Creation and Family

The issues that concern both parents and donor conceived individuals all revolve around creation and family.  

For parents it is the drive to start and raise a family.  For the donor conceived it may be how could and why did their parents use a sperm or egg donor and who is this family that is beyond their reach.  And why would this missing genetic parent give them up.  Why would they donate their gametes.

On social media platforms parents start off posting regarding hope and wishes.  Donor conceived individuals publish either posts asking why or perhaps about siblings they have found.  These are oversimplifications and are not stated to make light of anyone's story.

The communities we have access to in the USA are primarily virtual, internet based communities.  Communication and contact is primarily on line and behind a wall that allows positive and negative reactions that elicit equally strong reactions.

I have always been jealous of the in person dynamic of the UK Donor Conception Network.  I would love to sit and have everyone in rooms together discussing issues and feelings.

I had lunch earlier this year, pre pandemic, with two other DI dads like myself.  It was a great experience to get together and just say hello.  Both guys are named Vincent and one I had already met a few times over the years as he is also here in NYC.  The second Vincent was down from Canada.  I have blogged about this meeting before.  At least I think I did.

I enjoy speaking with individuals, learning, discussing these topics as I want to help more than I have.  In truth we are all one family.  The pandemic has taught us that.  I just want everyone to help each other.  Creation and family.  A lot to think about.

Pardon me for today's rambling.

All Super Heroes Should Know Their Origin Story

As seen on the Facebook feed for DonorChildren:

" #DonorChildren member Chloe13, Chloe Elizabeth, #DonorConceived adult goes to the street in #Melbourne #Australia to ask people about #DonorConception.  Fantastic!! #RUDC"

I have seen other videos by one of the two young women in the video, Chloe Elizabeth, and they are very good.  Many of the videos post by members of the DonorChildren community are very good as many of the individuals are quite articulate in their feelings and thoughts.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=OvI2lfqC36Y
 

Blurred Identity

As seen on the Instagram feed of @donorconceived :

https://world.wng.org/2018/09/dear_anonymous_dad

And so it begins...

Daughter again told me tonight she wants to meet her donor. The kicker which freaked me out was she contacted her only known female half sibling whom we have visited with over the years and kept in touch with.  She contacted her via Instagram and I was unsure how public the half sib has been. Z has told her friends. Luckily she sent her message via a private DM message. 

The kids have all treated each as other as more distant cousins etc than direct siblings so Z reaching out was a surprise.  

I contacted the girls mom and she was happy that Z reached out as she did. We will see what develops here and what the girls even tell us. More as it occurs. 

As I said ...And so it begins. 

When Finding a Donor or Half Sibs Could Mean Life or Death

When I first started writing this blog, I came across a number of blogs written by young donor conceived adults mostly from outside the United States. One such blog was "who do you think you are?" written by Narelle Grech. The blog's URL subtitles it as T-5s daughter. She was an opinionated, straight talking, never afraid to be in your face blogger. And she challenged my thoughts and feelings about donor conception with a semi-confrontational tone which I appreciated. Others tried the same tone when commenting on my posts and came off as simply angry. Narelle's honesty I found appealing and I knew her opinion to be worth listening to.

Narelle is now battlling stage four bowel cancer. And where her search for her donor and half siblings was originally an effort to know who she is, genetically, ethnically, and for all the normal identity issues most donor conceived are trying to answer, her quest is now to also find these individuals to counsel them to get tested for possible early warnings of cancer. I learned about her current battle through this 10/22/11 story in the Herald Sun.

Her story, this story, is another reason why I believe it is so important that access to records not be lost or taken away or left to the auspices of individual commercial cryobanks. In Narelle's case the records exists and are known where they are but she has no legal right of access to the existing identifying information about the donor.

This is an example of where the system needs to include mechanisms to allow such medical based access as it is clearly a case where lives could be saved or lost.

Parallel drawn between the Donor Conceived and Occupy Wall Street

Lindsay Greenawalt of the Cryokid Confessions has analogized the plight of the donor conceived to that of the protests of the 99% which presently reside at Zuccotti Park here in NYC. I understand the intent is to draw the parallel of a group without power over decisions that affect them. Lindsay herself built upon posts by The Declassified Adoptee written with regards to the Adoption Rights Movement. Link here for the full text of the pictured statement.

