midwest. And I'm sure there's well rehab facilities in the we were in the Midwest, but he wanted to go to California. I twisted myself in a pretzel for about five years and did everything I could, but really probably the most traumatic experience I've ever been through was the push and pull, and what ended up really being rejection. Yes, his wife, I feel rejected me, but he in turn rejected me because I felt I wasn't stood for and I felt, you know, telling me all of this the entire time. Fortunately, I did start therapy about a year in and actually just ended therapy because I think between the book, the very last time I did actually see him recently because my brother, unfortunately, has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. What? And uh it's stage four, and he's a year younger than me, so pretty tragic. So I'm very close to him and have been to visit him and did see my father for the first time in two and a half years and had a very good conversation. But the last time before that, that I had seen him, my daughter and I went to see him to stay with him because his wife fell out of town to see her family. And so my daughter and I went to stay with him. He was drinking, and the three-day ended a culmination of him going on a rage and kicking us out of his house at midnight in the cold in a state we didn't live in with nowhere to go, somewhere where you can't get an Uber real easy. We did actually make it to my brother's and then to a hotel and when I saw him a few months ago. There had been some communication, some apologies for, you know, and him claiming to not remember anything. And maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, I don't know. But I am completely on the other side of it. And I think one of the biggest turning points was being able to sit with him and have a conversation with him and be warm. And as he started to apologize and blame everything on his wife, me being able to look at him and go, No, no, Nick, it's not it's not all her. It, you know, you have every bit as much to do with how things went down and how this turned out. Absolutely. And he asked me, can you ever forgive me? But I'm not sure he knows what he's asking forgiveness for.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

And good for you for just like being bold, and you know, it sounds like you did it with empathy and I did, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

I did, you know, a different version of that could have been me being oh, completely different. Yep, but that's not who I am. That's just not who I am, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

And you said something interesting that's that got me thinking, so your half-brother was a year younger than you. So that means that a year after you know you were conceived, yeah, he did he get was he they get married first, or did he get no great question.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Nick met the woman that was Scott's mother, he was a hairdresser and did her hair. She was a regular client and she was actually married and had a family, and they began a relationship, and she got pregnant and they ran off together and were together for about 13 years, never got married. He left her several times, and then finally for the last time, but did stay in Scott's life in and out in and out. So Scott does live near him, and they have a relationship, probably not all of what Scott would have wanted, but he is actually stepping up and being there for Scott now, which I can be very thankful for because I'm too far away to do the things that he's gonna need now, as far as taking appointments and things like that. The last time I went about two and a half months ago, I went by myself for a reason. I didn't want anyone with me. I didn't want my daughter in that environment, anything near that again.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I felt, you know, I still feel I still have a lot of guilt that she was with me then and had to be a part of all of that. Because he, as abusive as he was to me for about five years, he was also abusive to her. You know, she was very much impacted because she wanted to know him and have him in her life. Like I said, he had that, he has that typical narcissistic personality that really draws you in and you are the center of the room, and it's very addictive, and it's you know, you're enraptured by that. And my daughter was right there with me. Not to mention this was a birth grandfather, you know, that she wanted to know. So I went by myself for several reasons. I had a feeling I would probably see him, and I felt ready, and I was, and it I felt pretty invigorated after, but this time I'm taking my husband because Scott really wants to see Bruce, and I really just don't feel I need to be there alone this time.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah. From everything you've told us, I'm guessing you will probably never really know what happened between him and your birth mother.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

No, in the beginning, I wanted a different story. And as I put it in my book, I end one of my chapters with I crawled closer to the web, to the spider in the center of the web, and did not realize I was being told something by a master storyteller. He literally wrote a few novels. He knows how to spin a story. I didn't realize I was being told a story, so now I really don't know what happened, and I can accept that. I can accept that yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

I mean, you're still doing great work and it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

