0:00

And I think with Becky, I

0:02

feel like Becky is has a more similar

0:04

personality to me, and that is that the

0:06

girl will always land on her feet, and

0:09

she will get knocked down, but she will wipe

0:12

herself off and get back up again. And

0:15

I would say that Becky is really she's

0:17

just she's so positive, and she's so warm,

0:20

and she's so loving despite all of

0:22

the heartache that she has been exposed to

0:24

um or maybe because you

0:26

know, she had two parents who really tried

0:29

hard to make her feel safe and loved. I

0:31

think that she has

0:33

the right to know who her father is, and

0:36

I think just because her mother refused

0:38

to tell her doesn't make it any

0:40

less valid desire to know. I

0:42

mean, any I think we all have the

0:44

fundamental right to know who our parents are, And

0:48

obviously I support her trying

0:51

to find out who it is. That

1:04

was Elena, Becky's former babysitter, who,

1:07

like many people in Becky's life, recognize

1:10

that despite what she's endured in her life and

1:12

some of the choices she made early on, she's

1:15

ultimately become a fundamentally good

1:17

person, the complete opposite

1:19

of who her mother is. Whatever darkness

1:22

lives inside of Diane Downs and whatever

1:24

that may exist genetically inside Becky Bobcock,

1:27

she's pushed past it to lead a life and become

1:29

a person who's nothing like her biological

1:31

mother. And so I

1:34

think there was this sort of this Diane

1:37

shaped void inside

1:39

of her that she's always trying to

1:41

bring the drugs and the men

1:43

and everything too. And

1:46

I remember sensing she

1:48

can't quite fill it with

1:51

what she's trying to fill it with. And

1:54

um, so, I mean she would talk about really

1:57

sort of crying out to God

1:59

and saying, please help me. I

2:01

don't know who I really am. Um,

2:03

I just the daughter of this crazy

2:06

killer, Or am I this

2:08

person who's going to have my own

2:10

life and my own identity

2:13

and I don't want to be known as the

2:15

daughter of Diane Downs anymore. And

2:18

I think by the time we were done talking

2:20

with her, she was pretty much it felt

2:22

like she was shaking

2:25

the dust of Diane off of

2:27

her, because I think she makes the decision

2:30

once they have some communication

2:33

her and Diane that she's not going to go She's

2:35

not gonna go back there, which is

2:37

what Diane wanted. Please come visit

2:39

me, let's talk, let's you

2:42

know whatever. And

2:44

so um for Becky to say,

2:46

you know what, I'm making a decision. I really don't

2:48

want to be involved in that.

2:51

And so I have some control over a

2:53

few things, and this is what I'm gonna do, and

2:55

it's going to feel better that I got to do it.

3:04

From the time he met Becky and as

3:06

he got to know her, Eric Mason supported

3:09

the idea of Becky searching for her father. Oh.

3:12

I thought it was a really good idea because

3:17

she's looking for grounding. That's what I always

3:19

felt about Becky from

3:21

the day she showed up

3:24

at that pizza parlor in Bend

3:26

and I looked across the table and said, Wow,

3:28

that is Diane's daughter.

3:32

And she just

3:34

had so many plans and dreams.

3:36

It's like I would like to be a nurse

3:38

and I would like to help people, and

3:41

I have all these plans, and

3:44

my Mercedes needs parts and

3:47

I need to get it fixed, and I need to

3:49

find a better place to live. And there

3:52

was this orbit around

3:56

Becky that felt a little bit like

3:59

the or a bit and the energy

4:02

and the spin around Diane.

4:04

But certainly she had a lot more control

4:08

and grounding, and she

4:10

understood that

4:13

if she wasn't careful the

4:16

undertow of all of that could pull

4:18

her under and that she'd be lost.

4:21

And so I think she really was

4:24

introspective and really wanted

4:27

to make changes and not

4:29

be like her mom.