What I am not sure of, and perhaps this is still an issue I have regarding the #OccupyWallStreet movement is that the lines of who and what is being protested are blurred (at least for OWS). The OWS movement right now, as I see it, is a simultaneous protest against everything where the general population, the 99%, has no control and the effects have economically disadvantaged that 99% where the 1% benefited.

Lindsay is pretty direct in her statements that here in the US (1) the infertility industry is not centrally regulated, (2) records can be destroyed and held back without recourse, and (3) America has turned a blind eye to the whole thing.

Part of me dislikes linking the plight of the donor conceived to the OWS movement as the OWS while catching the eye of the world’s media its seeming lack of focus does a disservice to defined issues such as that of the donor conceived. I think Lindsay’s goal was to highlight the lack of control held by the donor conceived, which is a positive goal, I just wish the movement she is associating with seemed less disjointed.

Newsweek Story re Site AnonymousUs.org

Newsweek article title: "Donor-Conceived and Out of the Closet"

There is an article in this week's Newsweek which focuses on the website AnonymousUs.org which is an "online story collective for donor-conceived people, their families, donors, and medical professionals."

It is an interesting site and well worth reading. There are a couple of interesting stories posted by dads like myself. I must admit I am wondering if I know one of the two dads who contributed stories. Neither is me.

What I like about the site is there are plenty of opinions and positions taken but the site is not hitting you over the head, pushing one specific opinion or position regarding donor conception. It's there but again not being pushed in your face.

I like it as it is another venue for individuals to lean and share.

Family Scholars Report: "My Daddy's Name is Donor"

The folks over at Family Scholars and the Institute for American Values have released their long awaited reported regarding Donor Conception titled "My Daddy's Name is Donor".

I have not read though it completely yet and only have read the Executive Summary. Truthfully I can't argue against too much of what is written as it based on polls of a large sample of donor conceived adults, adoptees, and others. I can't say it is representative of every donor conceived adult as I have met a few that would argue otherwise. I admit freely that I have felt in the past that the positions espoused by Family Scholars have been put there and argued somewhat heavy handedly.

But what reports like these do is they provide information to intended parents which is useful before they decide if donor conception is right for their familes and also how they parent a child who is donor conceived. There are plenty of issues to consider and reports like this highlight many of them quite effectively. Sometime with a hammer, which some would argue is not helpful, but the message is made known.

More later.

Video: "All About Me - Donor Unknown"

This evening I came upon a video by Alice, a donor conceived adult, in her twenties who set out to learn more about what it means to be donor conceived. I found the video on the British website Teachers.tv.

The video's creation, per the credits, was assisted by the Donor Conception Network, in the UK, and includes interviews by Alice with two families that were included on the DCN "Telling and Talking" DVD. Alice also interview a 14 year old donor conceived young woman who has known since she was a child as well as Andy, a former donor, who now believes the rights of DCPs to learn the identity of their donors outweigh the expectation of anonymity by donors.

The video is overall a worthy addition to the lexicon of videos by donor conceived individuals to educate the public of the issues and questions that go along with DC methods.

Post Secret: Donor Conceived Post Card

Anyone who has ever visited the Post Secret website knows how raw the emotions are regarding the post card submissions posted on this site. The above card re donor conception is no exception. I have not yet foudn the URL to its posting directly on the Post Secret website itself.

Also as enlightening is the post published on Lindsay's blog Confessions of a Cryokid. I have been reading Lindsay's blog for some time and for some reason only tonight got around to linking to it in my right hand side bar.

Lindsay also links to the Post Secret Forum discussion thread in response to the above Post Secret post card. It is also worth checking out.

I am hoping my kids never feel this level of pain to feel submitting a card like this is necessary but I thankful for this individual that they did something as evidently they feel a fair amount of pain.

Forbes: "Searching for my Donor Dad"

Many of the articles regarding donor insemination that I have read by donor conceived individuals include the phrase "I wasn't looking for a dad. I was looking for a donor". Hana Alberts includes just that sentence in an article she has written and is currently published on Forbes.com.

It is a statement that many internet comment posters don't always believe. That is their problem. The article is pretty good and details a bit about the search the writer has gone through. Definitely worth checking out.

