Donor and surrogate conceived people had a forum at the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child at the United Nations on November 19th, 2019 in Geneva. Their voices were heard.
Historically, decisions about donor conceived people have been made without the consideration of their rights and needs. The practice has been shrouded in secrecy and shame. More donor and surrogate conceived people are finding out about their true origins and speaking up about how it affects them and what the best practices are to meet their needs.
Donor and surrogate conceived people have a right to:
1) Know their identity
2) Have a relationship with or know their family
3) Not be bought or sold
"NOT ABOUT THEM WITHOUT THEM." Don't make decisions about donor and surrogate conceived people without taking into account their rights and needs from their perspective.
Here are the links to the speeches:
https://www.donorkinderen.com/united-nations-2019
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3PTiHF4egBG2KaSTYLDZUpIY_f1-BYy2&app=desktop#menu
Friday, December 20, 2019
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Family!
We had our 2nd bigger gathering of our Heemsoth sperm donor family and it was amazing!
A little history first. My sister and I (full siblings) found our first half-brother on 23andme in October 2014. Then we found our half-sister. It was the four of us for a long time. We became HSC, the Half Sibling Club, named by our creative half-sister. We all met in California. Then the other half-siblings started rolling in. We are now up to 46 half-siblings in our Hank Heemsoth group. Four of them have passed away. Some of them haven't responded. Some of our group are struggling with adapting to this situation and/or have delicate family situations. Some of us have fully accepted it.
After meeting the HSC, I met three more of my half-sisters. We had our first big gathering in the summer of 2018, with 11 half-siblings, their families, and quite a few Heemsoths at the gathering. It was also amazing. Having the Heemsoths there to share family history, pictures, stories about Hank and the family was invaluable. It made Hank seem more real.
This summer's gathering profoundly affected me in a different way. It felt like we were family. The comfort level grew. We had Friday night and all of Saturday together...met at a brewery Friday night, hung out at a lake beach area Saturday, and then sat around the campfire Saturday night...12 siblings and our families. We did things that families do...picnic, some of the next generation went paddleboarding, the youngest kids played in the sand and water, we made smores. And we laughed together!! A lot! It was so much fun. My brother lovingly picked on me for being "old". (Remember the age spread of the siblings is 30 years, and our kids have a 31 year age spread and still going. I am one of the older sperm donor siblings.) It was a real family feeling. We missed each other when we parted. The language changed...we were brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews (without the "half" word preceding it). We were family!
When we first meet up, we are nervous. Most of us have expressed that, and I have felt it too. In a practical sense, we are strangers. We've never met each other before. We've only recently connected through the DNA sites and had mostly online conversations. And yet, something connects us. We share our paternal genetics. We look at each other and see who looks alike. As you would imagine, there is a range of appearances because of the random draw of Hank's genes combined with our different mother's genes. But there are so many likenesses! When you look at our baby and toddler pictures, some of us could be twins. A lot of us have olive skin and hazel eyes, the same nose, etc. We also compare other traits. The majority of us are introverts by nature. Most of us love animals. There is a tendency for aptitude with science/engineering abilities...
What an amazing gathering of introverts! We are family!
A little history first. My sister and I (full siblings) found our first half-brother on 23andme in October 2014. Then we found our half-sister. It was the four of us for a long time. We became HSC, the Half Sibling Club, named by our creative half-sister. We all met in California. Then the other half-siblings started rolling in. We are now up to 46 half-siblings in our Hank Heemsoth group. Four of them have passed away. Some of them haven't responded. Some of our group are struggling with adapting to this situation and/or have delicate family situations. Some of us have fully accepted it.
After meeting the HSC, I met three more of my half-sisters. We had our first big gathering in the summer of 2018, with 11 half-siblings, their families, and quite a few Heemsoths at the gathering. It was also amazing. Having the Heemsoths there to share family history, pictures, stories about Hank and the family was invaluable. It made Hank seem more real.
This summer's gathering profoundly affected me in a different way. It felt like we were family. The comfort level grew. We had Friday night and all of Saturday together...met at a brewery Friday night, hung out at a lake beach area Saturday, and then sat around the campfire Saturday night...12 siblings and our families. We did things that families do...picnic, some of the next generation went paddleboarding, the youngest kids played in the sand and water, we made smores. And we laughed together!! A lot! It was so much fun. My brother lovingly picked on me for being "old". (Remember the age spread of the siblings is 30 years, and our kids have a 31 year age spread and still going. I am one of the older sperm donor siblings.) It was a real family feeling. We missed each other when we parted. The language changed...we were brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews (without the "half" word preceding it). We were family!
When we first meet up, we are nervous. Most of us have expressed that, and I have felt it too. In a practical sense, we are strangers. We've never met each other before. We've only recently connected through the DNA sites and had mostly online conversations. And yet, something connects us. We share our paternal genetics. We look at each other and see who looks alike. As you would imagine, there is a range of appearances because of the random draw of Hank's genes combined with our different mother's genes. But there are so many likenesses! When you look at our baby and toddler pictures, some of us could be twins. A lot of us have olive skin and hazel eyes, the same nose, etc. We also compare other traits. The majority of us are introverts by nature. Most of us love animals. There is a tendency for aptitude with science/engineering abilities...
What an amazing gathering of introverts! We are family!
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Albert Frantz
Albert Frantz. We met at the Donor Conception Ethics conference in NYC and have shared with each other since our life journeys and the impact of donor conception on our lives.
I honor Albert as a great man who has confronted his donor conception journey and created brilliant offerings to help people understand the experience of being donor conceived. He presents solutions regarding the needs and rights of the people created from donor conception.
Thank you to Albert for his amazing speech at the United Nations Geneva Peace Week 2018 about the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and his brilliant TED talk about identity and ethics related to donor conception. Please watch Albert's brilliant work...here are the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vkHtquzQho&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PligpIZzT98
I honor Albert as a great man who has confronted his donor conception journey and created brilliant offerings to help people understand the experience of being donor conceived. He presents solutions regarding the needs and rights of the people created from donor conception.