4:31

And so you know, she got involved in a church

4:34

and she really did

4:38

some self examination

4:41

when she would sense herself

4:43

going down the rabbit hole

4:45

of drugs and men and

4:48

chance meetings and all of those things,

4:51

and she would

4:54

pull herself short and say,

4:56

you know what, I can't go down those roads because

4:59

for my um, she's in prison

5:01

for the rest of her life. So

5:04

I think she wanted to make contact, some

5:06

limited contact with mom, but really

5:09

did want to find out who her real biological

5:11

father was. And that made sense and it

5:14

was a good thing. I thought it was a great thing. Michelle

5:16

Leonard, the DNA detective who was key

5:18

in helping Becky, confirmed that she was without

5:21

a doubt, Diane Down's biological daughter

5:23

reached out again, and this time with

5:25

news about Becky's paternal side. It's

5:28

been several weeks since we all convened

5:30

with Michelle at the DNA

5:32

detective and Becky and

5:35

now Michelle had

5:37

some breakthroughs in your case, Becky.

5:39

So I wanted to have us meeting so we could go over

5:42

her findings, and UM, I'll

5:44

turn it over to Michelle. Okay,

5:46

Hi Melissa, Hi Becky. So

5:50

uh, last time we had

5:53

a session where we talked

5:55

about my first impressions

5:58

of your DNA results, UM, and there

6:00

were some important clues

6:03

that I was able to share with you at

6:05

that time about your recent

6:07

immigrant ancestry coming from

6:09

areas like Poland, Ukraine

6:12

and perhaps the Netherlands. But

6:15

this time, what we're going to do is much more

6:17

of a deep dive into your actual

6:19

DNA matches and their

6:22

ancestry. And I'm going to go through

6:24

the research I've been doing and talk

6:26

you through how I've come to certain conclusions

6:29

about your paternal ancestry. Jumping

6:31

off from the jackpot Matt she previously

6:33

discovered, Michelle was able to narrow down

6:35

the relationship of the match you've

6:37

spent you know, most of your

6:39

life wondering about and

6:41

and to see it in black and white is a is a big

6:44

thing, It really is, UM. And of

6:46

course you have what I named the jackpot

6:48

match, a paternal

6:50

match sharing around the same amount

6:52

of DNA as your maternal

6:55

uncle. Therefore, this

6:57

is a very close paternal relative,

7:00

and I had worked out the last

7:02

time that it has to either

7:04

be a paternal half sister because

7:06

this is a female match, or a paternal

7:09

full aunt. The other option was

7:11

grandparents, but that doesn't work because

7:13

this person is matching to all

7:15

of the different clusters of matches

7:18

that I'm seeing in your paternal side, so that

7:20

means she's matching to both your paternal grandparents.

7:23

Therefore, she can only be a paternal

7:25

half sister or aunt. But of course

7:27

she doesn't have a name. She just has a user

7:29

name with a set of letters and

7:32

numbers that aren't easy to decipher,

7:34

and she doesn't have a tree, so we

7:36

need to look at other matches to try to get to the bottom

7:38

of this and try and work out who she is and

7:41

who your biological father. It's

7:45

so if we scroll down your

7:47

match list, the first thing you're gonna know is

7:49

exactly what I'm saying about all of these

7:51

maternal matches. I have been gripping

7:53

your matches into color coded

7:56

clusters, if you like, So I've

7:58

been putting all the maternal matches into one group,

8:01

and the maternal matches are here, and you'll see

8:03

that as you scroll down it's

8:05

maternal maternal, maternal, maternal maternal,

8:08

and the first useful

8:10

match that doesn't match to your

8:12

maternal matches is

8:15

this one. And we're going to call this

8:17

man Hugo Kowalski,

8:20

just to know. Michelle isn't using any real

8:22

names in order to make sure the identity of Becky's

8:25

paternal relatives stay private. So

8:28

Hugo Kowalski is a

8:31

pseudonym of my making, and

8:33

he is the first interesting

8:36

paternal match. Now he's sharing much

8:38

less DNA than your massive jackpot

8:41

match. Of course, only a hundred

8:43

and thirty eight sent to Morgan's.

8:46

But if we look at the probability chart for

8:48

that, we'll see that it tells us it's fift

8:51

likely that this is a second cousin

8:53

once removed, half second cousin,

8:55

a first cousin three times removed, half first

8:57

cousin twice removed. Lots relationships

9:00

there. In order to start entangling

9:03

the complicated web of potential relationships,

9:05

Michelle has to dive into the relationships and start

9:08

putting together a family tree. Sometimes

9:10

the information is geographical, so the work

9:12

Michelle is doing requires more than just the ability

9:15

to analyze d NAME results. If you look

9:17

at a tree and you say, okay, here's me, here's

9:20

my parent, here's my grandparents,

9:22

here's my great grandparents. So that's

9:25

that number of generations removed from

9:27

the common ancestors. And then you say, okay, here's

9:29

a cousin, there's their parents, there's their

9:31

grandparents, and there's the same great grandparents.

