Illustration: J.V. Aranda After 38 years of marriage, I thought I knew my spouse. Then I got an email from the personalized genomics company 23AndMe with the subject line, “You have new DNA relatives.” Which is how I discovered that my husband Marc and I are related through more than mere marriage. We’re third cousins.
Actually, he did. Marc and I met rom-com cute, on a Club Med vacation in Nassau. I was 25; he was two years older. Initially, he was chasing my roommate. We struck up an intense conversation on the plane home, and by the time we landed at JFK, I had the unbidden thought, “I could marry a guy like this.” He insisted on carrying my luggage. I saw my parents chatting with a woman I didn’t recognize, and pointed. “There’s my mother, but I don’t know the woman she’s with.
“I’m not sure I believe it,” Marc said. “It’s not like we got this report from the Institutes of Medicine.” I saw his point: the IOM is part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and provides evidence-based research; 23andMe is a commercial enterprise selling ancestry and health information. It was heady stuff, but eventually I had enough. We were both thrilled when I got pregnant at 32. My doctor, who jarringly referred to me as an “elderly primigravida,” insisted we have amniocentesis to rule out chromosomal abnormalities. All went well. At 37, I conceived again, but this time the pregnancy was rocky. I bled through the first trimester. During the amnio, it took three punctures before the doctor was able to extract fluid, which triggered a cascade of contractions.
I hate it here.
Ew
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