Thank you to Albert for his amazing speech at the United Nations Geneva Peace Week 2018 about the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and his brilliant TED talk about identity and ethics related to donor conception. Please watch Albert's brilliant work...here are the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vkHtquzQho&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PligpIZzT98
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Anger
A friend of mine mentioned that it was difficult to be around sperm donor offspring because they are so angry. It got me thinking about anger. I said to myself "I'm not angry any more, just upset" at how the whole sperm donor business is run. I'm not angry! But...the more I thought about it...the more my old well of anger resurfaced. I am angry!
Initially, after finding out about being a sperm donor offspring, right after my dad passed away, I was so angry at my dad for not telling us about it. We had a relationship based on a lie our whole lives. I couldn't talk to him about it. I felt I would have loved him more if we could have had an open and honest relationship. He was a great, caring man who would do anything for you. He was a product of his time, when a lot of things weren't talked about. I try to understand where he was coming from. The doctor did tell my parents that it was best not to tell anyone, including us. My dad thought he was doing what was best based on doctor's advice. But it did interfere with our relationship...the reserve, hidden innuendos. I knew he had secrets, just never imagined this scenario. Those first two years after he passed I was intensely angry with him, rather than being able to grieve his loss.
Anger now...I can understand why sperm donor offspring are angry. People assume that we should be grateful for being conceived from a sperm donor because otherwise we wouldn't be alive....existential debt. Yet, there are those of us who have had difficult lives and complicated relationships, and times when we wished we weren't alive. Is that normal for the general population too? I don't know what the statistics are. Who knows if sperm donor offspring are more likely to have troubled feelings and thoughts about not being alive. But that element does exist.
Anger about the sperm donor industry. Yes, absolutely. Doctors playing god with people's lives, the lies and deceit, eugenics...how does one deal with having 45 half-siblings and knowing that there are hundreds (or thousands) more out there... Some sperm donor offspring are angry, and it is difficult to hear their anger and be around it...but it is real...and with good reason. It is reality.
As for me, I do have a well of anger and a well of sadness inside of myself. I choose to ignore them and live my life, but they are there, and can be opened back up. I choose not to focus on the anger now, but rather advocacy for change. However, the root of wanting to make change is the anger. Yes, sperm donor offspring are angry. I am angry!
Initially, after finding out about being a sperm donor offspring, right after my dad passed away, I was so angry at my dad for not telling us about it. We had a relationship based on a lie our whole lives. I couldn't talk to him about it. I felt I would have loved him more if we could have had an open and honest relationship. He was a great, caring man who would do anything for you. He was a product of his time, when a lot of things weren't talked about. I try to understand where he was coming from. The doctor did tell my parents that it was best not to tell anyone, including us. My dad thought he was doing what was best based on doctor's advice. But it did interfere with our relationship...the reserve, hidden innuendos. I knew he had secrets, just never imagined this scenario. Those first two years after he passed I was intensely angry with him, rather than being able to grieve his loss.
Anger now...I can understand why sperm donor offspring are angry. People assume that we should be grateful for being conceived from a sperm donor because otherwise we wouldn't be alive....existential debt. Yet, there are those of us who have had difficult lives and complicated relationships, and times when we wished we weren't alive. Is that normal for the general population too? I don't know what the statistics are. Who knows if sperm donor offspring are more likely to have troubled feelings and thoughts about not being alive. But that element does exist.
Anger about the sperm donor industry. Yes, absolutely. Doctors playing god with people's lives, the lies and deceit, eugenics...how does one deal with having 45 half-siblings and knowing that there are hundreds (or thousands) more out there... Some sperm donor offspring are angry, and it is difficult to hear their anger and be around it...but it is real...and with good reason. It is reality.
As for me, I do have a well of anger and a well of sadness inside of myself. I choose to ignore them and live my life, but they are there, and can be opened back up. I choose not to focus on the anger now, but rather advocacy for change. However, the root of wanting to make change is the anger. Yes, sperm donor offspring are angry. I am angry!
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Identity Matters
#identitymatters
Some thoughts about identity...growing up not knowing your true identity...but knowing that things don't add up.
Our parents were told not to tell anyone about mixing donor sperm with the dad's sperm. So, it starts with the parents not knowing with certainty the true biological father and our true genetic identity. Create confusion...genealogical bewilderment. Create the belief that the social father could be the biological father...confusion in the family relationships.
My parents didn't know for sure, but according to mom, they suspected that the sperm donor was our biological father. Indeed he was. As often happens in gamete donor families, the biologically related parent, in this case the mother, feels more like the "real" parent. Mothers can become more domineering/entitled in the parental role. There is a power differential in the couple's relationship. It can't be talked about, so it is brewing under the surface. In donor gamete families, there seem to be a lot of divorces, emotionally distant fathers, fathers leaving the family or dying early. Not sure what the statistics are on this compared to all families, but it would be an interesting research project.
As the donor offspring, you know things don't add up. You wonder about the arguments behind closed doors. You wonder why your dad asks you if he should divorce your mother, you tell him yes, but he doesn't do it. You wonder about the strange comments, e.g. your dad saying that somewhere in his Jewish background there is Native American blood...huh? What is going on here? Confusion...
As the donor offspring, you wonder why your body is conveying one thing, but your parents are telling you something else about who you are. Confusion. For example, my parents were told that I had a high IQ and needed to go to a school for the gifted. My parents chose to keep me where I was in school, which I believe did limit my growth and potential. Another example, as many teenagers/young adults do, I questioned my religious/faith/spiritual beliefs and decided that my parents were hypocritical in their religious practices and I rejected my Jewish upbringing. Turns out genetically I'm only half Jewish anyway. My parents were city people; I'm a country girl.
It was never okay in my family to be who I really was. I was not accepted for who I was, didn't fit into the family in a lot of ways. There is an underlying sense of shame, when you are not okay for who you are. You have no idea what the basis for this is...the secret, genetic donation that helped create you and the family.
