My Story Related

Kathleen

Like many others faced with infertility, my parents turned to sperm donation to create their family. My conception through anonymous sperm donation occurred May 4, 1981 at St. Luke’s in Houston, Texas. Following standard practice of the time, my parents received no information about the man - including medical history, heritage, or a donor number - beyond the fact that he probably attended Baylor College of Medicine in 1981. Therefore, my mother could not provide any other information about my biological father when she told me of my history at age eight. I initially did not care, though, and instead viewed my conception as special and magical.  I was intrigued by the concept of an abstract, unknown family.

However, eventually my fascination progressed to curiosity about the mystery man who contributed to half of my genetic make-up. Among many other questions, I hoped to discover whose face I saw reflected in my mirror given that I do not particularly resemble my maternal relatives and I wanted to know how we were similar. I requested my mother’s medical records, only to be informed that they were destroyed years ago. By college, I experienced grief and loss in being intentionally denied access to own flesh and blood. I found it ironic that what leads many people to donor conception in the first place - the desire for a biological connection - had been severed between my missing biological father, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, half-brothers, half-sisters and me through anonymous sperm donation.

With little information to go on and no records available, I turned to the old Baylor College of Medicine yearbooks. I naively believed that one man would jump out of the pages within a few hours and I would find my answers. However, I began to realize that I could resemble dozens of me. I gradually obtained contact information for all 600 men in the yearbooks, sent them letters, received 250 responses, and completed 16 DNA tests in 14 months. Despite a 900-hour emotional but touching journey, my biological father has yet to come forward.  I now try to use my story to raise awareness about donor conception and advocate for needed changes within reproductive medicine.

For additional information about my story, please visit my blog at childofastranger.blogspot.com.

Kathleen.

Lindsay

I was conceived on May 24th, 1984 outside of Cleveland, Ohio.  There was no candlelit dinner or even conversation between my parents that day.  In fact, they had never even met.  My father was likely sitting through a graduate school lecture in Georgia and had no idea that 1,000 miles away his own biological daughter was being conceived in a doctor’s office.  My identity was severed that day, through artificial insemination by an anonymous donor.  My unmarried mother felt her biological clock was ticking and opted to raise a child herself.  With the support of family and friends she set out to have a biological child.  Eight and a half months later I was brought into this world in the middle of a legendary blizzard.  Five pounds ten ounces, a healthy baby girl.

In elementary school I began wondering about my biological father.  The questions were piling up and I had no way to answer them.  I remember dreaming that my father was some famous person or did something remarkable.  I dreamed that one day I would find him because I wanted to know this foreign half of me.  I even wondered if I could use my DNA to trace my father – a strange foreshadow to the current use of genealogical DNA tests for male offspring.

When I was 18, after seeing a television program about donor conception, I confronted my mother about information regarding my biological father, and learned that she had virtually no information.  The only information she recalled was that the sperm bank her doctor used was in Georgia and she had asked him for a donor with brown hair and blue eyes that was around 5’8.  After some searching I concluded that my mother had used the Xytex Corporation in Augusta, Georgia.  Unfortunately I had no donor number, so the chances of finding my biological father or any half-siblings were virtually nil.

Over the next five years, every once in a while someone would join the registry from Xytex who seemed to fit the description I had, but after three negative DNA tests with donors and other offspring, I felt that I was at a dead end.  Last year my mother came across a vial number in her medical records from the day of her insemination.  She told me it didn’t look like the numbers I had told her about (it had a dash in the middle) so it never crossed her mind that it was my donor number, but in fact it was.

My biological father was Xytex donor 2035: Born February 12, 1961, English, brown hair, green eyes, 6’0 tall, 175lbs, B+ blood type.  He began donating in 1982, as a senior in college, and continued to donate until 1989.  Based on my academic interests in biology (and that my mother has no aptitude for science), I believe my father may be in the science/medical field.

I have not found my biological father, or even any half-siblings yet, but I will continue to search for them because of this intense desire to know this other half of me.

If you would like more information about my story and donor conception in general, please visit my blog at Confessions of a Cryokid.

Lindsay