I received an email recently from someone searching for support. Her email read:

“I found out three years ago that my husband has an adult daughter. She contacted him and they began what I refer to as their “lovefest”. I searched and searched for information about this. There’s plenty of support for adoptees and birth parents, but none for other family members.”

Less than two weeks later, I received another email recounting a similar story.

Both women described a sense of loneliness and feeling dismissed by others who couldn’t understand the difficulty they experienced from a DNA surprise not personally affecting them.

IT WAS HARD FOR OTHERS TO UNDERSTAND.

It’s obvious when a DNA surprise affects those directly involved -- a father discovering a child they never knew existed, for example. Or a person learning that the father who raised them is not their biological parent.

It’s less apparent and sometimes ignored and dismissed when other people associated with these individuals struggle with the unearthing of the surprise. We sometimes forget families are interconnected, living beings in themselves.

ONE DROP OF CHANGE CAN HAVE RIPPLE EFFECTS THAT SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE FAMILY.