I don’t have a father
yes as sure as I’m standing here there
was man involved in my conception but my
mom is the only parent I’ve ever known
it’s not too tragic I promise I was
conceived with the use of donor sperm
from California and I was essentially
turkey-basted into existence in a
doctor’s office on Park Avenue donor
conception is a form of artificial
reproduction that used the sperm or egg
of a donor to conceive a child in 2000
my mom found herself in her 40s and
still single that she had always wanted
to be a mother
doctors told her that the longer she
waited the harder it would be to get
pregnant so she moved on to plan B
she found California Cryobank which was
supposed to be the best sperm bank in
the country because they tested Formosa
red eteri and sexually transmitted
diseases
now this bank also had an openness
policy meaning that once a donor
conceived person turned 18 they could
reach out to the bank which would
facilitate contact with the donor my mom
understood that no child can have a say
in their own conception but by choosing
to use Bank with this policy she could
give me the hypothetical child the
option to reach out to my donor in the
future in the past most parents using
donors would plan to take the secret to
their grave societal stigmas made people
believe that using a donor was something
to be ashamed of so they would hide it I
wish I could say that these stigmas no
longer exist but the truth is that even
when my mom was pregnant in 2001 a
friend with genuinely good intentions
suggests that she tell me my father had
died now they didn’t say it but the idea
was to save me from the torment of being
a bastard child the harsh reality is
that many parents have lied to their
children but these children have grown
we’ve recently begun to see a large gap
in the community between adults who are
just finding out that they are donor
conceived and teenagers like me who have
known our whole lives I’ve come to
realize that the Internet is the cause
of this divide because parents
previously had a sense of security
now with widespread accessibility to the
internet not home DNA testing there are
no secrets
every day Facebook groups or donor
conceived people are growing as more and
more people find out about this family
secret
this past January I finally decided to
make a group for Jonah conceive people
who were interested in meeting in New
York when he finally met I was amazed
all of these people were older than I
was yet among them I was an equal just
by being only 16 years old my story was
as valid as the next unlike many of my
newfound friends I’m fortunate enough to
have always known that I was done and
conceived my mom wanted me to know how I
was born so as soon as I was old enough
to understand she gave me the sex talk
sperm eggs sex and all this was the
exact book that I got yeah but in
kindergarten my my classmates had gotten
the when a mommy and daddy love each
other very much
version but I took it I took pity upon
themselves and I brought it upon myself
to educate them yeah
parents weren’t too happy but if they
can understand their own existence how
they couldn’t if you couldn’t tell I was
a pretty imaginative child I loved to
read and as I got older and I began
wondering about my donor I began to
realize that the characters that I was
reading about could fit my paternal
mystery though some of the most notable
series a fairy a wizard the Greek god
Apollo
and then Irishmen now of all of these
the Irishman was the most supported in
my everyday life though my mom swears
she can’t remember the conversation she
was actually the one to validate it but
I remember the conversation perfectly we
were walking to school I was in fourth
grade
it was st. Patrick’s Day and we were
talking about Ireland and the Irish and
I realize Irish people had red hair and
my mom always told me that I had red
highlights in my hair so I go maybe I’m
Irish no my mom gave me the parent the
answer that parents give when they
aren’t paying attention yes sweetie so
in my mind it all started coming
together I mean I knew my mom’s family
wasn’t Irish they all had tan skin and
dark hair so it had to be my donor dad I
mean I didn’t know much about him just
they had red hair just that he wrote a
letter when he donated which meant but I
wasn’t sure what was on it I just
assumed that it was what normal people
write in a letter like saying that they
missed someone
except he would just be talking about
what he liked or what he looked like but
fast forward
it’s my freshman year of high school and
my mom and I are in the car I catch a
glimpse of my hair and it looks pretty
red and I I’m thinking out loud and I
asked my mom how Irish do you think the
donor is she’s driving but she manages
to turn and look at me and go he’s not
Irish he’s German and Scottish and to
heard this mixed up wasn’t a big deal
but it shook me I would always cling on
to what little informations like a poll
about my donor and the fact that I could
get one thing so wrong shook me it made
me doubt everything that I had known
about him and that day I decided I would
find out as much as I could with my
mom’s help I signed up for the donor
sibling registry and I found out that I
have six half siblings now because the
registry encourages you not to use
identifying information such as a
personal email we weren’t able to get in
contact with any of them but a month
