Libby Copeland, THE LOST FAMILY
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[1:11]spring page one books.com. Welcome to inside and out the body edition of the July book blast.
[1:19]This is Thursday's body blast. Let's call it that the body blast. And I'm calling it that because
[1:24]one author is ballerina, one is a yoga teacher, and one investigates DNA. So that's why I hope you'll
[1:32]enjoy these varied takes on the human body. Libby Copeland is an award-winning journalist who writes
[1:38]about culture, science, and human behavior. Her book, The Lost Family, published in March,
[1:44]looks at the impact of home DNA testing on the American family, although I would say it's more of
[1:50]nail-biting kind of mystery, amazing book. Anyway, a staff reporter and editor for The Washington
[1:55]Post for over a decade. She now writes from New York for publications, including The Atlantic,
[2:01]Slate, New York magazine, Smith-Sonian magazine, The New York Times, the New York public
[2:05]Esquire, and many more. She currently lives in Westchester, New York with her husband and two
[2:10]children. Welcome, Libby. Thanks so much for coming on mom. So I don't have time to read books.
[2:14]Oh, thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here. I appreciate it.
[2:18]So this is our second sort of take at the beginning. We had a little chit chat about Zibi and Libby,
[2:23]so I'll spare redoing that. I'll just say mine is a nickname and yours is not, and it's
[2:29]thrilling to be here with another Evie. So anyway, can you please tell listeners what The Lost
[2:34]Family is about and what inspired you to write it? Yeah, absolutely. So I've been a feature writer
[2:40]for a long time and I'm particularly interested in how culture and human behavior and that
[2:45]they intersecting with technology. So how does technology push and pull us in certain directions?
[2:50]Why do we do the things we do? How do we define ourselves and why do we define ourselves that way?
[2:55]And so I got interested in DNA testing a few years ago and most a lot of people DNA test out
[3:01]of a sense that is going to deepen their understanding of their roots and oftentimes they're thinking
[3:04]maybe many generations back and that's the typical scenario, but there's a significant minority
[3:10]of people who discover something sort of more immediate and surprising. So something that sort
[3:15]of upends their understandings of their own origins, of how they came to be, maybe one of their
[3:20]parents isn't genetically related to them, maybe they have a sibling they didn't know about,
[3:24]maybe they're donor conceived, maybe they're adopted and they weren't told if they're from an
[3:28]older generation. So these are all sort of scenarios that have been kind of happening for the
[3:34]last five to ten years in this space and I thought it was such a kind of a broad social phenomenon.
[3:40]I wanted to kind of pull it together and I wanted to shape it around this really compelling
[3:45]genetic detective story of this one woman named Alice who had this astonishing discovery like
[3:51]many years back eight years ago, which is like a very long time in the context of this technology
[3:55]and kind of methodically went through all the theories of what it could be and it wasn't any of
[3:59]the expected explanations and her story is really meant to be the thing that like propels you
[4:05]through the book because it's so compelling and she's so intelligent and sort of dogged in her research.
[4:10]It was it was like a page turning thriller almost and every every dead end she would get to
[4:16]I'm like no it's kind of an existential thriller right because it's not the who don't it it's not
[4:25]like who killed who it's like a true to life nonfiction mystery of how she came to be like how did
[4:34]she get her family history so wrong how was it that she thought that she was entirely or almost
[4:39]entirely Irish American and she finds out she's half Ashkenazi Jewish and how do you explain that
[4:44]and then what do you make of it and what's interesting is Alice's family is like there's seven
[4:50]Irish Catholic siblings and you know they each make something different of it and you see through
[4:55]their different experiences and the different experiences of other people that I follow in the book is
[4:59]that like you know we're very selective and thoughtful and intentional and we each take something
[5:04]different from this question of like how much does genetics get to tell me about who I am.
