I've been Jewish for a week now

No. I did not decide to cross over to Judaism.

I did not convert for my husband (who, by the way, is everything BUT Jewish).

Remember my 24 tubes of blood? Well. The results are in and now I am Jewish. Some people walk away from blood tests to find out nothing is wrong with them. Some may find out they have diabetes, are anemic or something else. I walked away from my blood test an Ashkenazi Jew. You can imagine what a blow this was because I have been under the impression for 34 years now that I was 100% Italian American despite the fact I spent high school with some moron kid who used to throw pennies at me and say, "pick them up, Jew girl." He's dead now which is too bad because I would look him up and ask him how he knew before me.

Now. Before you start thinking I actually believe that I am now of Jewish descent, I will say that it is MORE THAN LIKELY the fucking moron taking my blood that day fucked up somehow. Perhaps he should have taken me up my offer to help him write my name and birth date on all 24 tubes since he was complaining that he had to do that next. And he had no clue what a lot of the codes I was being tested for meant. So. Yeah, I'd say there is a better chance that he fucked up than I was robbed out of a bat mitzvah.

But. Let me just explain how all this came about. While I was waiting out a recess in court my cell rang. It was my prenatal doctor's office calling with the results. I was expecting her to tell me I was a little anemic and I had Factor V Liden. She told me I did not test positive for Factor V at all but I was Protein C deficient, Protein S deficient and I had Factor XI.

So. What does this all mean? Got me. How could I have spent the last 7 years thinking I had Factor V? Then again, how could I have spent the last 34 years thinking I was Italian? Seriously, what does it mean? Got me. All I know is her last words to me were "Well. You won't be the hardest case we've had but you'll certainly be the most interesting." Um. Thanks. I guess. You see, while all the protein C & S deficiencies are clotting factors, Factor XI is actually a form of Hemophilia. Shouldn't these cancel each other out?

She wants to send me for a redo. What did I tell you?

I went back down to my office and started researching this Factor XI. Turns out it is rare but occurrences of it are common among Ashkenazi Jews because they had a very high rate of inter-marriage. Well. I'm not Jewish but my grandparents were first cousins and since I get the Factor V gene from my dad and those are his parents, I pretty much had an answer for this mystery. It did not surprise me when a few days later I spoke to the nurse at my doctor's office and she asked if I was Jewish. A valid question, I guess, she could have thought my last name on my chart was my married name. I told her I was not but I explained the kissing cousins theory and she said it makes a bit more sense.

My sister is convinced that no matter what this test says someone in my family at some point slept with an Ashlenazi Jew. It's possible but who knows. I suppose I would never know for sure unless I sunk thousands of dollars and hours into charting my family tree. My mom is really confused. And Stew and I are kinda bummed that we could have had way more wedding fun by smashing glasses under our feet and having our friends hoist up us on chairs and dance us around the room. Oh well.

So. Now I wait on the results of the redo tests (yes, of course I went to a completely different lab where I had only slightly more confidence in the staff). Oh. And of course I called my primary care doctor who administered my tests for Factor V in 2001 and had her send the results to the prenatal doctor.

Until all the tests are back I'll hold off on my membership application to the Jewish Community Center but not my craving for corned beef on rye.