When I talk about my parents here, I want to emphasize that they were good people, they were doing the best they could in the circumstances of their lives. This is not to condemn them. I share these things to make a point about the effects of the confusion of unknown genetic factors in the family and how that impacts the family relationships and identity of those conceived in this way and raised in confused families.
I had a lot of identity confusion. My body was telling me I was one person and my parents were telling me I was someone else. They had a strong need to make me fit into the family, so that it wouldn't be apparent to others that there were differences, so that others didn't question that perhaps I wasn't totally biologically connected to the family. My parents worked very hard at fitting a square peg in a round hole...trying to mold me in their likeness. I had a lot of confusion, anger, depression growing up. I withdrew. Neighbors were able to abuse me because I didn't know how to assert myself. I never knew "what I wanted to do when I grew up." As an adult, I changed majors in school frequently, went back to college several times, switched jobs every couple of years due to lack of passion for what I was doing and boredom, had trouble maintaining lasting relationships. My life has not been a straight journey. I have been all over the place and tried so many things, trying to resolve myself.
My apologies about the meandering babbling in this post, but the point is to convey the identity confusion of growing up in a family that doesn't know your true identity and the personal impact of not knowing who you really are.
A message to parents of gamete donated people...please accept your children for who they are, both in ways they are like you and aspects that are not like you. Accept, embrace, and encourage them to flourish for who they are in their own right. No shame. Tell your children early on, in age appropriate ways, who they are and allow them to know their genetic relatives as a part of who they are. This is their life story.
#identitymatters When intentionally creating people from a gamete donor, the parents and/or the physician doing the procedure know who the donor is. The offspring have a right to know their true identity and who they are genetically connected to. Identity matters!
Some thoughts about identity...growing up not knowing your true identity...but knowing that things don't add up.
Our parents were told not to tell anyone about mixing donor sperm with the dad's sperm. So, it starts with the parents not knowing with certainty the true biological father and our true genetic identity. Create confusion...genealogical bewilderment. Create the belief that the social father could be the biological father...confusion in the family relationships.
My parents didn't know for sure, but according to mom, they suspected that the sperm donor was our biological father. Indeed he was. As often happens in gamete donor families, the biologically related parent, in this case the mother, feels more like the "real" parent. Mothers can become more domineering/entitled in the parental role. There is a power differential in the couple's relationship. It can't be talked about, so it is brewing under the surface. In donor gamete families, there seem to be a lot of divorces, emotionally distant fathers, fathers leaving the family or dying early. Not sure what the statistics are on this compared to all families, but it would be an interesting research project.
As the donor offspring, you know things don't add up. You wonder about the arguments behind closed doors. You wonder why your dad asks you if he should divorce your mother, you tell him yes, but he doesn't do it. You wonder about the strange comments, e.g. your dad saying that somewhere in his Jewish background there is Native American blood...huh? What is going on here? Confusion...
As the donor offspring, you wonder why your body is conveying one thing, but your parents are telling you something else about who you are. Confusion. For example, my parents were told that I had a high IQ and needed to go to a school for the gifted. My parents chose to keep me where I was in school, which I believe did limit my growth and potential. Another example, as many teenagers/young adults do, I questioned my religious/faith/spiritual beliefs and decided that my parents were hypocritical in their religious practices and I rejected my Jewish upbringing. Turns out genetically I'm only half Jewish anyway. My parents were city people; I'm a country girl.
It was never okay in my family to be who I really was. I was not accepted for who I was, didn't fit into the family in a lot of ways. There is an underlying sense of shame, when you are not okay for who you are. You have no idea what the basis for this is...the secret, genetic donation that helped create you and the family.
When I talk about my parents here, I want to emphasize that they were good people, they were doing the best they could in the circumstances of their lives. This is not to condemn them. I share these things to make a point about the effects of the confusion of unknown genetic factors in the family and how that impacts the family relationships and identity of those conceived in this way and raised in confused families.
I had a lot of identity confusion. My body was telling me I was one person and my parents were telling me I was someone else. They had a strong need to make me fit into the family, so that it wouldn't be apparent to others that there were differences, so that others didn't question that perhaps I wasn't totally biologically connected to the family. My parents worked very hard at fitting a square peg in a round hole...trying to mold me in their likeness. I had a lot of confusion, anger, depression growing up. I withdrew. Neighbors were able to abuse me because I didn't know how to assert myself. I never knew "what I wanted to do when I grew up." As an adult, I changed majors in school frequently, went back to college several times, switched jobs every couple of years due to lack of passion for what I was doing and boredom, had trouble maintaining lasting relationships. My life has not been a straight journey. I have been all over the place and tried so many things, trying to resolve myself.
My apologies about the meandering babbling in this post, but the point is to convey the identity confusion of growing up in a family that doesn't know your true identity and the personal impact of not knowing who you really are.
A message to parents of gamete donated people...please accept your children for who they are, both in ways they are like you and aspects that are not like you. Accept, embrace, and encourage them to flourish for who they are in their own right. No shame. Tell your children early on, in age appropriate ways, who they are and allow them to know their genetic relatives as a part of who they are. This is their life story.
#identitymatters When intentionally creating people from a gamete donor, the parents and/or the physician doing the procedure know who the donor is. The offspring have a right to know their true identity and who they are genetically connected to. Identity matters!
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Ethics of Donor Conception conference, NYC, May 3-4, 2019
Thank you to Professor J. David Velleman and the Center for Bioethics at NYU for the vision in creating and the skilled facilitation of an amazing conference. It was a meeting of the minds of academics, including bioethicists, philosophers and attorneys, and a large group of donor conceived people.
First of all, terminology. In the donor conception world, there isn't standard terminology for all of the relationships and processes. Terminology is difficult and evolving. The term "donor" is definitely a misnomer. Gametes (sperm and eggs) are not donated. They are provided for a fee, the person is paid for their gametes, it is a transaction. One amazing young man at the conference calls himself "transactionally conceived". There was agreement that "provider conceived" was a more accurate term than "donor conceived". I will use both terms, to honor the new, more accurate term and because people understand at this point the term donor. It's an evolution.