[5:11]It's true and like all the clues that she would find even when you were saying like
[5:17]something said or like what did you get some funny analogy like the gorilla walking across the
[5:22]basketball court did I just totally ruin that but it was right like some things that just like
[5:27]hit her in the face that were so obvious but she missed them and then others were like so tiny and
[5:32]so hard I mean and that the fate and the elements that had to align for her to figure out her story
[5:37]and then you think about all people who didn't figure it out right like right so many more people
[5:43]didn't have the answers and never will and what do we make of that I don't know it's all very like
[5:48]you know a little woo-woo like the people who like were born and lived and died and never knew
[5:56]that for instance maybe the man who raised them that they called dad wasn't genetically related to
[6:00]them right so there's all these kind of what if questions that you hear people talking about in the book
[6:06]would what if they had known would they have been better off is it better that they didn't know
[6:11]because and the struggle with that is that everyone who's telling you their story is telling you
[6:16]from the perspective of already knowing already being invested in knowing the truth not being able
[6:21]to unknown it and so being in most cases very glad to know it but at the same time like you have
[6:28]to wonder like like for generations people didn't know they didn't have the capacity to know
[6:34]if for instance you know if for instance they had a half sibling living you know 50 miles away
[6:39]and they would have wanted to connect with that person only they'd known or it might have
[6:42]totally upset their family dynamic right we don't know I mean now I feel like I have to go back
[6:48]into my 23andMe results and just check every single cousin like all my results and I know you
[6:54]talked about your results in the book too at first to be honest I was like oh she must be writing
[6:58]this because she had some huge surprise show up in your DNA and it turns out not too big a
[7:03]surprise like your 1% Korean or something that was like you didn't expect but it just appeared
[7:08]the 1% Korean so I'm not Korean oh it disappeared okay oh so scratch that all right for yeah
[7:14]all right yeah mine were completely predictable as well in a very very boring way but I keep thinking
[7:19]almost hoping like maybe maybe there's a way there'll be somebody else and then people like Alice
[7:26]who have learned the whole science behind it I don't know I mean is it better to know or not
[7:30]what do you think like what do you want to know what do you want to know yeah it's hard to say
[7:35]so I mean one of the things that I found over and over again was that when somebody discovered
[7:40]something key about their genetic origins they were glad to know even when the truth was very upsetting
[7:47]so for instance I interviewed a woman who who understood her origins to be the result of a rape
[7:54]and this was something she came to after doing the DNA testing after unraveling the identity of
[7:59]her biological father after talking to her mom about it and her mom had gone through this profound
[8:05]trauma and was like listen here's why I didn't tell you and these were the circumstances so even for
[8:10]her she was like ungrateful to know the truth this explains so much I grew up in a house where
[8:17]there was a lot of trauma and abuse there was a lot of not talking about things that were very important
[8:22]and this gives me context this answers questions I can go back and look to the age of zero
[8:27]and I can reinterpret it and now it makes sense so I was struck by that I heard that over and
[8:33]over again and I heard that from people who had a sense of agency and the process of looking right
[8:38]you get your autonomous use but it's about you make meaning you decide the narrative you decide
[8:42]the timeline you decide if you're going to contact your relatives so that's like a profound thing
[8:48]very interesting the value that we place on the truth of knowing something key about ourselves
[8:52]but then there's people on the other side of the story right and sometimes their narratives are
[8:57]being disrupted in a way that they're not comfortable with so it might be the person who's the
[9:01]secret who's the secret keeper right that I've been keeping a genetic secret I don't see it as a
[9:07]secret I you know it was a matter of self protection it was it was a very reasonable decision giving
[9:13]the cultural significance at the time 60 years ago and we can't judge the past by present standards
[9:18]so perhaps you're someone who never was a secret to you but but you know but you knew about it
[9:24]but you weren't gonna tell anyone and now someone's coming into your life and saying you know I
[9:28]want to talk about this and maybe you're not ready to talk about it or not ready for your family to know
[9:32]or maybe you're the child of that person and now there's this half sibling coming into your life
[9:37]maybe this half sibling was born before you and they're saying something about
[9:43]something your mom or your dad did that is very painful to accept so I tell the story in the book of
[9:49]a woman who you know she's a foundling which wasn't a term I knew before I started writing the book
[9:54]and now you probably already knew the term or certainly you know it from reading the book but it's
[9:59]somebody who
[10:00]is like kind of like left and found, right?
