In search for her biological dad, she finds love and acceptance in a stranger

According to Mwihaki, her mother had her when she was 20. Unplanned and unwanted, Mwihaki was the only thing between her mother and her desires. 

After giving birth, she abandoned 10-months-old Mwihaki at her grandmother’s house. 

“I grew up as the dejected cursed girl, my mother vowed she would never have children, so when she conceived me, I was a mistake to her and that’s why she dumped me at my grandmother’s house and went back to Nairobi with instructions to feel free to get rid of me once she is tired of taking care of me,” she said.

Two years later, her frail grandmother could no longer feed the eight people that lived under her roof and Mwihaki was reconnected with her mother but their relationship remained the same, estranged.

“My mother kept on telling me that I was never wanted, and even though she had assumed her role as a parent, we never really spent any quality time together I was always being shipped from one place to another,” she recalled.

According to Mwihaki, she lacked a sense of belonging, struggled with identity and her deep-seated desire was to reconnect with her missing past. 

This fuelled her desire to look for her biological father, maybe, that would fill the empty, dark, and emotional hole of a woman who grew up dejected.

“I did not know what it meant to be in healthy family, it was important for my three children to know of their identity. I have been on ‘no contact’ with my mother for a while, I recently celebrated one year of no contact since cutting ties with her,” she says.

“My second born had been crying for her grandmother and I could not break the no contact rule because of the toxicity, that’ another reason why I decided to look for my father so that they can have something they can identify with,” she adds.

Her search began on social media, when she posted a request for any information that could point her in the direction of her father, armed only with an old picture of her mother standing next to the guy she was always told was her father and two names. 

“Within days, I had also learned vital details about the potential locations of my father. I was directed to a village in Nyeri where I met a man I believed was my father. I was scared and anxious, I had so many questions in my mind and my biggest fear was being rejected once again but I did it anyway,” she says.

Mwihaki recalls the man looking different from the man she saw on the photograph, seated next to her mother. 

“He is in his sixties now, the photo I have of him was when he was around thirty years, and he said he could not remember my mother and her child.”

Once again, she felt rejected, and proposed a DNA test. The DNA test turned out to be negative. 

“I was devastated, I remember being anxious for weeks as I waited for the results and being disappointed and heartbroken because I was very hopeful,” she says.

The man accepted her as his own daughter. 

While Mwihaki had spent a long time searching for her roots, she wanted sense of belonging she thought he could give her. 

Although the DNA indicated she was not part of the family genetically, the mother of three believes she got more than she could bargain for.

“This journey led me to realise that my identity is defined not by my birth, but – thanks to the love of the man who accepted me into his family and even gave me their family name, I feel like I belong and we are working on our relationship,” she says.