Louis Buch, 47, has spoken out about discovering that she is a product of incest - the news that confirmed her worse fears as she searched for answers about her heritage.
From Brisbane, Australia, Lois was raised by her adopted family.
But during her twenties she felt disconnected and longed to learn about her biological family, and managed to make contact with her birth mother - although she never revealed any details to her daughter about her birth father or how she came to be conceived.
When Lois’ birth mother, Ellen, sadly died from cancer years later, she left her with many questions still unanswered, so the Brisbane woman turned to Facebook to try and find the answers she'd spent her life searching for.
Reaching out to her mother’s sister on the social network site, Lois agreed to meet her aunt in order to discuss her secret heritage. Of the meet up came the shocking revelation that her mother fell pregnant after having nonconsensual intercourse with her own father, making Lois’ biological father also her grandfather.
Speaking to Australian current affairs TV show SBS Insight, the adopted woman explained: “She replied within 24 hours and said ‘I will tell you, I agree you deserve to know but you have to come to Sydney and see me face-to-face’.”
Her biological aunt had told her to prepare to hear the worst. And Ms Buch’s fears came to fruition as she found out her grandfather had repeatedly raped her mother, and that she was not the only baby conceived this way.
"Over the course of eight hours one Friday night, the truth and trauma of Ellen’s childhood was bared open to me," she said.
"Even now four years later, I freeze when I recall the stories that took me to a place I had no idea existed. That a father, or any man, could systematically rape his daughter over many years until she’s conditioned to it just leaves me numb."
With the horrific truth being kept a family secret for generations, no charges were ever made against the incestual rapist.
The 47-year-old first began trying to make contact with her biological family over 20 years ago. And as a first person piece supplied to news.com.au reveals, she first met her birth mother in 1992.
Speaking about the experience, she said: “It was like looking at my twin… She was only 16 years older than me and she looked like me, talked like me, our hobbies, everything.”
Louis and Ellen then formed a relationship, but the true circumstances of her birth were never revealed when she was still alive.
In this time, she also came face to face with her father/grandfather, and described him as “disconnected” when the met, having never looked her in the eye.
The tragic story comes to light as the brave woman fights to support those affected by adoption through her work supporting charityJigsaw Queensland.