[10:03]Like as a baby.
[10:04]So she was left on a pastor's doorstep at 40 years old.
[10:07]And she was conceived before the other children
[10:10]that her mom then went on to have.
[10:13]And when she connects with them and she says,
[10:15]hey, listen, I'm your biological half-sister.
[10:18]And this is the story of how I came to be.
[10:19]And I would love to have you in my life.
[10:22]Their response is our mother wouldn't do that, right?
[10:25]And their mother is dead.
[10:27]And it is incredibly difficult for them
[10:29]to reconcile this idea that their mother
[10:32]could do something that maybe causes them
[10:34]to think twice about her, about her character,
[10:37]about the difficult position that she was in.
[10:40]So it's one thing for the people on the one side.
[10:43]And then it's the other thing for the people
[10:44]on the other side.
[10:45]And there are situations where those things
[10:47]can be reconciled.
[10:48]And those are beautiful reunions.
[10:49]And there are situations where like,
[10:51]I may be really genetically closely related to you.
[10:53]But our interests are directly divergent
[10:56]at this precise moment when we could be getting
[10:58]to know each other and in a really intimate relationship
[11:01]but we can't be because my existence threatens your identity.
[11:05]And those are the really interesting and painful stories
[11:10]that I wanted to explore along with the gorgeous reunions
[11:14]and the stories of people expanding their families, right?
[11:16]It's not all happy endings, it's not all sad endings,
[11:18]it's complicated, it's very complicated.
[11:20]And even talked about how in some families,
[11:24]the context of how one person had been looking for so long
[11:26]and the other, and she had time to process that.
[11:29]And then the person that she found had to deal with it
[11:32]right away with like great and influx
[11:34]about that information.
[11:35]And yeah, it's a lot.
[11:36]I mean, I can't imagine it would be a lot
[11:38]to have that show up in an email.
[11:40]First of all, exactly, yeah.
[11:42]Yeah, it's interesting because like,
[11:43]so when Alice tests it's 2012,
[11:45]the databases are really small.
[11:47]So it takes her two and a half years to unravel the truth.
[11:50]And like there's a lot of twists and turns.
[11:52]But if she tested now, it would be maybe like a matter
[11:56]of a few days or weeks.
[11:57]And so you see the difference, right?
[11:59]People who tested back in the day,
[12:01]which again, maybe is only eight years ago,
[12:03]but it's like really long time in the context of this technology,
[12:07]those people had time to digest it.
[12:09]And maybe in some cases do better than nowadays you test.
[12:12]And you might just look at your results
[12:15]and for the very first time you look at them,
[12:17]you're seeing a half sibling.
[12:19]Or you're seeing six half siblings.
[12:20]Maybe you weren't told you were donor conceived
[12:22]and they're all showing up as half siblings to you.
[12:25]And that is a really hard to process
[12:27]in a short amount of time.
[12:29]I saw in the back of your book,
[12:31]you referenced Danny Shapiro's inheritance.
[12:33]And Danny has been on this podcast
[12:34]and I've done events with her.
[12:35]And I also inhaled that book similar to your book
[12:38]in just the real seeking of the discovery process
[12:43]when your whole identity is sort of shifting.
[12:45]And hers was an example of a modern day experience
[12:49]where she could figure,
[12:50]she figured the whole thing out really quickly.
[12:52]I mean, it was still interesting to read,
[12:54]but it was fast from the time she got her results
[12:56]whereas Alice, as you said, is very slow.
[12:59]So I don't know.
[13:00]I mean, maybe it does make it easier to process
[13:03]the longer it takes, but either way
[13:05]when you find something out,
[13:06]that's a big piece of news like that.
[13:07]Or you find out you have a try.
[13:09]I don't know.
[13:10]All these weird things, you know.
[13:12]I don't know.
[13:13]It's a whole new world.
[13:14]Yeah.
[13:15]I think like the era of family secrets
[13:18]is basically over.
[13:20]I have a friend who had a baby with a donor
[13:23]and she's like, no, no, we're not gonna talk about that.