Interview with Donated Generation Blogger Damian Adams

The following links are interviews conducted with Damian Adams from the blog Donated Generation by Cheryl Miller of the New Atlantis (A Journal of Technology and Society). Damian is an adult who has known most of his life of his origins. I have found Damian to be pretty direct, forthright and worth following his comments and feelings.

Part One:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/blog/conceptions/questions-for-damian-adams-donor-conceived-adult

Part Two:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/blog/conceptions/questions-for-damian-adams-donor-conceived-adult-2

Donor Conception New York

In my quest to find other donor conceived children and families here in the NYC area it was asked of me whether a gathering sponsored by Donor Conception New York would be open to donor conceived adults to which my response was of course that it would be.

While many of my posts have discussed finding families to develop a local network with the concept and focus being the future of my kids the truth is that without that network being comprised of kids and adults from every age (and their families) such a network would lose out on the experiences of its members.

In the short term Donor Conception New York (the blog and yahoo group) are I hope vehicles to start and find new connections and work torwards a gathering or series of gatherings in late 2008 or most likely in 2009 in the NYC area. As to what the long term holds I cannot say as we first must see if the short term can be a reality.

The initial interest was encouraging but trying sustain that interest and find individuals is the greater trick. So if you are donor conceived or part of a donor conceived family here in the NYC area please say hello.

TV Planner: Oprah Feb 8 Episode re Donor Conception

On February 8th the Oprah Winfrey Show expects to run a show to be taped this week titled "The Ultimate Reunion: When Dad is a Sperm Donor". Wendy and Ryan Kramer were involved in the show in so far as putting individuals who matched through the Donor Sibling Registry in touch with the producers and they themselves will be at the show.

According to Wendy, the Oprah folks, in November, went and filmed a meeting between two adult donor conceived half siblings that met via the DSR and is flying these individuals to Chicago for the show. The show is also expected to include two donors (each listed on the DSR), one of whom who has met with offspring and the other who hasn't. Wendy also indicated on a Yahoo DSR posting that a few adult donor conceived individuals are expected to be part of the show as well.

A few posters to the DSR Yahoo Group commented that they hope the show will also address the disappointment that is also common to donor conceived individuals and their familes who have never found a match.

It does not sound like the show will address any feelings or thoughts from the perspective of a dad like me but still I hope to watch it on tape when I get home that day or a delayed broadcast from another networj that carries the show.

Pardon me is your child donor conceived?

As I have discussed my son has a classmate who was donor conceived. My wife and I guessed this as he has two mommies. That was an easy guess. But sometimes when you meet a mom with a child and you never hear about a dad or you know nothing of the mom's background you wonder.

You certainly can't ask. At least most of us can't ask. And no my wife did not just ask the person I am writing this post with her in mind. But sometimes you wonder is this a child that my son or daughter has this in common with. Is this someone they can grow up with and have someone to share feelings with on a topic that very few kids have to deal with?

Donor Does Not Equal Daddy T-Shirt

no. 397

















Donor Conceived over at Whose Daughter? (who for some reason I have in my head as previously going by Buffalo Girl) has posted the above T-Shirt design in response to the "My Daddy's Name is Donor" t-shirt that can be seen for sale around the web.

Despite the veracity of the statement made on the shirt she is suggesting it is interesting to see, even after all this time, the immediate feelings it can stir up in me. Envy is an interestng emotion. As I stated in my Father's Day post I don't believe I am threatened any longer by the donor (am I backtracking already?) but the underlying fact of the t-shirt's statement still has some sting. Granted it is not the shirt's intent but still there it is.

Washington Post: Donor Conception Articles

no. 315

In addition to the Sperm Donor article the Washington Post is running two other articles in tomorrow's paper regarding donor conception:

The first article is from a donor-conceived person who found her donor titled:

"My Father Was an Anonymous Sperm Donor"

By Katrina Clark
Washington Post
Sunday, December 17, 2006; Page B01

A full copy of this article can also be found in this blog's Annex.

The second article starts out discussing Mary Cheney, the vice-president's lesbian daughter, who is expecting but launches into a full discussion about donor conception:

"It's All in the Genes, Except When It Isn't"

By Liza Mundy
Washington Post
Sunday, December 17, 2006; Page B01