And why speculate? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Like, yeah, it does yeah. So a couple of things uh that we got involved with this organization called Right to Know a few years ago when they started those board members were guests on the podcast. I ended up attending their summit beef podcast panel, and it's an organization all about education and helping people find therapists and practitioners, and it's for the adoptee and NPE and donor-conceived communities. And they asked me to join their board this year. I'm in the supportive spouse role, and I'm a marketer, so I'm helping with their marketing and stuff. And so we're planning the next summit right now. Kendall and I are going to attend, we'll both be speaking. It's in Atlanta in March. You would be it would be great, you know, if you were able to attend and oh, I would be open. It was a life-changing weekend for me.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Oh my gosh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

And we've just become so involved in these communities, and it's therapeutic for both of us, yeah. And then the second thing before we get to our final question is going back to the witchy stuff. I'm just curious as a practitioner. So we have another podcast called Horror Heels that we started last year. It's all about our theory that horror movies and horror culture is good for mental wellness. And we've had psychologists on how yeah. So I don't know if you're interested in that kind of stuff, you know, into horror itself, but when you're talking about reading the tea leaves and stuff, I don't know if that's something that you've ever thought about yourself that it, you know, these kind of things being good for mental wellness.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

But you know, some people like they get freaked out by the witchy stuff, but you know, but so many, I think, especially it seems like in the last I don't know how long, probably several years, as we feel we have less control of powers that be that govern us or situations in the world at large, I sense that folks turn inward and turn to sources of strength. And I think that the divine or whatever your spiritualism is, and I speak more coming from the lens that I'm coming from. When you feel like you can gain a sense of control over when you feel there you have no control over so many things that we all deal with, I think it provides a source of strength and control. There are a lot of misconceptions about what witchcraft really is, but what it really is, is manifestation and intention and following your inner voice and your inner goddess and really listening to yourself and gaining strength in who you are. And I think when we are faced with trauma, when we're faced with a world that we don't have any control over, and we are almost victims of that, it is a place where women, in particular, I speak from this lens, find their power and their sense of self. So I think in I guess relating it back to what you're saying with mental health, a lot of folks that I communicate with in that part of the community get strength from that.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

What is Sigorney Weaver's character in alien? In Alien. Ripley. Ripley, because it's so funny that you brought up the female aspect of that, because like when I think of iconic people in like final person in in a film, I just think that Ripley character just kicks ass. I mean, I just think she's yeah, she's just the epitome of what every hero wants to be.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

You know, for that podcast, we do the final question that we always ask, and we did from the very beginning who is your favorite final person in a world movie. Yeah, we've gotten some really cool wild great.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Wow, I have to give that some thought, but yeah. I think Jamie Lee Curtis.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, we're huge fans.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah, she's she'd probably be my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah, I mean, she's awesome and has just reappeared so many times. I love that they the classic ones that we grew up with, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

I mean, I don't I'm 57, so full disclosure, that's my that's what I grew up with. I grew up with Halloween and Jason, and you know, that's what I grew up. Nightmare in Elm Street. I grew up with that.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I'm 55, so I can definitely relate.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