[13:26]And I'm like, you know, your kids are gonna figure it out
[13:29]that, you know, and she's like,
[13:31]we don't even can think of that person as a person.
[13:34]I'm like, right, but that person actually is a person.
[13:37]He could be like passing on the street every day
[13:39]and your kids are gonna wanna find that out.
[13:40]Like it's just so hard.
[13:42]Like you can convince yourself I think of so many things
[13:45]and yet is the information really yours.
[13:47]Do the kids, right.
[13:48]That's a profound question.
[13:50]Do the kids know their donor conceived?
[13:53]I mean, they must.
[13:54]Yes, they have to.
[13:55]So this question of like, what is our obligation
[14:00]to talk about and to admit to is a really interesting one, right?
[14:05]Because and you see this a lot in the arena
[14:08]of donor conceived individuals who are like,
[14:11]I was not party to any agreements made
[14:14]about the anonymity of my donor
[14:16]or the notion that I should be severed
[14:18]from the person who donated half of my genetic material, right?
[14:21]You all made that agreement before I was around.
[14:24]And now you want me to be like bound by it, right?
[14:28]And it's complicated because on the one hand,
[14:30]you know, donor sperm has made possible many families
[14:34]that would not have been possible otherwise.
[14:36]And that's a really like amazing thing.
[14:38]It's a really wonderful thing.
[14:40]And at the same time, you know,
[14:42]donor anonymity is moot because of,
[14:44]because of DNA testing.
[14:46]It literally doesn't exist anymore.
[14:48]And a lot of people feel strongly
[14:49]that they want to know their genetic origins.
[14:51]But that matters too, right?
[14:52]It's not the whole picture.
[14:54]It's not like suddenly you're no longer, you know,
[14:57]in love with and, you know, in a wonderful place
[14:59]with your family that raised you.
[15:02]But people still have this desire
[15:04]to know the rest of the story.
[15:05]It's I think of it as like you're writing your own life narrative.
[15:09]And if you don't know it at the beginning,
[15:10]how do you tell the rest?
[15:11]And you see there's this nascent movement
[15:13]to talk about genetic identity and genetic origins.
[15:16]There's like an organization that started up.
[15:18]It's becoming a kind of a movement.
[15:20]And I think it's, you know, DNA testing
[15:22]that's basically started it
[15:23]because before the technology to create people
[15:27]in this way was there,
[15:28]but the technology to allow those people
[15:32]when they grew up to understand themselves
[15:34]was never there and now it is.
[15:37]Pretty easy.
[15:38]Yeah.
[15:39]It's crazy.
[15:40]So tell me a little more about you.
[15:42]Like how did you become a feature writer to begin with?
[15:44]How did I know you've written for like every publication
[15:46]under the sun at this point?
[15:48]How did you get that training?
[15:50]How did you develop all that and get to sort of this point?
[15:53]Yeah.
[15:54]So I started as an intern at the Washington Post
[15:57]after college and I was writing
[15:59]for their daily feature section,
[16:01]which is called style and style is not about fashion,
[16:05]but sometimes people who don't read the post
[16:06]think that that, but it's really a daily feature section.
[16:08]And we cover everything.
[16:10]Politics, arts, celebrities,
[16:13]interesting subcultures in Washington, you know,
[16:15]and I got to write all those kinds of stories.
[16:18]And then I left the post after about 10 years, 11 years,
[16:21]and I was an editor there before I left,
[16:24]and I started freelancing because I wanted to start a family
[16:27]back in New York, which is where I'm from.
[16:29]And I just got more and more interested in science writing,
[16:32]you know, and this idea that you can better understand
[16:35]ourselves through science.
[16:36]And that's sort of how I landed and landed
[16:38]and writing about DNA testing.
[16:40]But it was after, it was after many stints writing about like,
[16:44]you know, sports, like I went to the Winter Olympics
[16:47]and, you know, in Italy in 2006.
[16:50]And I covered the Michael Jackson molestation trial in California,
[16:53]like all these like sort of various kind of experiences
[16:58]that led me to really wanting to write about people's intimate lives.