9:34

Okay, so we're on exactly the same level. It's

9:37

so much easier when you look at it visually than when

9:39

you're trying to explain it in words.

9:41

But it is all to do with the number of generations

9:44

away from the common ancestors

9:46

between the two people, and that's

9:48

so so important in this case because

9:52

we've got all these relationships to look at,

9:54

but how do we narrow them down? So

9:56

Hugo is a great match to get on his own, but

9:59

as you can see, there's only one shared

10:01

match with him, and that shared

10:03

match also has ancestry

10:06

that goes back to Ukraine, but also

10:08

an area that a lot of people call Galicia,

10:11

the Galicia area of

10:13

eastern Europe. So

10:16

when people immigrated from

10:18

this area to the

10:21

United States or other countries

10:23

in the eighteen and nineteen hundreds,

10:25

often they would say they're from Galicia. But sometimes

10:28

they would say they're from Poland. Sometimes they'd

10:30

say they're from the Ukraine. Sometimes

10:32

they'd say they're from Austria.

10:35

Sometimes they say they're from Hungary. It was

10:37

part of the Austro Hungarian Empire at one point.

10:39

So that's why you might see in summer old older

10:41

records someone says that from Austria, when

10:43

an actual fact, they're from the Ukraine

10:46

as we would know it now. So this

10:48

is the area that you have strong

10:50

ancestry from, and very

10:53

recent strong ancestry from. Found

10:56

a cousin, if

10:58

he is perhaps a first and of

11:00

one of your grandparents, then

11:02

I want to know who his parents

11:04

and grandparents were. Well, I could only get as

11:07

far as his parents because

11:09

they were both immigrants and they came

11:11

from the Galicia region to Canada.

11:24

Once Michelle has names and backgrounds,

11:27

she starts doing a deep dive on social media

11:29

accounts and even obituaries

11:31

in order to find potential relationships.

11:33

Michelle continues to unpack the relationships

11:35

that unfold from this discovery, naming

11:37

cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles down the

11:39

paternal line. The lions cross

11:41

and get somewhat complicated, but thanks for

11:43

a visual build out. Michelle is able to keep

11:45

everything together, and I do

11:48

a lot of Facebook slothing to try and work these

11:50

things, so that is a good way to

11:52

go. So I built a few lines out

11:54

and I looked at Vadim

11:57

and Ella in particular, and I found

11:59

that they had a Dotter. Melissa

12:01

was the act or of the eighties.

12:04

And I traced Melissa's Lyne

12:07

forward and she married a man named

12:09

Walter have Lenko.

12:12

Now, this is one of these moments that

12:14

I call a Eureka moment because

12:17

we've seen that name before. And I

12:20

call it a Eureka moment because it's that moment

12:22

where while we're building this large jigsaw

12:24

puzzle and we're putting these pieces on the board, two

12:28

of the most important pieces have come

12:30

together. And then Michelle's

12:32

one step closer to Becky's father. And

12:35

I also was able to source John

12:37

and Esther's obituaries um

12:40

and those obituaries told me that they

12:42

only had those two children, They only had

12:44

those two daughters. Now, looking

12:47

at this, I was convinced at

12:49

this point that these two people are your direct

12:51

ancestors. You descend directly

12:55

from Esther and John. You

12:57

have DNA to both theirs

13:00

of ancestors, and they

13:02

come together in Canada. So I

13:05

believe you descend from

13:08

one of their children. Yes,

13:11

okay, So looking

13:13

at these people, Esther and John, if

13:16

you descend directly from them. They

13:18

were born in the early

13:20

nineteen hundreds in the Ukraine, they

13:22

emigrated to Canada, and they

13:25

had these two children in the nineteen thirties.

13:27

You were born in the nineteen eighties. We're looking

13:29

for a biological father for

13:32

you, born around the nineteen

13:34

fifties. Perhaps, therefore,

13:37

this next generation, the daughters of Esther

13:39

and John, this has to be your grandparents

13:41

generation. One of these

13:43

two women is almost

13:46

certainly your grandmother. And from the grandparents,

13:48

Michelle is able to narrow down the connection even

13:50

more. Yeah. So

13:53

Katia, I've called her Katia Pavlenko,

13:56

born in the thirties in Canada.

