My Reactions to March 19, 2006

Today was certainly one of the biggest media days for the topic of donor conception I can recall.

60 Minutes

This evening 60 Minutes ran a clean non sensationalistic piece about DI and retained in my mind why they are still one of the best at long format news pieces. I myself did not learn a lot of new facts out of tonight but I did not expect to. Tonight was another opportunity for the Donor Sibling Registry to shine and Wendy and Ryan Kramer to be congratulated for representing us well.

My hopes for stories such as these are for more families to become open and public so that the kids will more fully understand the love that brought them into the world. Did tonight get into any of the hard issues? No. Did I expect it to? No. These last few months DI has been the poster child of a clean, happy, easy story for the networks to run. Most have strayed into the sensationalistic but in each case the exposure has brought more families to the DSR and that is a positive step. Still I hope for stories to address the needs and concerns of the married heterosexual couples.

New York Times Magazine

As I stated in my post of last night as an empty "cannister" I can only say that DI brought us two wonderful kids who I love to death. What I got out of the article was a deeper appreciation for what many SMCs / Choice Moms go through to start their families. Most of the story I was familiar with. I know what we went through and I can't imagine doing it all as a single individual.

Again I watch each of these media pieces and feel that the opinions and feelings of men like myself, the DI Dads, are treated as inconsequential to the larger story and that is unfortunate as we are raising these children, our children, and until our stories are told a part of the long thought of stigmas remain and the heterosexual couples who use DI will remain in the closet.