[17:02]And so that's sort of like where I've gone over time
[17:04]is sort of away from famous people and towards
[17:09]like sort of ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
[17:12]I thought it was so interesting before how you said,
[17:13]you know, you're so drawn to understanding human behavior
[17:17]and like even consumer behavior really is an offshoot
[17:20]because I find that totally fascinating also.
[17:22]I mean, I remember in college being like,
[17:25]I'm really interested in understanding consumer behavior.
[17:27]What, like, what does that, what should I do?
[17:29]Like, what's the next thing?
[17:31]I always wanted to be one of those people who like sat there
[17:34]and listened to a focus group and like wrote things down
[17:37]and asked them questions.
[17:38]Like I always wanted to do that.
[17:40]I once did a two or three part series just on jeans
[17:44]and like why people buy the jeans that they buy
[17:46]and buy certain brands take off
[17:48]and are considered luxurious and others aren't.
[17:50]So I totally got that.
[17:51]I entered one summer at an ad agency in the brand planning group.
[17:55]And that's what we did.
[17:56]We like, I did.
[17:57]I watched all those focus groups and like took notes.
[18:00]And I wasn't in the room, but like I could watch the,
[18:02]I don't know, videos or whatever.
[18:04]And like come up with reports and like so interesting.
[18:08]Pepperish farm cookies.
[18:10]Who knew, you know, Fisher fries toys.
[18:12]Anyway, brands are controlling us without us even knowing it.
[18:16]Exactly.
[18:16]I just think they're saying like when you're used to being
[18:19]more of an observer in a way of right.
[18:21]Like I'm, and I feel like you are too.
[18:23]You notice everything.
[18:24]Like you notice all the ins and outs.
[18:26]And that's why you can delve so deep.
[18:27]I don't know.
[18:28]I feel like my favorite thing to do was just like,
[18:30]when I find someone that interests me, you know,
[18:32]they have a really interesting story.
[18:34]Like travel to them and like sit with them for days.
[18:38]You know, eat with them and talk to them
[18:40]and watch them while they're working.
[18:42]That kind of fly on the wall stuff.
[18:43]I love that stuff.
[18:45]I just think people are so interesting, you know,
[18:48]and the choices that they make and the different ways
[18:50]that they can be.
[18:51]And so, I mean, I think to circle back to some of the people,
[18:54]like, so I actually first wrote the story of Alice
[18:57]for the Washington Post, right?
[18:58]So it was like a shorter, it was a newspaper story,
[19:00]it was 2017.
[19:02]And literally the way that the book came to be
[19:06]was the email that I got in response.
[19:08]So there were like over 400 in the first few weeks.
[19:12]And they were like, let me tell you about my DNA surprise.
[19:14]Let me tell you how DNA changed my life.
[19:16]Let me tell you this story.
[19:17]Oh my gosh.
[19:18]And like getting on the phone and talking to people
[19:21]and hearing how they process and respond to it.
[19:23]And they're very different, right?
[19:25]Like some people are like responding with this like openness.
[19:28]Some people are very close down.
[19:30]Some people are like incredibly anxious,
[19:32]understandably because there's this sense
[19:34]when your identity is threatened,
[19:35]you feel completely displaced.
[19:38]Like you know, like, does anything make sense?
[19:40]You know, where you're standing on this earth kind of thing.
[19:42]So that like to me having all those conversations
[19:45]was such an enormous privilege.
[19:48]And it was as I was talking to those people and hearing
[19:50]that all the different ways that can play out
[19:52]that I thought, okay, like this is more than one woman's story
[19:57]or 100 people's story.
[19:58]This is like a cultural...
[20:00]phenomenon, let me, this deserves, this deserves to be a book.
[20:03]Well, it was a really great book.
[20:04]Thank you.
[20:05]It really was.
[20:06]It was like, you know, I know I said it for it,
[20:08]just so page churning and I don't know.
[20:10]I feel like I'm so desperate these days
[20:12]for something to take my mind off the real world
[20:14]and this was perfect,
[20:15]because it totally kept my attention.
[20:17]That's always what I'm looking forward.
[20:19]Are you working on anything new now?