Also, we provider conceived people are often referred to as "the babies" or children. Please don't do that. We are people, of all ages, some of us senior citizens. It is so demeaning to be called a child. I use the term "offspring", but that isn't ideal either. It's rather cold. If anyone is aware of a better term for those of us conceived from provider gametes, please let me know.
It is a great shift that there is more attention in the academic world to understanding the implications of gamete provider conception, for all parties, offspring, families, providers and those that facilitate the donor process. We appreciate those that have pioneered research about donor conception, including Ken Daniels, Eric Blyth, Amanda Turner, Rona Achilles. Hopefully, there will be a surge of exploration into the effects of gamete "donation". There is certainly a surge in public media now, especially articles about the large groups of half-siblings created and doctors providing their own sperm.
What is sometimes missing in the academic explorations, however, is the lived experience of those of us created from provided gametes. That was the magic of the Ethics of DC conference this past week...bringing together those that study donor conception and those that live it. In addition to the academic presentations, Erin Jackson, founder of "We Are Donor Conceived" on Facebook, presented the experience of donor conceived people. Thank you, Erin for bringing so many of us together and advocating for change. During the conference, there was an amazing amount of dialogue and discussion, and an honest attempt to understand the true, real implications of this practice on real human beings, we donor conceived. Thank you for the opportunity for DC people to share their stories and experience, and the effort to understand us.
The vital consensus of those at the Ethics of Donor Conception conference was that secrecy and anonymity in gamete provider conception is NOT ethical. There was also general consensus that large numbers of offspring from a provider creates complicated and burdensome relationships, and is not ethical.
First of all, terminology. In the donor conception world, there isn't standard terminology for all of the relationships and processes. Terminology is difficult and evolving. The term "donor" is definitely a misnomer. Gametes (sperm and eggs) are not donated. They are provided for a fee, the person is paid for their gametes, it is a transaction. One amazing young man at the conference calls himself "transactionally conceived". There was agreement that "provider conceived" was a more accurate term than "donor conceived". I will use both terms, to honor the new, more accurate term and because people understand at this point the term donor. It's an evolution.
Also, we provider conceived people are often referred to as "the babies" or children. Please don't do that. We are people, of all ages, some of us senior citizens. It is so demeaning to be called a child. I use the term "offspring", but that isn't ideal either. It's rather cold. If anyone is aware of a better term for those of us conceived from provider gametes, please let me know.
It is a great shift that there is more attention in the academic world to understanding the implications of gamete provider conception, for all parties, offspring, families, providers and those that facilitate the donor process. We appreciate those that have pioneered research about donor conception, including Ken Daniels, Eric Blyth, Amanda Turner, Rona Achilles. Hopefully, there will be a surge of exploration into the effects of gamete "donation". There is certainly a surge in public media now, especially articles about the large groups of half-siblings created and doctors providing their own sperm.
What is sometimes missing in the academic explorations, however, is the lived experience of those of us created from provided gametes. That was the magic of the Ethics of DC conference this past week...bringing together those that study donor conception and those that live it. In addition to the academic presentations, Erin Jackson, founder of "We Are Donor Conceived" on Facebook, presented the experience of donor conceived people. Thank you, Erin for bringing so many of us together and advocating for change. During the conference, there was an amazing amount of dialogue and discussion, and an honest attempt to understand the true, real implications of this practice on real human beings, we donor conceived. Thank you for the opportunity for DC people to share their stories and experience, and the effort to understand us.
The vital consensus of those at the Ethics of Donor Conception conference was that secrecy and anonymity in gamete provider conception is NOT ethical. There was also general consensus that large numbers of offspring from a provider creates complicated and burdensome relationships, and is not ethical.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Eugenics and Donor Conception
My first exposure to the idea of eugenics in sperm donation was in the support group 25 years ago. There is a man whose father was in the Home for the Feeble Minded. His dad wasn't feeble minded. He was a troubled teenager without family support, and that's where he landed. In order to get out of the Home he had to agree to be sterilized. Some choices, ey?...staying in the Home for the Feeble Minded or be sterilized? He was sterilized and released from the Home. Then he fell in love, married and needed a sperm donor to have children. For more information about his son's life story, read: Demons at my Doorstep; the Search for my Donor Father, as told to Katherine Marsh, iUniverse, Inc., 2004.
In the historic article "Therapeutic Donor Insemination" by Sophia J. Kleegman, M.D., published in Fertility & Sterility, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1954, p. 20, Kleegman states "we are given the opportunity for eugenics to rule. The requirements (for donors) are for men of high level of fertility, excellent mental, physical, and eugenic attributes, and of high moral character...With careful selection, and ability to choose donors of excellent intellectual and eugenic backgrounds...the children are superior..."
In the article "Adultery by doctor: artificial insemination, 1890-1945", Kara W. Swanson, School of Law Faculty Publications, Northeastern University School of Law, 1-1-2012, it states: "Davis explicitly linked artificial insemination to eugenic policies, which enjoyed broad support among educated elites in the first decades of the twentieth century. Davis, former superintendent of the Oklahoma State Hospital for the Feeble-Minded, believed that while the 'feeble-minded' needed to be confined and cured, superior persons needed to be encouraged to reproduce, and assisted as necessary." (p. 599). "When the 'test tube baby' burst into public consciousness in the 1930s, it did so in the context of a robust eugenics movement...the emerging science of genetics supported the popular movement for eugenic improvement of the United States population. Planned breeding of humans could improve the overall stock, both by discouraging the reproduction of undesirables through forced sterilization programs implemented during this period and by encouraging the scientific selection of mates..." (p. 604-5). "By the end of World War II, eugenics had faded in elite and popular discourse after it became associated with the policies of Nazi Germany..." (p. 630).
Lots of food for thought there!
