Watching Generation Cryo

Z my 13 year old daughter is as I type this watching the first episode of Generation Cryo the five part documentary that aired on MTV co produced by the DSR. 

So this week Z (13 years old) had been in contact with M (14 years old) her only known female half sibling who lives in MD. Both are interested in searching for their donor. I have also been texting with M's mom re what is going on. I have also text with N's mom out in CO. N (15 years old) is the only know male half sibling. He is excited as well and has always wanted a dad.  Both M and N are in single mom households. 

For the record, J, my 15 year old son, does not care and has even said he thinks we should respect the donor's privacy and not search for him. 

Z this morning asked if I was upset that I do not have any biological children.  I told her in the beginning I was upset but that was 9 years before she was born. By the time she was born I had accepted this fact. I told her we tried using IVF with ICSI using my sperm but no baby resulted. Embryos yes but which did not take. 

I told her from the moment I saw her she was my daughter and the only daughter I could ever imagine or want. So no I am not upset this is my kid. Blood or not. 

As I said she is watching episode one we will see what questions result from it. 

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. 

Known Donors. Movie Spoiler Alert.

Spoiler Alert. Semi recent movie. Admit I watched it for the female protagonist. Did not expect the ending but should have seen it coming. Good cast. 

Known donors are generally in the news in court cases either arguing the donor has no place in the donor conceived's life or that they owe some sort of obligation. 

Tricky subject. In reality and in the movies. Was not focus of 97% of this movie but did play a role in hindsight for how the characters' lives played out. 

Next Morning After Telling Me

I posted this a few moments ago to the DI Dads Yahoo Group: 

I knew this day would come and I knew it would be second child, my 13 year old daughter. 

My daughter came to my apt last night after not being here for over a week due to school and some blips in my custody arrangement with her mom. I missed her a lot. Her brother stayed at his moms. 

Somehow I knew it would be Z that asked. She is the emotional of my two. He more theoretical. He knows his story. He knows I am his dad. Perhaps he wants to know also but does not want to tell me for fear of hurting me. I have told him such a request would never hurt me. 

So last night Z asked me and it became real. I am not hurt. Surprisingly so even after theoretically saying I would not be after all these years. I do have concerns I admit as any of us would have. 

If she never finds him what amount of disappointment will infuse itself into her life?
Will she come to resent our choice as a result of a long search?
Will she fantasize who he might be over glorifying him as an individual?

These questions and others are inevitably a mix of my thoughts for her and my own. I have spent the bulk of the last several years virtually ignoring this world, except for small steps back into it, while dealing with issues affecting my children and myself due to separating from their mom, and eventually divorcing. Our divorce was not related to the children's creation story in any form. 

Z innocently said it would be cool to know more. I will discuss with her mom letting the kids first read his written profile from the cryobank and then later hearing his voice on the CD we got from the bank. I have not read or listened to either in years. 

So now I will be turning to these issues for the first time directly in years. Some no longer in the theoretical sense. 

I say thanks to Eric J. and the other dads who told their stories here long ago when their kids were teens and older.

My Daughter Wants to Meet her Donor

Out of the blue she states that thinks it would be cool to meet her donor. 

She said she knows I am her dad but she is curious. 

She said she spoke to her mom who told that she and I legally could not search as we signed papers that says we'd respect the donor's anonymity. 

I also learned that she and her brother and their mom did those ancestry Dan kits. Although I have not heard of anyone finding close relatives through that program.  I need to ask their mom about this. I will also look into the costs of 23 and me. 

And do it begins. Her older brother so far did not care but the 13 year old is curious. 

Donor Conception : Old vs New Thinking

I am not so sure I agree with everything in here but interesting to read. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donor-conception-old-vs-new-thinking_us_5a02f309e4b0230facb8418d

Why I am here

Meaning this blog.  Not why I am here on earth. 

I guess it started as blogs did as a place mostly just for me to vent, to put things to paper as it was, regarding being a dad of two DI conceived kids. I was listening a few minutes ago to the You Will be Found lyrics from Dear Evan Hansen. I think it prompted me to write this today. I don't know if people still read blogs anymore to be honest. 