[20:20]So I'm working on trying to figure out
[20:23]what to do with my kids all day.
[20:25]Yeah.
[20:26]Yeah.
[20:26]Well, let me know what you come up with on that website.
[20:29]Yeah.
[20:30]You know, I'm editing a magazine story
[20:31]that I wrote like in January
[20:34]that, you know, before all this happened.
[20:36]And I am, yeah, I am thinking about next steps
[20:38]in terms of like maybe another book,
[20:40]but I haven't gotten far enough
[20:42]that I have anything to report.
[20:44]That's okay.
[20:46]That's okay.
[20:47]Having gone through this process,
[20:48]do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[20:51]That's a really good question.
[20:52]I would say on a practical level,
[20:54]I really liked Scrivener,
[20:57]which is a software that you can write in
[20:59]and that's so much better for writing a book than word.
[21:03]And on a slightly less practical and existential level,
[21:07]I really like outlines.
[21:09]And outline is a bit of an existential thing
[21:11]because it's really like a roadmap
[21:14]for where you're gonna go.
[21:15]And so it sounds like a small thing,
[21:17]but it's actually an incredibly important thing
[21:19]in terms of understanding the scope
[21:21]of what you're reporting and your writing
[21:22]is gonna be end to bigger message and the thematics.
[21:25]And then the last thing I'd say
[21:26]is that I think writing a book is a leap of faith.
[21:29]I think it's unlike anything else.
[21:32]I've been running for a while
[21:34]and I wound up training for a half marathon
[21:37]and it was like training for a marathon
[21:40]and then an ultra marathon and then maybe more, right?
[21:43]Because it just kept going.
[21:44]It never ended.
[21:45]It was years of kind of this hunkering down,
[21:49]not seeing my family and working weekends and all this stuff.
[21:52]And yet the exchange for that,
[21:54]in exchange for that devotion and investment,
[21:57]you get something that's unlike anything you can achieve
[21:59]by just writing like an essay or a reported magazine piece
[22:02]or anything like that.
[22:03]I'm talking about it from the perspective
[22:05]of being a reporter and writing nonfiction.
[22:06]Like you go deeper, you achieve more,
[22:09]you know more and it's transformative.
[22:12]And I loved it.
[22:13]I loved the process of writing a book.
[22:14]I just thought it was amazing.
[22:17]But tell me what you got back.
[22:19]You said it's bigger than anything else.
[22:20]Give me an example.
[22:21]Tell me what you felt.
[22:22]How great was it?
[22:24]So, you know, I've spent most of my career
[22:26]like doing things that were more bite-sized.
[22:29]So I might spend a couple of days on a story
[22:31]or a few weeks or sometimes a few months even.
[22:33]And even those pieces that I wrote that were like more immersive
[22:37]where like I reported a story on a school shooting
[22:40]and I spent months writing it
[22:41]and I went to this town a few times
[22:43]and I spent a lot of time with the people.
[22:45]Like even that now looking back,
[22:48]I see, oh, I was barely scratching the surface.
[22:51]When you spend that much time with a topic,
[22:54]you get to know it in like a different way.
[22:57]And I really liked getting off each morning
[22:59]and knowing what I was doing and feeling like I was
[23:01]invested in a project that was so much bigger than me.
[23:04]I liked that sense of direction.
[23:05]I liked the idea that you could take a single topic
[23:07]and you could look at it from all these up
[23:09]and perspectives, right?
[23:10]So DNA testing, you have the science of it,
[23:12]you have the business, you have the effect
[23:15]on interpersonal and intimate relationships.
[23:18]But you also have like the philosophy of it.
[23:21]You have the kind of questions of like
[23:23]how much are we tending towards a kind of genetic essentialism
[23:26]and how much do we have to kind of be careful about that.
[23:28]You have all sorts of questions
[23:29]about how do we understand biological difference.
[23:32]You have the kind of bioethical angle.
[23:34]So you take a single topic and you can kind of turn it
[23:37]and as you turn it, you see more and more angles
[23:40]that you can kind of consider.