So we've had a couple of crossovers uh episodes, but we love when that kind of thing happens. So I just I wanted to make sure that to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Well, I'm really interested in the conference. I teach at University of Michigan in the sexual health program, and I believe it's the second weekend in March. If there isn't a conflict, I'm very interested in that.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, it's called Untangling Our Roots. That's the name of the event. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I think my journey, my most recent journey with my birth father finding me, it up-ended so much of my thoughts and narratives and beliefs about adoption and adoptees. And I think that it it just shifted me to be much more open to more narratives and more realities about living with this kind of information. I also counsel women about genetic testing. And I always tell them once you know, you can't unknow. So if you don't want to do genetic testing, that's okay. I always relate it back to opening up that message or putting my blood out there in ancestor DNA. Like, once you do that, you have to be prepared for what you may find or who may find you. Like I could never, you know, looking back, I've had so many folks ask me, would you go back and do it different? Would you have not responded? There was absolutely nothing that would have stopped me from responding. And you can't understand that until you're in that situation and you've gone your whole life not knowing and wanting to know more. So I think that this most recent experience I've had over the last several years really has shifted how I feel. And also, it's serendipitous to what I do and how much, you know, working in the breast cancer and high-risk breast space and menopause and sexual health, because those are my three specialties, and knowing family history really matters. It even matters in the menopause space because women who can't look to their mother and say, what was your menopause experience like? When did you feel that you were starting to have symptoms? Or what did you do about it? They don't have that lens to know that there's any any kind of familial, even breast density can have a familial component. So I all the things that you can't ask if you don't have that information. And again, family history and cancer screening, how do we take care of those folks? How do we provide adoptee competent health care? How do I look at what other risk factors? How do I advocate for you to get genetic testing? How do I advocate for you to get that MRI, even though your risk score is only 15%? Because if you don't have family history, the calculator isn't going to put you at high risk. So, how do I work around that with you? That's really been something that it's just amazing how the journey just kind of continues to unfold and all of your life experiences continue to impact what I can give back, you know, and what you can.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, and I mean it's important because it not everyone is going to be able to do that. Not every, you know, especially those that are still in the fog. So for you to be able to go through a double whammy of roller coaster ride, which with the positivity on your birth mother's side, but also the trauma there.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

And then the flip side with the man who birthed you, yeah. Not everybody could come on the other side of that and be like, what can I do to help others in the community? So thank you for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

So the last question that we asked on this podcast is Is there a musical artist or a song that you would kind of lean on when times were really, really crazy? Taylor Swift. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

One song she has, when I first announced the book last year in November, my daughter actually found it. It's called Deer Reader. And it's the song that's in the background of that post. And then when she came out with Tortured Poets Department, my god. I can't even tell you how many songs the smallest man who ever lived comes to mind. Little old me. You know, don't be afraid of little old me, but you should be. I'm a lot stronger than you think I am.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

She's been very instrumental, I think, in helping a lot of people and empowering a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

My favorite Taylor Swift quote is if you don't like her, you haven't needed her. And when you need her, you'll get it.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

That's great. I love that. And to me, that's I mean, in general, that's what music's about, right? Like, you know, it's yeah, we joke, and during podcasts are probably the only minutes in our week that music isn't playing in our house. You know what I mean? Like it's just it's a constant, yeah, you know. So each music lovers.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Lisa, this has been absolutely amazing. So glad that we were able to connect and wow, you your story is remarkable and so amazing what you're doing coming out on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Thank you. I appreciate it. You guys are amazing. This was perfect. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Well, thank you so much again. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

It was such a pleasure to meet you both.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Wow, Lisa. Thank you for trusting us and our listeners with this chapter of your story. Part two is not easy. It's raw, complicated, and painfully familiar for so many adoptees and NPEs who realize too late that the reunion they hope for is not the reunion they get. The fact that you have to come out on the other side to help, and the fact that you have come out on the other side to help other adoptees and other patients, that's the kind of healing art we cheer for. Nurses don't just save lives, they rebuild their own. If you connected with Lisa's story today, please check out her book, The Adopted Nurse. It offers even more insight, validation, and honesty. Plus, far more wisdom than you can fit into two podcast episodes. And remember, this is why we tell these stories. Adoption, donor conception, NPE experiences, they're not simple. They're not tidy. They're not always the Hallmark version people want to imagine. But they deserve to be heard. You deserve to be heard. Thanks for spending time with us, for supporting the show, and for supporting the nurses in your life, especially right now when they're fighting just to be recognized for the professionals they are. We'll be back next week with another Family Twist. And remember, Family Secrets are the ultimate pot twist. The Family Twist podcast is presented by Savoie Fair Marketing Communications and produced by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC.