- So I wanna do a DNA test just
to find out more about my ancestry.
I was interested in the science behind it all.
Little did I know, it was gonna completely change my world.
(downtempo music)
Hi, I'm Sam.
I'm 22 (laughs).
Last year, for the holidays, I decided
to get my family DNA test.
So I called my mom to tell her that I was gonna get them.
I asked if she wanted one, too.
- Well, when Sam said that she had decided
to get everyone DNA kits, I immediately texted
her father, and said, we need to talk to them right away.
We really never thought there was gonna be a need
to tell the kids, because there
just didn't seem to be a good reason
for us to even consider telling them, again, 25 years ago.
We started to hear more and more
about people who find out
really interesting things from DNA tests.
- So then we, all four of us, got them for the holidays.
I expected to find out that we were
probably from Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Ireland,
but before we received the results,
we had to have a big family meeting,
and we did not know what that was gonna be about.
- Her father and I had agreed that
we wanted to make sure we had an opportunity
to tell them first, before they found
out in a more surprising, disturbing manner.
We always knew that this information was going
to be extremely shocking for the kids.
We just could not find the right time to do it,
and then we had to find the right time to do it.
- In the year 2017, I didn't understand
what needed to be in person, and
why we couldn't just Skype about it.
We thought someone was dying.
- We used to say we would only tell the kids
if there was a medical emergency.
In hindsight, that would've been horrible
for someone to be stressed with a medical emergency,
and then you say, oh, by the way, you're dad's not your dad.
The day that we told that we told the kids went
as well as (breathes in) we could've expected.
- After 21 years, I had just learned
that my father was not my genetic, biological father,
which just threw me for a loop,
just based on how similar we are.
I started just thinking about nature versus nurture.
Well, when he and my mom were trying
to have kids, they learned that
he had a low sperm count, and they couldn't get pregnant.
- My doctor said, listen, I'd recommend
that you go the donor route.
What's important is that you have a child.
So we went, and we got a bunch of faxes from the lab.
We found a profile, because my ex-husband is 100% Irish,
as far as we know, it did say
that the donor was German-Irish,
and German was the first word used.
When the kids told me that they were gonna do a DNA test,
I was concerned that they were gonna see a lot
of German genealogy, and I thought,
oh, my god, how are we gonna explain that?
I really thought that the results
of that DNA test would show to the kids
that there was a problem.
- Yep, we just knew we looked more Eastern European Jewish
than Irish Catholic, and so that was never in question.
Maybe my brother got his straight hair,
or something, from my dad, but never thought twice about it.
- If we'd never told the kids,
and then they found out, they would've thought
I had a long-term affair with someone
that, wow, we have the same biological father,
but it's not ours.
Mom must've been doing something.
But back to the story.
With my son, I think that I got pregnant
on the second try.
And then the medical practice,
they just said, hey, if you want,
we can just save the leftover sperm,
if you ever want it for any other pregnancy,
and I said, sure, okay.
And then, when my son was about a year old,
we said we would love to give our son a sibling.
We have some leftover sperm on ice.
One, that we thought we want a beautiful child.
We want a sibling, and it seemed
to have worked well the first time.
- Immediately, my brother and I were
both like, okay, well, you're still our dad.
That doesn't change anything.
I had the mentality that I was
not gonna not figure out who it was.
- At that branch, I remember my daughter said,
I wanna find out who the donor is,
and my son said, I don't wanna know who the donor is.
You can do whatever you want.
- I was not going to die without figuring
out who the genetic father was.
When I was awaiting my result,
I was thinking, what's the other genetic half of me?
My mom stated that she had the donor profile
in the safety deposit box.
It was very brief, and his message
for the parent had just said, "Be a good parent."
Said he was Irish and German, and said
he liked to swim, ski, and play tennis.
I grew up playing tennis and swimming,
and I ski and snowboard.
Said that he liked to travel.
I thought that sounded oddly familiar.
I have a snow globe collection
for everywhere that I have traveled.
As seen here, there's over 120 of 'em.
I did a tour through Europe, studied
abroad in Australia, then to Israel,
Indonesia, so well-traveled.
Definitely after reading interests,
looking at nature versus nurture,
then I was kind of like, oh, that's it?
Okay.
So the big distinguishing characteristic
on his profile was the ages of his siblings.
That was a huge clue, in my mind,
because he had a lot of siblings that were around his age.
He was probably 26, or 27, or something, at the time,
and then he had this three-year-old sister.
So this is all I had to work with, but I was gonna find him.
I knew I was gonna find him.
Fast-forward about a few weeks,
I finally got my DNA results from 23andMe,
and there was no genetic father match.
It was just my mom and my brother who were on there.
- I thought that maybe, when we did the first 23andMe,
that he might have presented himself.
I thought that it would be someone
who may or may not wanna be contacted
by their biological children.
Does this person even want to meet
someone that was created through a sperm donation,
'cause they needed some money to pay for some classes?
- Yeah, but there was one second-to-third cousin,
and so I started to message her.
I was looking for this family of five kids,
two older brothers, three younger sisters.
She responded, and she started
to send me some family trees, and
I just started scrolling through
these massive family trees, and
it was just a massive Catholic family,
where everyone had 10 kids, so
these were like 200-page documents,
looking for this set of five siblings.
There was no luck there, so I also contacted the sperm bank.
They couldn't reveal his identity,
obviously, but they could tell
me that there were a total
of eight pregnancies from this donor.
I have potentially six or more half-siblings,
genetic half-siblings.
I'm hoping to eventually find as many of them as I can.
I kinda hit this dead-end, and then
I knew that Ancestry DNA had a bigger database
of DNA relatives.
So I ordered the Ancestry DNA test,
got the results, and once again,
no match for the genetic father.
So then I kind of just dropped it for awhile.
I was about to go graduate from college,
and then start my first real job,
and it kinda got put on the back burner.
But then, a new second cousin popped up,
and she said that she would ask
her family if they knew anything.
In reality, she did know who it was,
but she wanted to check, first.
She then messages her mom, the donor's sister.
So the sister then calls her brother,
the donor, and he picks up the phone,
in the operating room at the time,
she tells him that there's this genetic offspring,
or this genetic kid, trying to find him.
He was like, okay, cool.
Yeah, give her my number (laughs).
So fast-forward to the beginning of July.
I had just moved to Florida for my first job,
and I'm sitting on my mattress,
on the floor, because my bed has not arrived yet.
And I'm scrolling through furniture,
but then an email pops up from that second cousin.
I open up the email, and I read it,
and it has his name, his email,
his phone number, and that he's open to talking.
So--
Yeah, so the second cousin said
that he lived in New York City,
and he was not married, and he had no kids.
So immediately, I'm thinking, my brother
and his fiance live in New York City.
Oh, my god, my brother could be walking
by him every day, and have no idea.
And the first thing I did was Google him,
just typed in his name, 'cause
I'm thinking, okay, now I have the name,
I can figure out what he looks like.
So I Google him.
- [Narrator] Dr. Brian Mehling,
an orthopedic trauma surgeon.
- [Anchor] Dr. Brian Mehlihng is
a world-renowned orthopedic trauma surgeon.
- [Sam] And I start reading about him,
and all of his medical work.
- [Narrator] Founder and chief medical officer
of Blue Horizon International.
- I'm gonna tell you a little, today,
about our groundbreaking work in the stem cell arena.
- Turns out he's a very Google-able person (laughs).
(muffled downtempo music)
- Hi, my name's Brian Mehling.
You might as well be honest (laughs)
from the get-go, because, sooner or later,
technology's gonna catch up with you.
(downtempo music)