13:58

And guess what he went to the United

14:01

States. And guess what she

14:03

did in the United States. She

14:05

got married to a man who came from

14:08

the Netherlands. I

14:10

found they got divorced in a particular state

14:12

in the United States in the nineteen seventies,

14:15

and later I found that they had married in the fifties

14:17

and they had three children. I have used

14:19

the surname Jensen for your paternal grandfather,

14:22

so I've called him Yan Jansen. He was born in the twenties

14:25

in northern Holland and the Netherlands.

14:28

He emigrated to Canada

14:31

as an infant, and in

14:33

the nineteen fifties he came

14:35

to the United States permanently. But

14:37

I have found a great document from the nineteen

14:39

forties where he's crossing the border, and

14:41

it actually gives us

14:44

some information on his description, a description

14:46

of his appearance. It tells us

14:48

he's six ft three inches in height, got

14:50

a fair complexion, very tall, blonde,

14:54

blue eyes, quite typical

14:56

Netherlands male description. There.

14:59

So a really interesting fact

15:01

when I was young and started asking questions

15:03

about who my biological mother and father were,

15:06

I was actually given that exact description

15:08

for what my biological father was. And

15:11

from this description of Becky's grandfather, she

15:13

understands that the description that's been given of her

15:15

biological father is most likely

15:17

accurate. So at this point

15:19

I found that Katia

15:22

pavel Anko married this dutch

15:24

Man, Yan Jensen, in

15:27

the United States and they had three

15:30

children. Now, Yan

15:32

passed away a few years ago, and

15:35

I did find his obituary

15:38

as well, which confirmed

15:40

that he had immigrated to Canada as

15:42

an infant and had come to the United States

15:45

in nineteen fifty and that he'd lived in Oregon

15:48

and that's where he had died. So Yan

15:51

and Katia had three children during

15:54

their marriage between the nineteen fifties

15:56

and the early nineteen seventies when

15:58

they divorced, and

16:00

those three children Matt, Richard

16:03

and Louisa. Now, at

16:06

this point I was fairly

16:08

certain on who

16:11

had to be your biological father. And

16:13

now with Becky's father identified, Michelle takes

16:16

a somewhat careful approach of identifying him

16:18

to Becky, starting with some of the questions

16:20

she's had. First off, I

16:23

remember that it says that he

16:25

was a little younger than Diane. That's

16:28

true, he was slightly

16:30

younger than Diane.

16:34

Another thing is, of

16:36

course, the appearance, the

16:39

description. And I'm just

16:41

going to sharing for a second

16:44

and read a couple of things here I

16:46

just saw in there it says he's still living.

16:48

He is still alive. Yes,

16:51

Becky, how do you feel right now? I'm

16:53

looking at you on the screen. Your

16:56

your face is blank. What

16:58

are you thinking? I'm

17:00

trying not to cry let's just take a moment.

17:03

This is really monumental, really

17:05

monumental, and I don't want it this to

17:07

be trivialized or dismissed. This is really

17:10

massive. He's alive, which means

17:12

that he's most likely

17:14

known about me, And

17:17

that's what's pretty hard for me right now. If

17:19

I remove all emotion from

17:21

it. I'm super curious what his

17:24

name is because, uh, you know,

17:26

Diane had given me a certain name

17:28

in UM, and I've heard names

17:30

over the years and stuff. So it's I mean,

17:32

there's that curiosity of who he is

17:35

UM with the emotional part

17:37

removed, but there's also the emotional

17:39

part that's just flooding right now.

17:44

So we're at the point and I where

17:47

one of the sons of Jan

17:50

Jansen and Katia Pavelin called must

17:52

be your biological father,

17:55

and I believe it is their son that

17:57

has been named Matt Jenson. And

18:00

I'm going to go over some of the additional

18:03

evidence for that that isn't just the

18:05

DNA. I have found a description

18:07

of him which tells us

18:10

that he has six ft three inches tall

18:12

and has brown hair, which

18:15

completely matches the description already

18:18

given. Yeah,

18:21

Additionally, there's location

18:24

this Matt Jensen is

18:27

on a US index

18:29

with an address in Cottage

18:31

Grove, Oregon. Now, the

18:34

date of this address isn't given, but

18:37

it is prior to and

18:39

I have tracked where he was in the seventies.

18:43

Therefore, he has to have been living in Cottage

18:45

Grove in the nineteen eighties, which means he

18:47

was in the right place at the right

18:49

time. Becky also learns that she has

18:51

a half sister. Michelle revels this information

18:54

to Becky and explains this could be another

18:56

potential point of contact. How does that

18:58

make you fail, Becky? Hearing

19:00

you have a half sister, um

19:05

hopeful Christie and Danny didn't want

19:07

a relationship with me, which I completely

19:09

respected it understood, But I

19:12

mean maybe this person might

19:15

or you know, maybe it

19:17

would just be nice to know them.

19:20

I mean, I

19:22

don't know. It's

19:25

all a lot. It's overwhelming right now, but I'm

19:28

ready, you know, It's

19:31

it's very hard to take such news like

19:33

this in and it takes time. It takes

19:35

time to take it in and to understand

19:37

it and to come to terms with it. With Becky's

19:40

mother being who she is, Michelle is ready

19:42

with the background information of Becky's father, confirming

19:45

that he's nothing like Diane. I

19:47

have not been able to find anything

19:50

for your biological father other than

19:52

he's a successful man. He runs

19:55

a business. There's no criminal

19:57

records. Rather than a speeding fine, I think of, um,

20:01

nothing of any That's where I got the description

20:03

of his physical features.

20:05

Um, a thirty dollar speeding fine is the

20:07

worst thing I can find for him.

20:10

He is educated, he comes

20:12

across as intelligent. His

20:14

daughter is a high flying person

20:17

in her chosen profession. I

20:19

can't find anything about the family

20:21

that gives me any concerns as to who

20:24

they are. There's no news clippings

20:26

of him having done anything wrong

20:29

at all. So

20:32

I have a question. Was here a reporter?

20:35

Yes, that's what we all thought.

20:45

And now the only step that remains for Becky is

20:47

contact Michelle. Becky avoided

20:49

contacting the Jackpot Match previously

20:52

in order to prevent jeopardizing any chance

20:54

Becky may have and making contact. Now,

20:57

you remember, I was very reticent contacting

21:00

the Jackpot Match because I

21:03

thought, if it's a half sister, we could

21:05

be opening that kind of worms and

21:07

taking away his chance to tell her

21:09

himself if he wanted to. And

21:11

so it's a good thing that now we

21:13

know for sure that that is what who she is, that

21:16

we didn't go take that route. I

21:18

agree, because if she doesn't know, that would

21:20

be kind of a scary awakening.

21:23

Exactly. We could have blundered in with

21:25

a message, Hey, you're a you're a close match,

21:27

who are you? Blah blah blah, and we might have

21:30

got the answer much quicker and easier,

21:33

but we could have

21:35

taken away your chance of having

21:37

any meaningful contact. Um

21:39

if that upset your biological

21:42

father and he decided he didn't want

21:44

to know because we had blundered in

21:46

and told his daughter something that

21:50

is yeah, but begins to don

21:52

on Becky, is that he's been near her the entire

21:54

time and has likely known as relationships

21:57

for this entire time. In

21:59

general, it's often said,

22:02

especially in the United States, that it's better

22:05

for something personal to come in

22:07

this situation. That

22:10

might be true and it might not.

22:12

I don't know for sure, but I

22:15

wouldn't want you to send a letter

22:17

that outlines everything. If

22:19

he and his wife are people that open each other's mail,

22:22

and his wife opens it into that's how

22:24

she finds out, and that's that's

22:26

then a big problem. If you decided

22:28

on a letter to his address.

22:31

Then it would have to be something much more general

22:33

to begin with, until you could

22:35

get some way of

22:37

being able to communicate with him

22:40

that you were a dent. Sure is

22:43

private him and him only,

22:45

Yeah, most definitely. I mean,

22:48

I'm curious about so

22:50

many things. I mean, about who he is

22:52

and his life and how he knew Diane,

22:55

and you know, if he really

22:57

thought about me, you know, all that stuff.

22:59

But it's just been a really long

23:02

time that I've had those questions, and

23:04

and now I have the chance to ask them, and I'm

23:07

I'm scared. After

23:10

Michelle revealed Becky's father's identity

23:12

to her, including his immediate family, location,

23:15

and other details including biological

23:17

information in some online and public

23:19

information about him, she did in fact

23:21

reach out. He has declined to participate

23:23

in the podcast, so this information is being

23:26

left out in order to preserve his public autonomy.

23:28

Becky reached out carefully through a letter,

23:31

explaining very generally what her purpose

23:33

was in locating him, and gave her number.

23:36

He contacted her through what appeared

23:38

to be a burner phone, and after confirming

23:40

her identity and purpose, he declined

23:42

to speak at length with her or answer any of her

23:45

questions with a lingering promise

23:47

that he would reach out to her after the holidays.

23:51

Becky took some time to absorb this information

23:54

to reconcile her thoughts and feelings,

23:56

and what we leave you with now is an end to

23:58

Becky's journey. In her own words, He's

24:01

known that I've been who I am for

24:03

at least ten years. I've been in the media, and

24:07

he's chosen to stay out

24:09

of my life and continues to

24:11

choose. So I

24:15

respect it. That's all I can do. I

24:18

don't know, um, but he made

24:20

it extremely clear that

24:22

he is not interested. UM. I

24:24

mean, he used a burner phone to contact

24:26

me. And the only reason I think that he even

24:29

contacted me was because

24:31

he knows I was looking for him, and

24:33

I'm assuming he knows that

24:36

I wouldn't stop until I found him.

24:38

But more so, I think that he

24:41

contacted me to guarantee but

24:44

I would not put his information

24:47

out there, and

24:49

as soon as I promised him I wouldn't, he

24:52

didn't want anything to do with me. UM,

24:56

So that sucks. I mean, that's hard

24:59

and I don't

25:01

understand it. You know, my son

25:03

out there when he looks for me, I'm

25:06

going to be so

25:08

excited and so ready

25:10

for him to be

25:12

a part of my life and answer any questions

25:14

that he may have and

25:18

just embrace him into my life fully.

25:21

Um. My biological father, I think

25:23

is scared. He and

25:26

it's understandable. I mean, he slept

25:29

with an infamous killer and

25:32

it produced a child that's now gone

25:35

into the media and been pretty

25:38

out there. Um.

25:41

So if

25:44

I were him, I guess I'd be embarrassed. Maybe

25:46

I don't know, or it would

25:48

just be a secret that I would want to keep. And

25:51

I think that that's what it is for him, as a secret

25:53

he wants to keep, which

25:56

means that that secret is

25:58

me and and I have to

26:00

remain at

26:03

a distance. I guess. Um

26:05

he had said that maybe around Christmas he would

26:07

contact me, but honestly,

26:10

I'm not holding my breath. I

26:13

think that what I did get from him was probably

26:16

all that I'm going to get from him, and it

26:18

was just a bunch of promises to answer questions

26:20

in the future and then telling

26:22

me to never contact him again. So

26:27

I got no real answers. Um

26:30

I sought out to find him. I did.

26:33

It was disappointing, but

26:36

it just reconfirms

26:39

how amazing my parents are and how

26:41

grateful I am that I have such loving

26:44

parents. My dad would

26:47

you know, my

26:49

dad would do anything to see me happy

26:52

and to see me smile and to know that I'm loved

26:54

and and that's important.

26:57

Not a biological father and not

26:59

hanging on his every

27:02

you know promise, But my

27:05

real father, my adopted

27:07

father, is my real father, because he is

27:09

the one who has been there for every scrape me,

27:12

every broken heart, every challenged

27:14

my life, and to celebrate

27:16

all of the good as well. He has always

27:19

been there and he is

27:21

a very very good man, and

27:24

I am grateful to have him

27:26

as just the same as my

27:28

mom. I mean, she's amazing and

27:32

she was always there for me and she still

27:34

is. And I have amazing

27:37

parents, and if nothing else

27:39

from this journey, it

27:42

has confirmed that they are all that I

27:44

need. I don't need Diane Downs

27:46

in my life. I don't need this

27:48

new biological father in

27:52

my life. I need my

27:54

real parents, my adopted parents, the

27:57

ones that love me, the ones that chose

27:59

me, the ones that would

28:01

do anything to

28:03

see me safe and happy

28:07

and left. What

28:09

were my thoughts on the journey, good

28:12

and bad? It has been

28:14

an It's been a wild

28:16

ride for sure. I mean there's

28:20

been a um a lot of

28:22

interesting facts that have come to light

28:26

and a lot of disappointing ones. I

28:28

mean, it's it's hard to be denied

28:33

by people you share blood with, even

28:36

if I don't want them to be my family.

28:38

You know, it's still

28:42

hurts my heart a little bit that they

28:46

deny me, which is

28:48

so weird. I understand. It's like I

28:50

don't want to know them, but I want them to know me in

28:52

a sense I don't know, I don't

28:54

want to know them, but I want them to want

28:57

to know me, if that makes any sense.

28:59

It's just weird, and I don't even understand myself.

29:03

But you know, I denied

29:05

by Diane, denied by her brother,

29:08

now denied by my biological father.

29:10

It's it

29:13

has made me extremely grateful

29:15

for this life that I have. I have an amazing

29:18

fiance, i have parents

29:21

that I would never ever ever want

29:23

to change. I've got a

29:25

son who makes me so

29:27

proud and so happy, and

29:30

you know, I have a sister, and I just

29:33

my life is full of love. I

29:35

will continue my

29:38

journey as strong

29:41

as I ever have been. I'm

29:43

grateful that I found my biological

29:46

father, and then I got some of

29:48

the answers that I've

29:50

been searching for. But it

29:52

doesn't change who I am.

29:54

It doesn't change my presence on

29:56

this earth. I'm here to be a

29:58

good mother, a good friend, a good

30:01

wife, a good daughter. None

30:04

of that is

30:08

affected by who I came from.

30:11

Diane Downs does not control

30:13

who I am or who I continue to

30:15

be. She

30:17

was just somewhere

30:19

that housed me for nine months. You

30:22

know, It's that's

30:25

all she was. She's not a mother. She's

30:28

not someone that I care for or that I

30:30

wish to have a part of my life.

30:33

She was my incubator, and

30:37

I mean in a sense I'm

30:41

grateful for that, because if she hadn't

30:45

gotten pregnant or continued her pregnancy,

30:47

I wouldn't be here. So for that, I

30:51

guess, thank you, Diane Downs. But other

30:53

than that, that's all she's ever been

30:55

for me. Never my

30:59

mother there. I have never once referred to Diane

31:02

Downs as my mother. She is

31:04

my biological mother. She may

31:06

be my blood, but she would never

31:08

be my mother. I've

31:11

met some great people on this journey. Um

31:14

the I Heart Radio staff and Melissa

31:16

Moore have just been Godsends. They've

31:18

been amazing UM,

31:21

and some of the people that we've met and interviewed

31:24

have been wonderful. It's been so great

31:26

to meet kind, caring,

31:29

honest people that

31:31

are truly concerned about me and

31:34

and my journey due to where I came

31:37

from, and they want to help and they wanted to, you

31:40

know, answer any questions that they could because they

31:42

truly care and they are decent human beings,

31:44

and for that I am grateful. We

31:47

got a lot of answers, we

31:49

found out some information. UM,

31:53

we are continuing to find out information

31:55

as we go. Therefore, we are working

31:58

on some projects in the future. So

32:01

for the listeners that want to know more,

32:04

they're quite possibly could be more

32:06

in the future that you're gonna want

32:08

to hear and you're gonna want to know. But

32:12

for now, I'm content,

32:15

I'm happy, I'm healthy,

32:18

I'm loved. I'm grateful for

32:20

this journey. It didn't go as

32:22

I had hoped or planned, but it gave

32:24

me the closure that I needed that

32:26

I've been searching for since I was eleven years old.

32:29

I can close that chapter

32:31

of my life and not

32:33

have to look back on it anymore or wonder

32:35

or have questions. I can just

32:38

live this amazing life that I have and

32:40

appreciate everyone and everything

32:42

in it. Ben

32:48

Boland is our executive producer, Melissa

32:51

Moore is our co executive producer. Maya

32:53

Cole is our primary producer. Paul

32:55

Decant is our supervising producer. Samti

32:58

Garner is our researcher, and Matt

33:00

Riddle is our story editor. Featured

33:02

music by dream Tent Happy

33:04

Phase Presents. To Phase is a production

33:06

of I Heart Radio h

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M M

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M m

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m