You Will Be Found. Pretty powerful lyrics. Song. 

I wrote this blog so people will not feel alone. Infertility is a very lonely place. Choosing donor conception is a big deal. Read my previous post. 

Our responsibilities as parents are so much deeper than we realize before we have our kids. What burdens we lay at their feet are our burdens. We certainly don't intend to do so but inevitably we do. Our job is to provide them the tools to take it all in. To process life. To help them in anyway we can and to take the burden from them as much as we can. 

I don't have all the answers. But at this point I am making sure I am prepared for all the questions. Why am I here?  To help you see that you are not alone. We can find the questions together. 

Facebook Group Discussions

We all have found that online discussions of anything often break down into heated discourses where both sides end up disgusted and exhausted. The following is a post I added to one discussion and then later as a stand alone post. I have not been here on this blog in a long time but thought it worth posting here. Can't say when I will post again but here is this:

In the years that I have been actively participating in the original yahoo groups and later here on Facebook I have understood that part of the issue that the post James wrote is simply that those individuals who are donor conceived just wish to voice their experiences and not be discounted. 

Yes some due to their experiences are advocates against the use of donor conception. Others want to offer their stories as a warning that parents can take into account when raising their kids. Others truly just need a venue to vent. 

The fact of the matter is I traded the pain of my infertility, the loss of ever having my own biological children, to have children via DI with my then wife not realizing that our children could feel a loss to knowing both of their biological parents, not just their mom who they have. 

We used DI not knowing the fear our children might have regarding hidden medical time bombs that might await them donated graciously for cash by their sperm donor. 

There any many donor conceived across the generations that are perfectly happy. No need to go further. The number of stories is as long as the number of individuals conceived using donor gametes. 

Both sides of this process have the right to their story and the right to feel a loss. No one should be discounted or feel they are being discounted just because someone else wants to tell their story. 

The level of negative vehemence this stirs up serves no purpose but to keep us from gaining true insight across the board.  

I truly ask everyone to try to step back before responding in this manner.  

Please.

The President was donor conceived ...

I saw an article on Kveller this morning where the writer wanted to revoke the right of the media to continuously reference the children of anyone as adopted. She noted with respect to celebrities that when describing that celebrity's children it had to state how many were via adoption and how many via birth etc. Will my son when his parentage is referenced be always followed by the phrase "he was donor conceived"? Ugh. I hope not. 

Terminology Hangups

Today I saw blog posts both either having an issue with terminology or I think playing games using terminology. 

The first posted on Kveller had to do with labeling kids or birth story with the word Adopted. Her point was why we must always reference kids as adopted. She cited examples of articles re Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie and numerous acquaintances that come up to her and announced they were adopted.

I agree that such classifications are usually unnecessary and create a second class stigma. My kids for the record don't reference themselves and I don't either aside from this blog's title. They are my kids. I pay child support to prove it. 

The second article I saw on Twitter retweeted which blamed the sexual revolution for a host of reproductive medicine issues as the writer saw it. I did not think using that term as a catch all was appropriate. The points made may have held worth but I just felt the writer latched onto the term as a hook to draw people in. Felt contrived. My personal opinion. 

Otherwise Happy Canada Day to my friends up North !!!!

Hello, I am still here

It's been a while since I have posted. I don't have anything new or profound to say. But let's ramble and see where I go. 

Yesterday at work a colleague and I got into a conversation where I stated my kids are donor conceived. I can't remember now what we were talking about. All I know now is that stating this feels as normal as anything. They are still my kids with all the pluses and minuses a parent feels about their kids. It's just a part of our story as crazy wild as any family's story is. 

I miss seeing my kids everyday but that's a divorce story and that pain, although I have accepted that, never leaves. I did learn this week of another DI Dad who is going down this road. I had wondered what the statistics on this are. I will say of the DI Dads who have divorced it appears the reasons are generally not DI related. It seems we are just part of the same statistical percentage as the rest of the married population who end up down this path.

