Jessica Lippincott always felt something about her upbringing didn’t quite add up. Today, years after questioning so much about her childhood, she’s counting her blessings by the dozens—learning she’s one of 50 half-siblings.
Lippincott, now living in Thermopolis, Wyoming, has a background in science, dinosaur discovery, and filmmaking. Born in Southern California, she often asked her mother about their family history.
“I used to ask her if I was adopted,” said Lippincott. “I would ask her if I had brothers and sisters because I would say, ‘Are you sure? I feel like I do have brothers and sisters.’”
Her mother never let on, but years later, as her mother was dying, more details emerged.
Her mother died in 2013. Before that, she had been married to a man who raised Lippincott as her stepfather and eventually adopted her.
“I remember when she passed away, she was terminally ill with cancer, and I was writing her obituary, and I started to ask her some questions about who I thought was my real father because I don’t have any memories,” Lippincott said. “And she started to tell me. And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And she said she used a sperm donor and went to a fertility clinic.”
Stunned by the revelation, Lippincott gently pressed her mother for more information.
“And then she got super nervous and didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so I dropped it because it was making her upset,” she said.
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The conversation lingered in her mind for years. In 2017, she decided to take a 23andMe genetic test.
“And of course, by the time I did take the test, she had already passed away, so I couldn’t ask any more questions, and the stepfather who raised me had passed, and so I couldn’t ask him any questions as well,” she said.
The test confirmed what her mother had told her: The man she thought was her father wasn’t.
When Lippincott was 2 years old, her mother separated from a man named Thomas Peters. Peters followed the family to Wyoming and abducted Lippincott from her grandmother’s care.
“I remember being in the back of a car, and then being in a room, and that was all I remembered,” she said.
The abduction was extensively covered in the media, with police searching for Peters for months. Eventually, a private investigator hired by Lippincott’s mother found them in Florida three months later.
After years of living with the trauma of the ordeal, the genetic test brought a surprising sense of relief.
“I was embarrassed that he was my father, and I never talked about it. And when I found out that he wasn’t, it was a huge relief,” she said.
Still, questions remained.
If Peters wasn’t her father, and neither was her stepfather, then who was?
“When I took the test, that was kind of what I was looking for—if there was some sort of medical issue I needed to be aware of,” she said.
Lippincott says for many people born through sperm donation, medical history is a major concern, and she firmly believes the United States needs stiffer regulations on sperm donation clinics with more advanced mental health testing and tighter laws on how often someone can donate.
While she believes there are likely more half-siblings out there, she may never know just how many. Lippincott says the clinic where her mother went was destroyed in a fire and all records are now lost.
“And when my test results came in, that was the first thing I clicked on—was all this medical information,” she said. “Then I clicked on DNA relatives and saw the big shock.”
That “big shock” confirmed what Lippincott had always felt in her gut: She wasn’t an only child.
“So, I am one of 50 that are confirmed,” she said.
Since taking the test in 2017, more half-siblings have appeared on the genetic registry, and Lippincott suspects there may be even more. With her mother and stepfather both gone, she leans on her siblings to help piece together her identity.
“We all have a lot of the same eyes and mouth,” she said.
She’s met many of her siblings in person, building relationships and finding connections she missed out on for so many years.
“And there are some that I haven’t met yet, and that is OK. I will one day,” she said.
The similarities with her siblings extend beyond physical traits. Many share her love of science and art. As for her biological father, he’s still living in Southern California and is now in his 80s, with a family of his own.
“I have met him a few times, and he’s met my children, which is special,” she said.
It took years for Lippincott to learn the truth about who she was, all thanks to a genetic test. Now, she celebrates a larger family and finds solace in the strength of their bonds and the love they share.
“My heart is full,” she said.
This article was written by Andrea Lutz for Scripps News Billings.
