When you think of it, becoming a parent is natural, biologic. Some people encounter obstacles, but for most, an egg welcomes a spermatozoid and that’s the end of it. You’re a parent.
But what does “being a parent” really mean?
When does it start?
Is it purely biological?
What if you arrive in the life of a rihild after fecundation? You raise her, you love her, you take care of her. Are you her parent?
That happens more often than not. Let’s say that you dated a girl for a while, split up, then got back together a little while later. During your time away from each other, you both dated other people. But soon after you patch things up, you’re pregnant.
Is the baby yours or someone else’s?
Would the answer change how you feel about the news?
Would you be more excited, more scared, more enthusiastic if you were sure?
These are really difficult, and really personal questions to answer. Every person deals with parenthood differently. What works for you won’t work for your sibling, or your friend. But that’s not what we wanted to discuss today.
We want to talk about how you get that answer, how you can be certain you are biologically related. Because doubt is worse than anything else. Once you’re sure, whether you like the answer or not, you can deal with your new reality, make the appropriate decisions. But doubt can eat you alive.
So How Do You Find Out For Sure?
If you search “paternity test” online today, you get hit with 2.5 million results! Quite overwhelming… 
What should you look for first? How can you be sure you can trust a company? Will get real results that you can understand?
Paternity Test Checklist
The whole Web Health Wire Team exchanged on the subject. After hours of passionate discussion, we came up with our own “Paternity Test Checklist”: 7 points that would show the trustworthiness of a company.
Here we go:
- Customer Service
Taking a paternity test is a difficult step. Thinking your child might not actually be truly yours makes you vulnerable. You should feel free to ask any question before you choose a test, whether they were answered on the company website or not. Talking to a caring person, understanding the language, receiving real answers, … All these can ease your journey towards the truth. And if you have any difficulties understanding your results, good customer services representatives will be able help you. Better be sure ahead of time.
- Privacy
The more you expose yourself, the more protection you need. Your info or your results shouldn’t be shared with anyone else but you. That’s why the company and its customer service need high-standard privacy and confidentiality settings. If the person you’re calling annoys you with too many questions before they answer yours, remember that these questions protect your identity, so nobody else but you get access to your results.
- Money-Back Guarantee
This is rarely featured in DNA testing, but we feel it’s a must. When you purchase a test, you pay for a certain quality of service. You might not like the answer you get, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if the service is bad, your samples tampered once received by the company, your results delayed, or anything else, you should receive compensation. Some companies will advertise extremely fast turnaround but will rarely hit it. Others will promise you longer delays, but will give you your money-back if they can give you full results by the due date. We prefer those companies—they do exist!
- Tests Available
Paternity DNA Tests are legal or non-legal. The difference lies in the custody chain. That means that you need official witnesses to use your test results in court—for custody, inheritance, or else. A doctor or a lawyer, often both, can attest that you are the people tested. If you take the test for your own peace of mind, you don’t need witnesses, nor the fees and struggles that go with implicating more people.
Paternity tests can be used to determine several types of relationships: father-child, mother-child, aunt or uncle, grand-parents, cousins, siblings. All these relationships can be tested with the same simple swab of your cheek.
Some companies can also offer upgrades, like Ancestry test—so you can discover your family’s history—, or more detailed genetics test.
- Price Transparency
Speaking of compensation, when you purchase a DNA test, regardless of its purpose, you buy a service. The service should be good, and its price transparent and coherent. We researched a lot of Paternity Testing companies to write this article and were shocked by the price variation. Some of them sell their product under $30 at Walmart or other convenient stores, which sounds amazing. But then, you dig a little more, read the tiny characters and discover that that price represents the physical test only. Once you’ve sent your samples to the accredited lab, you’ll have to pay between $125 and $300, if not more, to have your samples tested!
Other companies charge different prices depending on who’s tested. Not how many people, just the sex or relationship. These companies offer a cheaper price for the dad to be tested with the child, then 50% more for the mom instead of the dad, or double the price when it’s another relative. Yet, the test is exactly the same regardless of the sex of the persons tested, or their relationship. Thus, the price should stay the same.
Of course, adding more people to the test gets more expensive, but the price per person should never change.
- What Happens To Your DNA Sample Once You Have Your Results
Some companies will destroy your samples as soon as your results are ready, others will store them for a few years. Finally, some will give you the choice, because your own those samples and everything that comes from them—results, lineage… We personally think that storing your DNA sample is the best solution, as it will allow you to take another test in the future, at a cheaper price, without sending new samples. DNA testing techniques change fast. Who knows what the company you signed with will be able to test 5 years down the line, 10 years, 20 years? When they develop new features, companies often offer their previous customers great discounts. And you could easily learn more about yourself.
- Scientific Background
A DNA Paternity test tests your DNA against your alleged child’s, parent’s or relative’s. The more information tested, the more accurate your results. And it all comes down to the method used to compare the DNAs. Some are more scientific than others. Some compare about 50 genetic markers, while other compare hundreds of thousands. Sure, you might wait for your results a little longer, but their accuracy would be unbeatable.
Our choice: CRI Paternity
We looked so many Paternity Testing companies up, we had to come with a favorite, on that matched all our criteria: CRI Paternity.
Their customer service is awesome—we talked to them and learned a ton of things on paternity testing. They have really high standards for privacy and confidentiality. Your identity and your samples are separated from day one. They use a barcode system that keeps your samples and results anonymous until you access them. And you get to decide what to do with your DNA once you have your results!
Their delay is a little longer than other companies—6 to 8 weeks to receive your results—but it’s due to the complexity of their testing. They work with an internationally published geneticist, Alexei Fedorov Ph.D., who developed a robotic DNA extraction platform and the intelligent computing system associated. Thanks to this machine, CRI Paternity compares 642,824 genetic markers between your sample and any relative you want to test against. This innovative instrument has never been seen before, and the results you get are the most complete and accurate of the market and we believe this is worth waiting a little longer.
Price-wise, they are really competitive, and, no matter who you had to the test, you just pay per extra person. You can also get Ancestry results from their parent company CRI Genetics for a small upgrade.
To top it all, you can do the whole process from home. You order online, receive you test within a couple days and get a pre-paid box. No surprise fee, no hidden doctor appointment, the results understandable. It’s easy, painless and fats.
CRI Paternity is the company that excited us the most, when looking for paternity tests.
That’s why we’re happy to recommend it to anyone who would have questions about their filiation.
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