There are problems with having very intelligent children who don't fit in their families, and problems associated with high intelligence in general, e.g. difficulty with social skills...but that's a topic for another day.
In the historic article "Therapeutic Donor Insemination" by Sophia J. Kleegman, M.D., published in Fertility & Sterility, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1954, p. 20, Kleegman states "we are given the opportunity for eugenics to rule. The requirements (for donors) are for men of high level of fertility, excellent mental, physical, and eugenic attributes, and of high moral character...With careful selection, and ability to choose donors of excellent intellectual and eugenic backgrounds...the children are superior..."
In the article "Adultery by doctor: artificial insemination, 1890-1945", Kara W. Swanson, School of Law Faculty Publications, Northeastern University School of Law, 1-1-2012, it states: "Davis explicitly linked artificial insemination to eugenic policies, which enjoyed broad support among educated elites in the first decades of the twentieth century. Davis, former superintendent of the Oklahoma State Hospital for the Feeble-Minded, believed that while the 'feeble-minded' needed to be confined and cured, superior persons needed to be encouraged to reproduce, and assisted as necessary." (p. 599). "When the 'test tube baby' burst into public consciousness in the 1930s, it did so in the context of a robust eugenics movement...the emerging science of genetics supported the popular movement for eugenic improvement of the United States population. Planned breeding of humans could improve the overall stock, both by discouraging the reproduction of undesirables through forced sterilization programs implemented during this period and by encouraging the scientific selection of mates..." (p. 604-5). "By the end of World War II, eugenics had faded in elite and popular discourse after it became associated with the policies of Nazi Germany..." (p. 630).
Lots of food for thought there!
There are problems with having very intelligent children who don't fit in their families, and problems associated with high intelligence in general, e.g. difficulty with social skills...but that's a topic for another day.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Web of Relationships
If "We are all one", as the spiritual leaders say...let it begin with our sperm donor family and all of it's connections...
According to John Doe Donor, Dr. Trythall had about 16 donors he used. We are starting to find more of them and some of the connections between them. It is a very confusing web of connections, easiest to explain with a diagram.
Donor A is our half-sibling group, Hank Heemsoth is the donor, and at this point we have 41 DNA-confirmed half-siblings. Individuals below, on the same line, grew up together in the same family (each in a different color), i.e. their families were given multiple sperm donors. (I'll use M for male and F for female.) Our donor, HH, did lawn and handyman work for Dr. Trythall. Another donor, RR, was his driver. Three of these donors are Lithuanian (B, C, E). Group C are all very tall. One group member said they think they had the Monday donor. An article about the history of donor insemination recommended to physicians to use 3 different donors every other day during the woman's fertile time. We're not sure what Dr. Trythall's theories or practicalities were for selecting donors, other than it was common practice to match the physical characteristics of the donor to the social father.
Donor A B C D E F
41 7-10? 8 16 ? ?
HH EC RR ? RR's brother RR ?
M.....................F
F......................M
M..........................................F
M.................F
M................M
M..........................................................................................F
I have met individuals in groups B and C. One of them (from group C) introduced herself as my half-brother's half-sister's half-sister.
Confused? No kidding!! And this is just the beginning, the tip of the iceberg. These are only the people that have done DNA testing and have found each other, so far...
According to John Doe Donor, Dr. Trythall had about 16 donors he used. We are starting to find more of them and some of the connections between them. It is a very confusing web of connections, easiest to explain with a diagram.
Donor A is our half-sibling group, Hank Heemsoth is the donor, and at this point we have 41 DNA-confirmed half-siblings. Individuals below, on the same line, grew up together in the same family (each in a different color), i.e. their families were given multiple sperm donors. (I'll use M for male and F for female.) Our donor, HH, did lawn and handyman work for Dr. Trythall. Another donor, RR, was his driver. Three of these donors are Lithuanian (B, C, E). Group C are all very tall. One group member said they think they had the Monday donor. An article about the history of donor insemination recommended to physicians to use 3 different donors every other day during the woman's fertile time. We're not sure what Dr. Trythall's theories or practicalities were for selecting donors, other than it was common practice to match the physical characteristics of the donor to the social father.
Donor A B C D E F
41 7-10? 8 16 ? ?
HH EC RR ? RR's brother RR ?
M.....................F
F......................M
M..........................................F
M.................F
M................M
M..........................................................................................F
I have met individuals in groups B and C. One of them (from group C) introduced herself as my half-brother's half-sister's half-sister.
Confused? No kidding!! And this is just the beginning, the tip of the iceberg. These are only the people that have done DNA testing and have found each other, so far...
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
The Detroit Donor
How I found a Detroit donor and the mind-blowing things he told me...
Remember that 1993 was when my mom first told us about our sperm donor. There weren't many resources for Sperm Donor Offspring. Internet resources were in their infancy. I searched and found one support group...amazing! Candace Turner was the leader of the group. I joined their monthly conference calls, with a few other donor offspring, nationwide, and one donor. The donor was from Detroit...also amazing! He was a year younger than me, not my donor, but he was aware of Dr. Trythall and he donated sperm for Dr. T's medical heirs.
The Detroit donor...let's call him John Doe Donor, not his real name of course. The stories he told were incredible, frightening and perhaps true. John DD started calling me individually too. I remember trying to cook dinner, take care of my three young kids and talk to John, while writing notes about what he told me on any little scrap of paper I could find. Why would he join a group like this and keep calling me anyway? I think he really had a need to talk, to tell others what he was doing. He had to keep his sperm donor activities secret from everyone else in his life. Who else could he talk to?
According to John Doe Donor from Detroit:
(1) As of 1993, in Detroit, there was one donor who donated for 30 years and had over 3,000 offspring. There were also 15 donors with over 1,000 offspring. Yes, thousands!
(2) At times, John DD would put on a white medical coat, pretend he was a medical intern and attend the births of the babies that his sperm created. The parents did not know he was their donor. How intrusive and unethical!! Obviously, the attending doctors had to assist him in doing this.