But as dad of DI kids I do worry about their psyches as they already had enough to process with their DI stories to add being a child of divorce. Which has the greater impact only time will tell. I am sure it varies with each and every individual.

My 2007 Father's Day Post

This post was originally published in 2007.  It has been my sporadic tradition to repost it on Father's Day.

With Father's Day on the horizon my thoughts stray to the man whose gift allowed my children to come into being. This man is not the doctor or mid wife that delivered them. This man is their sperm donor. My children were conceived via Donor Insemination.

Without this man's gift, these children would never have come into being and into my and my wife's life. I am occasionally asked if I resent that this man could do what I could not. I can comfortably say I do not. On the contrary I want to thank him.

When I was diagnosed with non-obstructive azoospermia 12 years ago I was told that I should expect to never have children of my own. The fact that my children are not biologically linked to me has never lessened my love for them nor my belief that they are indeed my children. At the same time I am cognizant that there is another man whose role cannot be nor should be minimized.

To me he is and is not simply their donor. For now to my children he is in effect non-existent as they don't fully understand the concept of donor insemination. They have been told of their conception story and that a donor was used but this is still too much for them to truly comprehend as they are both less than six years old. Someday soon this will change and I wonder how that will play out. For now the knowledge of his existence rests with my wife and me and as I see it I have a responsibility to not let the truth of him fade away.

The lives of my children are as much connected to him as they are to me. I do not pretend to argue nurture is greater than nature but rather together play a role in these children's lives. I have his bios, medical, social, and educational. I have a toddler picture of him and a recording of his voice. All of this info is being saved for them as it is part of who they are.

Everyday I see articles addressing infertility and the use of donor conception from the side of the couples going through infertility, women choosing single motherhood, or lesbian or gay couples looking to start families. There are court cases around the country redefining what is family and who has the right to be legally defined as a parent or not. Under New York State law I am considered the legal father to my children. But despite that fact I know that someday my children will wonder about the man that is one half of their genetic make up.

Most heterosexual families of donor conceived children choose to never tell their children of the conception story fearing the child will turn against the social parent or for fear or shame of the perceived stigmas of using another person’s sperm or eggs to create their children. In my opinion these parents do so for their own reasons and not for the benefit of the children who have a right to the truth. I recently contributed an essay to a book series titled “Voices of Donor Conception” and have been increasingly involved in the discussions of these topics on the Internet.

The central issues surrounding donor conception, including donor anonymity, regulation and reform, have been or are being addressed in several countries around the world including Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada among others. The United States has not yet entered that discussion and currently there are no federal laws directly regulating the sale of gametes [i] nor are there any regulations imposed on the administration of the various cryobanks and clinics that solicit gamete donations and sell these gametes to the public. I am in favor of reforming the practices of this industry but I am not here today for that purpose.

I no longer fear the donor’s shadow but rather acknowledge his presence and if my children ask that his contribution be honored this or on a future Father’s Day I must honor their wishes if I am half the father I believe myself to be to them. So on their behalf I wish him a Happy Father’s Day and I say to him thank you for allowing me to do the same.
[i] “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies” The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington, D.C., March 2004, Chapter 6

It's a Guy Thing Infertility Telesummit

More later but am pre recording tomorrow a session addressing family creation using donor conception. Should be interesting. 

Donor Conception Postcard Project - Update

The facebook based project has been mildly successful so far. Cards and images trickle in. No major deluge. Positive feedback. 

Not sure how to effectively promote it. Twitter adds something but not a string feeder. Posting updates on other facebook groups has helped. I do like seeing varied messages be submitted and posted. Will let it grow organically. 

A Child's Announcement via a Lawn Sign

How Public is Public

The guest columnist writing the Motherlode column for the NY Times today writes about how open should her family be about their religion in a secular world and conversely how liberal can she be in her religious world. The two worlds colliding when her child comes homes from religious school with a lawn sign that reads Jesus Lives. 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/parenting/2014/04/05/jesus-lives-but-should-he-live-in-my-front-yard/?smid=tw-share

In the end she trusts in the faith that her neighbors are tolerant of all views and the knowledge who their family is that no prejudice would ensue. 