[23:43]And it's like as if the more you know the bigger it gets,
[23:46]the bigger the project gets.
[23:48]And I guess just being so involved in something so big
[23:52]and something.
[23:53]So I think meaningful like essential questions
[23:55]about like what makes us who we are
[23:57]and we think about these as human beings, these questions.
[24:00]Who am I?
[24:01]I found that to be immersive and absorbing
[24:04]and just like a wonderful process.
[24:06]And was there anything in the payoff of actually having
[24:08]an out in the world and like reader response?
[24:11]Oh, yes.
[24:12]I mean, I get emails all the time from people linked in
[24:18]and through my website and through Facebook.
[24:21]And they're like, you know, thank you for writing this book
[24:24]and I need to tell you what happened to me
[24:26]and sometimes what should I do?
[24:28]And I say, you know, thank you for sharing
[24:31]and here's what other people have told me
[24:32]and I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not an expert.
[24:34]So I'm not gonna give you advice,
[24:35]but like here's what other people tell me
[24:37]who've been through your similar situation.
[24:39]And they're often right at the beginning.
[24:41]So they're really like emotionally,
[24:44]and they're like a really like difficult spot.
[24:46]They're often in a really difficult spot
[24:48]because they've just tested
[24:50]and they're trying to, they have multiple siblings
[24:53]through the same donor father
[24:54]and they're trying to, and then suddenly they've uncovered
[24:56]their donor father's identity
[24:58]and now they're trying to figure out
[24:59]how do I approach this person?
[25:00]It's this weird thing, like no one's figured out
[25:02]the right infrastructure to support people, right?
[25:05]There's no like mental health infrastructure.
[25:07]There's no official guidance.
[25:09]Like how do you write a letter to your genetic father?
[25:12]Can somebody please write like a book about that, right?
[25:15]I mean, you could really, literally write an entire book
[25:17]just about that.
[25:18]That's your, there you go.
[25:19]You got your next project book.
[25:21]There's Facebook groups, there's support groups.
[25:24]There's starting to be psychologists.
[25:25]There's a wonderful genetic counselor
[25:27]who offers advice.
[25:28]There's blogs, but there's not like a lot
[25:30]in the way of formal organizations
[25:32]although they're starting to exist
[25:33]or kind of formal like guidance
[25:36]and you just see everyone's their own bioethicist
[25:38]trying to navigate this new territory
[25:41]on their own with advice from other people
[25:43]and it's a tricky, it's a tricky place to be.
[25:47]Very true.
[25:48]Well, at least we have people like you, you know,
[25:50]diving deep into it and helping the rest of us
[25:52]understand it, which is great.
[25:54]Thank you.
[25:56]Well, thank you, Libby.
[25:57]Thanks for coming on mom's round time to read books
[25:59]and thanks for entertaining me so much with your book
[26:01]and making me think about all the big questions in life.
[26:04]And yeah, thanks for sharing your experience.
[26:06]Well, thank you so much for having me.
[26:07]It's been such a treat to talk to you
[26:09]and such great questions, such thought, questions.
[26:12]Thank you.
[26:12]Thanks.
[26:13]Well, hopefully we'll meet in real life
[26:15]one of these things.
[26:16]All right, good luck entertaining your kids.
[26:18]All right, thank you so much.
[26:20]Okay, take care.
[26:21]Bye.
[26:22]Thanks for listening to Body Blast Thursday.
[26:25]One of the last days of my July book blast.
[26:28]I hope you've enjoyed hearing from a ballerina
[26:31]or a DNA specialist or a yoga aficionado.
[26:36]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[26:38]Moms don't have time to read books.
[26:40]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram
[26:43]at zivioens and at moms don't have time to read books
[26:47]and sign up for my mailing list at zivioens.com
[26:50]so you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to.
[26:52]Thanks a lot.
[26:53]Thanks so much to page one books for sponsoring today's episode.
[26:56]I hope you'll all check out my summer beach bundle
[26:58]at page one books.com.
[27:00]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[27:03]for the sound editing.
[27:04]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:06]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[27:09]Thanks for listening.
[27:10]You could always email me at zivioens.com.