(3) At times, when women were having trouble getting pregnant with donor insemination, he would perform "Natural Insemination" or "NI". He would have intercourse with the women, in the doctor's office, to get them pregnant.
I spoke with John Doe Donor again in the summer of 2018. He confirmed all of the above. He stated that he was still donating sperm, but only to families that already had his offspring and wanted to use his sperm again. He has donated for close to 40 years, as he started as a college student and is now in his late 50's. With frozen sperm and splitting semen samples, one can only imagine how many offspring he has. How many other donors are there like him?
(3) John DD again confirmed doing "NI". He said there were 2 rooms for this "procedure", one like a medical setting and one a bedroom setting. The women select which setting is more comfortable for them.
(4) John DD said that he now works with the sperm bank helping new donors get acclimated to the work of donating sperm. International Cryogenics is the only sperm bank in the Detroit area. Dr. Stephens, one of the doctors who purchased Dr. Trythall's practice, was the Medical Director there for a long time, and has recently retired.
What are your thoughts about these medical practices? I totally understand the desire to have children. It is life changing, instinctive, part of the human drive to survive and flourish. But...what about these practices? Thousands of offspring from one person? I could have 3,000 half-siblings ....two offspring born each week for 30 years, from one man. My donor half-sibling group was born 1955-1984 (so far). We would be that largest group...3,000 half-siblings! Already at 41 DNA-confirmed half-siblings, it is hard to keep track of my relations.
Remember that 1993 was when my mom first told us about our sperm donor. There weren't many resources for Sperm Donor Offspring. Internet resources were in their infancy. I searched and found one support group...amazing! Candace Turner was the leader of the group. I joined their monthly conference calls, with a few other donor offspring, nationwide, and one donor. The donor was from Detroit...also amazing! He was a year younger than me, not my donor, but he was aware of Dr. Trythall and he donated sperm for Dr. T's medical heirs.
The Detroit donor...let's call him John Doe Donor, not his real name of course. The stories he told were incredible, frightening and perhaps true. John DD started calling me individually too. I remember trying to cook dinner, take care of my three young kids and talk to John, while writing notes about what he told me on any little scrap of paper I could find. Why would he join a group like this and keep calling me anyway? I think he really had a need to talk, to tell others what he was doing. He had to keep his sperm donor activities secret from everyone else in his life. Who else could he talk to?
According to John Doe Donor from Detroit:
(1) As of 1993, in Detroit, there was one donor who donated for 30 years and had over 3,000 offspring. There were also 15 donors with over 1,000 offspring. Yes, thousands!
(2) At times, John DD would put on a white medical coat, pretend he was a medical intern and attend the births of the babies that his sperm created. The parents did not know he was their donor. How intrusive and unethical!! Obviously, the attending doctors had to assist him in doing this.
(3) At times, when women were having trouble getting pregnant with donor insemination, he would perform "Natural Insemination" or "NI". He would have intercourse with the women, in the doctor's office, to get them pregnant.
I spoke with John Doe Donor again in the summer of 2018. He confirmed all of the above. He stated that he was still donating sperm, but only to families that already had his offspring and wanted to use his sperm again. He has donated for close to 40 years, as he started as a college student and is now in his late 50's. With frozen sperm and splitting semen samples, one can only imagine how many offspring he has. How many other donors are there like him?
(3) John DD again confirmed doing "NI". He said there were 2 rooms for this "procedure", one like a medical setting and one a bedroom setting. The women select which setting is more comfortable for them.
(4) John DD said that he now works with the sperm bank helping new donors get acclimated to the work of donating sperm. International Cryogenics is the only sperm bank in the Detroit area. Dr. Stephens, one of the doctors who purchased Dr. Trythall's practice, was the Medical Director there for a long time, and has recently retired.
What are your thoughts about these medical practices? I totally understand the desire to have children. It is life changing, instinctive, part of the human drive to survive and flourish. But...what about these practices? Thousands of offspring from one person? I could have 3,000 half-siblings ....two offspring born each week for 30 years, from one man. My donor half-sibling group was born 1955-1984 (so far). We would be that largest group...3,000 half-siblings! Already at 41 DNA-confirmed half-siblings, it is hard to keep track of my relations.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Lies the Doctors Told Our Parents
Our donor sibling group was born between 1955-1984. While this wasn't the beginning of sperm donation practice, it was a time when it was developing further. There are some interesting articles about the history of donor insemination: Kleegman, "Therapeutic Donor Insemination", 1953; and Swanson, "Adultery by doctor: artificial insemination 1890-1945", 2012.
The doctors practicing donor insemination prior to 1985 told our parents many lies about the sperm donors they were using for our conceptions. This was part of the thinking at the time by the network of physicians practicing donor insemination, based on these articles.
The lies:
(1) Our sperm donor was a medical student.
False. Our sperm donor had a 9th grade education, GED, and worked at Chrysler and did odd jobs to help support his family...including being a sperm donor for 30 years. Based on his offspring, the donor must have been an intelligent man. Education level and intelligence don't always correlate. People had to work to support their families and didn't always have the opportunity of education. Nevertheless, the doctors routinely lied to our parents and told them the donor was a medical student. OMG, I spent so many years searching for the donor, knocking on the wrong doors, based on that misinformation.
(2) Each donor was used for 6-8 families.
False. Some of our half-sibling's families were told that our donor provided sperm for 6-8 families. This same information was again told to a half-sibling when she called the physician's office to gather information about her background. At this point, with 41 half-siblings in our donor group, we represent 34 families. This is the tip of the iceberg. This only includes the people who have done DNA testing. One can only imagine how many families our donor provided sperm for to help create their families in the Detroit area. Scary thought!
(3) Families were told that the doctor used the same sperm donor within their family.
False. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. Some of the families in our sperm donor group did get the same donor. For example, my sister and I are full genetic siblings. More often, when our half-sibling's familial siblings did DNA testing, they found out they were conceived from different donors. They were genetically half-siblings as well. Feeling confused? It is very confusing. The physicians created a large, intricate web of relationships, with different families sharing a pool of donors. Sometimes a family's offspring had the same donor, sometimes not. Each donor was used for a large number of families. It's difficult to picture or write about this web of relationships because there are so many different connections in it. More on this later...