Made me think on some levels how some couples decide not to tell their children they are donor conceived. Once the child knows it might as well at times be a sign on their front lawn.  To do so might add a stigma to the couple's lives that one parent could not procreate as easily as all their neighbors or that the child may grow up with that stigma attached much as adoptees sometimes did a bit when I was a child in the 1970s. 

This post is not addressing whether DC should be used due to issues of identity, medical or abandonment that some donor conceived have experienced.  

This post is simply looking at the issue from a perspective of who

Telling or Not Telling is serving. Clearly in the world some parents might be embarrassed for their neighbors to know as opposed to the honesty of sharing the info with the child so they have that knowledge and can process it as they will as they grow up. 

The analogy to the NYT column is not perfect but with the facts of my world it is part of what I saw and how I reacted. 

(As an aside I did recently see a cartoon or something about Jesus being Donor Conceived. But that would be a whole other post to address that analogy).

Post # 572

Donor Conception Postcard Project: Update 1

Well I have created a facebook page for the Project. The link is below. I have also created a Twitter account for the Project to announce the publishing of new cards received. Interest is definitely out there. 

I have spoken with many people offering support from Olivia Montuschi of the Donor Conception Network  to Alana Newman of the AnonymousUS project. 

Just waiting for cards to start arriving. Here is the contact and link info:

Donor                PO Box 6728

Conception     FDR Station

PostCard        New York, NY

Project             10150-6728

Http://www.facebook.com/DonorConceptionPostcardProject

Twitter @PostcardsDC

Sample postcard submissions:  

Kids Say the Darndest Things

On parenting:

As I have stated in the past my 11 and 9 year olds are very much aware they are donor conceived. This morning daughter, the 9yo, and I were looking at pics of their half sibling sister on facebook and discussing its a shame we live so far away. 

This afternoon while kidding around they were busting on me. Their comment referring to their own good looks: "It's a good thing for the (sperm) donor". 

Took me a moment to get it. I countered with starting a pillow fight. I know they were kidding. They know I know. Doesn't mean the pillow swings were any lighter for it. :-)

Donor Conception Post Card Project

I posted a message to the DI Dads Yahoo Discussion group tonight about soliciting anonymous post cards on the topic of donor insemination. Submissions could be anything they wanted to say about the topic. Concerns, fears, messages of support, anything. The single theme must be about DI. 

I wrote about the single Post Secret card I saw re Donor Conception on their site back in 2008. The responses to the card from donor conceived that I read were usually dismissive of the message written conveyed on the card. 

I am curious what cards I would receive if I opened up the topic to all donor conception issues. Would men and women , donors, donor conceived, parents submit post cards?

Would you?

If you would the address would be as follows.  Maybe this is a crazy idea. Maybe I have no concept what could happen but here goes:

Donor Conception Post Card Project

c/o Eric

PO Box 6728

FDR Station

New York NY 10150-6728

A Parent's Reaction

I saw this post card on this week's display presented at Post Secret dot com. Just struck me. Having lived through years of infertility you recognize the pain and truth. 

Love my kids so much. I don't understand fathers, biological or otherwise, that are not involved in their children's lives, that don't love them fiercely. 

DI Dads Supporting Dads-to-be

Every week I approve new members to the Yahoo DI Dads support discussion group. Generally the new members are either men contemplating using DI with their partners or their spouse is already pregnant via DI and the dad-to-be is looking for support. Their first posts generally involve how will they bond or feel about the child, or perhaps will the child know that they are not its biological father. It runs a gamut of several questions. 

This morning I received an email providing in digest form the posts and responses of the last 24 hours. I am quite proud to say no sooner had one new member posted his concerns that several  current members rose to offer their support and comments how they too felt and how their fears were addressed or without out merit as the love and bonding came automatically. 

These men all want to be fathers, nature or circumstances, threw them curves that prevented it naturally so it is expected that they all have the capacity to love their DI kids and that the kids will love them back. I am proud of our little community and know that any man that steps through that virtual door will find support from guys who have been there and can voice their opinions.