Jaclyn took a $125 DNA test and found three secret half-siblings

When Jaclyn Baxter ordered a $125 DNA kit online, she was hoping to learn more about her medical history and ancestry.

She couldn’t have known the test results would include information about her family that would turn her world upside down.

Baxter, an only child raised in California, was devastated by the death of her father - her best friend - when she was 18 years old. 

Because she was estranged from her mother, Baxter struggled with the feeling she didn’t have a family.

“I am a donor conceived kid and I have spent my life not knowing anything about my paternal line, which I have come to accept,” he added.

The comment floored Baxter and left her considering the two possible explanations: either her father had been a donor, or she too had been donor-conceived.

“If my dad was my brother’s donor, it broke my heart that he died without ever getting to meet his biological son,” she writes.

Listen: Life Bites podcast, 'The Mother Wound'

Months on, Baxter is still coming to terms with painful realisation she’s not genetically related to her beloved dad, describing it as a loss she will carry forever.

However, there’s been a beautiful silver lining: her new extended family.

She describes meeting her half-brothers Loren and Tim as a “childhood dream come true” after 33 years of believing she was an only child.