The doctors practicing donor insemination prior to 1985 told our parents many lies about the sperm donors they were using for our conceptions. This was part of the thinking at the time by the network of physicians practicing donor insemination, based on these articles.
The lies:
(1) Our sperm donor was a medical student.
False. Our sperm donor had a 9th grade education, GED, and worked at Chrysler and did odd jobs to help support his family...including being a sperm donor for 30 years. Based on his offspring, the donor must have been an intelligent man. Education level and intelligence don't always correlate. People had to work to support their families and didn't always have the opportunity of education. Nevertheless, the doctors routinely lied to our parents and told them the donor was a medical student. OMG, I spent so many years searching for the donor, knocking on the wrong doors, based on that misinformation.
(2) Each donor was used for 6-8 families.
False. Some of our half-sibling's families were told that our donor provided sperm for 6-8 families. This same information was again told to a half-sibling when she called the physician's office to gather information about her background. At this point, with 41 half-siblings in our donor group, we represent 34 families. This is the tip of the iceberg. This only includes the people who have done DNA testing. One can only imagine how many families our donor provided sperm for to help create their families in the Detroit area. Scary thought!
(3) Families were told that the doctor used the same sperm donor within their family.
False. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. Some of the families in our sperm donor group did get the same donor. For example, my sister and I are full genetic siblings. More often, when our half-sibling's familial siblings did DNA testing, they found out they were conceived from different donors. They were genetically half-siblings as well. Feeling confused? It is very confusing. The physicians created a large, intricate web of relationships, with different families sharing a pool of donors. Sometimes a family's offspring had the same donor, sometimes not. Each donor was used for a large number of families. It's difficult to picture or write about this web of relationships because there are so many different connections in it. More on this later...
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Fast forward to now...4/11/2019...41 half-siblings and counting
Fast forward to now...4/11/2019.
After years of research, 20 years of following false leads, lies the doctor told my parents about the donor being a medical student, stalking people I thought were potentially my donor...there was finally a break!
October 28, 2014, a new relative on 23andme who shares 25.6% of my DNA. That's a lot! I share 50.0% with my mother and 53.0% with my sister, both also with DNA tests on 23andme. Typically, I share around 1% or less with other matches on the site. 23andme predicted that this new match was my grandson. That wasn't possible...I was born in 1957 and he was born in 1973. I know I don't have any grandchildren. Sharing 25% DNA, he had to be a grandson, grandfather, nephew, uncle, or...a HALF-BROTHER. Voila! Finally, a half-sibling!!
So excited! What do I write to him? What if he doesn't know his parents used a sperm donor (the common practice)? Do I want to be the one to tell him he has another dad who is a sperm donor? That's not my role. So many questions and thoughts and emotions. I wrote to him in general terms at first. After a long delay, he wrote back. Then I told him the story of my parents, Dr. Trythall and the sperm donor. He talked to his mother, who also went to Dr. Trythall and had used a sperm donor to get pregnant. What a shock for him! What a way to find out your true origins!
Then, a half-sister appeared on 23andme. I shared 31.0% DNA with her. Same story. She talked to her mother, who went to a colleague of Dr. Trythall and used a sperm donor to get pregnant. Again, what a horrible way to find out about your true identity, through a DNA test.
For a long time, it was the four of us half-siblings, me, my sister, our half-brother (16 years younger than me) and our half-sister (18 years younger than me). We bonded, through emails, pictures, Facebook, etc. It was an amazing journey for all of us. We had an opportunity to all meet each other in California. We were excited, nervous, you can imagine...and it was a great meeting!!
Then the half-siblings started showing up, on 23andme, ancestry, myheritage DNA sites. Some knew their parents had used a sperm donor. Some didn't....they found out through DNA testing and matching up with half-siblings. Some people haven't responded to messages. Some are excited and want to know everything about the family. Some are dealing with the shock and emotions of finding out about this. As of today, including the donor's 4 sons, there are 41 DNA confirmed half-siblings in our donor group. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows how many of us there really are. The donors 4 sons were born 1942-1955. The DNA matched half-siblings were born 1955-1984, so far. The donor donated for 30 years!!
We all were conceived in Detroit, Michigan (and suburbs) by Dr. Trythall and his colleagues, Dr.s Jeremias, Gilliard, Gustafson, Ely, Mast and Stephens. Hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of half-siblings all growing up in Detroit or a car drive from there. Imagine the implications! What if 2 half-siblings fell in love, married and had children. Some of us had crossed paths before we knew that we were related so closely. I think the doctors believed this would all remain secret indefinitely, never imagined that DNA testing would reveal their secret practice of sperm donation.
I will continue sharing this incredible, exciting, frightening journey. We are an amazing group of people, my half-sibling group. At the same time, there are a lot of problems with the way sperm donation is done. The big two: secrecy and the large number of offspring from each donor. Our journey is not unique. There are pockets of half-sibling groups finding each other through DNA testing across the United States and worldwide. I will continue sharing this journey in an effort to help bring the truth to light and to advocate for ethical changes in the practice of sperm donation. It is all still done behind closed doors, behind the curtain of confidentiality, privacy and anonymity. The doctors still lie about how many offspring each donor produces. The doctors regulate their own practice, the hen guarding the henhouse. What about the offspring rights? We have a right to know our true identity, who our biological/genetic father and half-siblings are. Psychologically, it is so much healthier to find out our origins from our parents, in an age-appropriate manner, as we are growing up, without the shame and confusion of secrecy.
The journey continues...41 and counting...
After years of research, 20 years of following false leads, lies the doctor told my parents about the donor being a medical student, stalking people I thought were potentially my donor...there was finally a break!