later my mom came to me and told me that
she had found a seventh half sibling
now will those 13 months younger than me
and as soon as we met our families
clicked the resemblances between the two
of us are insane this day it was the
second time that we had met I was
singing at his house and we both walked
downstairs laughed and decided that
neither of us wanted to change this was
not planned yeah he soon became the
nature to my mother’s nature and I
realized that everything the two of us
shared were things that I thought had
separated me from my mom’s family but
really they were just things that I
couldn’t see because I never been able
to explore the side of my DNA well wool
wasn’t too interested in finding out
about our donor but last summer I
decided I decided to do an ancestry DNA
test
my mom tested with me so we could
subtract her DNA from mine and I could
focus on my donor but the only the only
paternal matches that that popped up
we’re fourth cousins are further until
Evan he popped up as a close family
member
possible first cousin in October but it
would we weren’t in contact until
December when I realized that the DNA
that we shared was consistent with a
half sibling and then Evan became number
eight yeah no December 24th Christmas
Eve
I was checking from a new message from
Evan and his mom when I saw this my
biological father had taken a DNA test
yeah so as soon as my mom and I stopped
freaking out and I could take a second
to pause I emailed him I said I just got
matched as your biological daughter are
you donating 2276
I mean I obviously knew the answer
unless there had been some sort of
mix-up but he responded two days later
saying that he was in fact donor 2276
and he was open to answering any medical
or personal questions that I have now
Rick has a son Talon who was one of the
original six but I had never been able
to put a name or face to him so I had no
idea but yeah three in a row then a
month later Remy
reached outs Will’s mom or her aunt
reached out swills mom she was the first
half-sister which finally got some
femininity and it was really cool to see
that there was another female but you
know as I said I’m one of the lucky ones
I happen to have a mom who was open to
me knowing my history and a donor who
was open to contact and we’ve emailed
over the past few months honestly it’s
been nothing like I imagined as a child
though better than any situation where
he didn’t have magical powers
but I have no proof either way so yeah
over the years I’ve attributed so much
myself to my unknown half but I’ve
recently begun to realize that the
traits that I got from my mom and the
chase that I got from my donor are not
the collective some of who I am thank you
yes as sure as I’m standing here there
was man involved in my conception but my
mom is the only parent I’ve ever known
it’s not too tragic I promise I was
conceived with the use of donor sperm
from California and I was essentially
turkey-basted into existence in a
doctor’s office on Park Avenue donor
conception is a form of artificial
reproduction that used the sperm or egg
of a donor to conceive a child in 2000
my mom found herself in her 40s and
still single that she had always wanted
to be a mother
doctors told her that the longer she
waited the harder it would be to get
pregnant so she moved on to plan B
she found California Cryobank which was
supposed to be the best sperm bank in
the country because they tested Formosa
red eteri and sexually transmitted
diseases
now this bank also had an openness
policy meaning that once a donor
conceived person turned 18 they could
reach out to the bank which would
facilitate contact with the donor my mom
understood that no child can have a say
in their own conception but by choosing
to use Bank with this policy she could
give me the hypothetical child the
option to reach out to my donor in the
future in the past most parents using
donors would plan to take the secret to
their grave societal stigmas made people
believe that using a donor was something
to be ashamed of so they would hide it I
wish I could say that these stigmas no
longer exist but the truth is that even
when my mom was pregnant in 2001 a
friend with genuinely good intentions
suggests that she tell me my father had
died now they didn’t say it but the idea
was to save me from the torment of being
a bastard child the harsh reality is
that many parents have lied to their
children but these children have grown
we’ve recently begun to see a large gap
in the community between adults who are
just finding out that they are donor
conceived and teenagers like me who have
known our whole lives I’ve come to
realize that the Internet is the cause
of this divide because parents
previously had a sense of security
now with widespread accessibility to the
internet not home DNA testing there are
no secrets
every day Facebook groups or donor
conceived people are growing as more and
more people find out about this family
secret
this past January I finally decided to
make a group for Jonah conceive people
who were interested in meeting in New
York when he finally met I was amazed
all of these people were older than I
was yet among them I was an equal just
by being only 16 years old my story was
as valid as the next unlike many of my
newfound friends I’m fortunate enough to
have always known that I was done and
conceived my mom wanted me to know how I
was born so as soon as I was old enough