October 28, 2014, a new relative on 23andme who shares 25.6% of my DNA. That's a lot! I share 50.0% with my mother and 53.0% with my sister, both also with DNA tests on 23andme. Typically, I share around 1% or less with other matches on the site. 23andme predicted that this new match was my grandson. That wasn't possible...I was born in 1957 and he was born in 1973. I know I don't have any grandchildren. Sharing 25% DNA, he had to be a grandson, grandfather, nephew, uncle, or...a HALF-BROTHER. Voila! Finally, a half-sibling!!
So excited! What do I write to him? What if he doesn't know his parents used a sperm donor (the common practice)? Do I want to be the one to tell him he has another dad who is a sperm donor? That's not my role. So many questions and thoughts and emotions. I wrote to him in general terms at first. After a long delay, he wrote back. Then I told him the story of my parents, Dr. Trythall and the sperm donor. He talked to his mother, who also went to Dr. Trythall and had used a sperm donor to get pregnant. What a shock for him! What a way to find out your true origins!
Then, a half-sister appeared on 23andme. I shared 31.0% DNA with her. Same story. She talked to her mother, who went to a colleague of Dr. Trythall and used a sperm donor to get pregnant. Again, what a horrible way to find out about your true identity, through a DNA test.
For a long time, it was the four of us half-siblings, me, my sister, our half-brother (16 years younger than me) and our half-sister (18 years younger than me). We bonded, through emails, pictures, Facebook, etc. It was an amazing journey for all of us. We had an opportunity to all meet each other in California. We were excited, nervous, you can imagine...and it was a great meeting!!
Then the half-siblings started showing up, on 23andme, ancestry, myheritage DNA sites. Some knew their parents had used a sperm donor. Some didn't....they found out through DNA testing and matching up with half-siblings. Some people haven't responded to messages. Some are excited and want to know everything about the family. Some are dealing with the shock and emotions of finding out about this. As of today, including the donor's 4 sons, there are 41 DNA confirmed half-siblings in our donor group. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows how many of us there really are. The donors 4 sons were born 1942-1955. The DNA matched half-siblings were born 1955-1984, so far. The donor donated for 30 years!!
We all were conceived in Detroit, Michigan (and suburbs) by Dr. Trythall and his colleagues, Dr.s Jeremias, Gilliard, Gustafson, Ely, Mast and Stephens. Hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of half-siblings all growing up in Detroit or a car drive from there. Imagine the implications! What if 2 half-siblings fell in love, married and had children. Some of us had crossed paths before we knew that we were related so closely. I think the doctors believed this would all remain secret indefinitely, never imagined that DNA testing would reveal their secret practice of sperm donation.
I will continue sharing this incredible, exciting, frightening journey. We are an amazing group of people, my half-sibling group. At the same time, there are a lot of problems with the way sperm donation is done. The big two: secrecy and the large number of offspring from each donor. Our journey is not unique. There are pockets of half-sibling groups finding each other through DNA testing across the United States and worldwide. I will continue sharing this journey in an effort to help bring the truth to light and to advocate for ethical changes in the practice of sperm donation. It is all still done behind closed doors, behind the curtain of confidentiality, privacy and anonymity. The doctors still lie about how many offspring each donor produces. The doctors regulate their own practice, the hen guarding the henhouse. What about the offspring rights? We have a right to know our true identity, who our biological/genetic father and half-siblings are. Psychologically, it is so much healthier to find out our origins from our parents, in an age-appropriate manner, as we are growing up, without the shame and confusion of secrecy.
The journey continues...41 and counting...
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
My Other Dad is a Sperm Donor
First of all, I want to say Thank You to my parents for having the courage to create me using a sperm donor in the mid 1950s. Sperm donation wasn't common, but happening more than one would imagine. And...a huge Thank You to my mom, for telling us the truth, finally. I share this journey with my sister.
Early in 1993, my dad passed away. A few days later, while walking in the mall with my mother, she said, "There's something I have to tell you...". Looong pause. "Your father may not have been your real father." And thus began the journey...finding out that my biological/genetic father was a sperm donor.
I was 35 years old at the time and wow, did my world change in an instant. It was a great relief initially. All of a sudden a lot of things made sense. We knew my dad had secrets, even asked him as he was dying what he was hiding from us. All the innuendos, strange comments, conversations and arguments behind closed doors, not fitting into my family in a lot of ways...it all made sense!
As time went on, the journey became more difficult...so many questions. Who am I? Is that where this or that characteristic came from? Who is my sperm donor? Do I have other half-siblings? On and on, you can imagine...I felt like my foundation had been knocked out from under me and I had to rebuild who I was.
So, this is the journey...having a mom, a dad and an anonymous-sperm-donor-biological-genetic father. There are a lot of people who go through this journey, in their own way, in their own time, under unique circumstances. I want to share what I have learned over the past 26 years in hopes of helping others with their journeys and to shed light on the realities of what is occurring in the world of sperm donation.
We are all Pioneers on this journey.
Early in 1993, my dad passed away. A few days later, while walking in the mall with my mother, she said, "There's something I have to tell you...". Looong pause. "Your father may not have been your real father." And thus began the journey...finding out that my biological/genetic father was a sperm donor.
I was 35 years old at the time and wow, did my world change in an instant. It was a great relief initially. All of a sudden a lot of things made sense. We knew my dad had secrets, even asked him as he was dying what he was hiding from us. All the innuendos, strange comments, conversations and arguments behind closed doors, not fitting into my family in a lot of ways...it all made sense!
As time went on, the journey became more difficult...so many questions. Who am I? Is that where this or that characteristic came from? Who is my sperm donor? Do I have other half-siblings? On and on, you can imagine...I felt like my foundation had been knocked out from under me and I had to rebuild who I was.
So, this is the journey...having a mom, a dad and an anonymous-sperm-donor-biological-genetic father. There are a lot of people who go through this journey, in their own way, in their own time, under unique circumstances. I want to share what I have learned over the past 26 years in hopes of helping others with their journeys and to shed light on the realities of what is occurring in the world of sperm donation.
We are all Pioneers on this journey.
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