to understand she gave me the sex talk
sperm eggs sex and all this was the
exact book that I got yeah but in
kindergarten my my classmates had gotten
the when a mommy and daddy love each
other very much
version but I took it I took pity upon
themselves and I brought it upon myself
to educate them yeah
parents weren’t too happy but if they
can understand their own existence how
they couldn’t if you couldn’t tell I was
a pretty imaginative child I loved to
read and as I got older and I began
wondering about my donor I began to
realize that the characters that I was
reading about could fit my paternal
mystery though some of the most notable
series a fairy a wizard the Greek god
Apollo
and then Irishmen now of all of these
the Irishman was the most supported in
my everyday life though my mom swears
she can’t remember the conversation she
was actually the one to validate it but
I remember the conversation perfectly we
were walking to school I was in fourth
grade
it was st. Patrick’s Day and we were
talking about Ireland and the Irish and
I realize Irish people had red hair and
my mom always told me that I had red
highlights in my hair so I go maybe I’m
Irish no my mom gave me the parent the
answer that parents give when they
aren’t paying attention yes sweetie so
in my mind it all started coming
together I mean I knew my mom’s family
wasn’t Irish they all had tan skin and
dark hair so it had to be my donor dad I
mean I didn’t know much about him just
they had red hair just that he wrote a
letter when he donated which meant but I
wasn’t sure what was on it I just
assumed that it was what normal people
write in a letter like saying that they
missed someone
except he would just be talking about
what he liked or what he looked like but
fast forward
it’s my freshman year of high school and
my mom and I are in the car I catch a
glimpse of my hair and it looks pretty
red and I I’m thinking out loud and I
asked my mom how Irish do you think the
donor is she’s driving but she manages
to turn and look at me and go he’s not
Irish he’s German and Scottish and to
heard this mixed up wasn’t a big deal
but it shook me I would always cling on
to what little informations like a poll
about my donor and the fact that I could
get one thing so wrong shook me it made
me doubt everything that I had known
about him and that day I decided I would
find out as much as I could with my
mom’s help I signed up for the donor
sibling registry and I found out that I
have six half siblings now because the
registry encourages you not to use
identifying information such as a
personal email we weren’t able to get in
contact with any of them but a month
later my mom came to me and told me that
she had found a seventh half sibling
now will those 13 months younger than me
and as soon as we met our families
clicked the resemblances between the two
of us are insane this day it was the
second time that we had met I was
singing at his house and we both walked
downstairs laughed and decided that
neither of us wanted to change this was
not planned yeah he soon became the
nature to my mother’s nature and I
realized that everything the two of us
shared were things that I thought had
separated me from my mom’s family but
really they were just things that I
couldn’t see because I never been able
to explore the side of my DNA well wool
wasn’t too interested in finding out
about our donor but last summer I
decided I decided to do an ancestry DNA
test
my mom tested with me so we could
subtract her DNA from mine and I could
focus on my donor but the only the only
paternal matches that that popped up
we’re fourth cousins are further until
Evan he popped up as a close family
member
possible first cousin in October but it
would we weren’t in contact until
December when I realized that the DNA
that we shared was consistent with a
half sibling and then Evan became number
eight yeah no December 24th Christmas
Eve
I was checking from a new message from
Evan and his mom when I saw this my
biological father had taken a DNA test
yeah so as soon as my mom and I stopped
freaking out and I could take a second
to pause I emailed him I said I just got
matched as your biological daughter are
you donating 2276
I mean I obviously knew the answer
unless there had been some sort of
mix-up but he responded two days later
saying that he was in fact donor 2276
and he was open to answering any medical
or personal questions that I have now
Rick has a son Talon who was one of the
original six but I had never been able
to put a name or face to him so I had no
idea but yeah three in a row then a
month later Remy
reached outs Will’s mom or her aunt
reached out swills mom she was the first
half-sister which finally got some
femininity and it was really cool to see
that there was another female but you
know as I said I’m one of the lucky ones
I happen to have a mom who was open to
me knowing my history and a donor who
was open to contact and we’ve emailed
over the past few months honestly it’s
been nothing like I imagined as a child
though better than any situation where
he didn’t have magical powers
but I have no proof either way so yeah
over the years I’ve attributed so much
myself to my unknown half but I’ve
recently begun to realize that the
traits that I got from my mom and the
chase that I got from my donor are not
the collective some of who I am thank you
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