“Mum told me when I was a child all about how desperate she was for a baby, and how much I was wanted, and I was special…it doesn’t feel like that.”

by Them Before Us | Feb 16, 2019 | EXPORT, Stories

(Originally published at Anonymous Us) I was conceived via AID (artificial insemination donor) as it was called in the late 1960s in England. My father had his prostate removed so he and my mother went down the route of artificial insemination by anonymous donor. Mum...

“The one constant in my life no matter what else fell apart…my parents’ marriage….had crumbled. And within weeks, I was absorbing that my dad…was not my dad.”

by Them Before Us | Feb 16, 2019 | EXPORT, Stories

(Originally published on AnonymousUs) I’m 41 & female. When I was 26, my mother told me I was donor conceived.I had just moved with my husband from my home state of Minnesota to Idaho. The reason for the move was that my parents had just divorced, and my mother...

Corbin’s story | “Most of my youth [my mom] was a lesbian. My father decided that he has always been a woman.”

by Them Before Us | Nov 28, 2018 | EXPORT, Stories

My parents were allegedly a common law marriage, but the state they lived in didn’t recognize common law marriage at the time, so far as I can tell. They were hippies, my father was a drunk and a junkie, my mother left him when I was 2 and my brother 4. My...

John’s story | “My mother was pictured as ignorant and irresponsible by my stepmother.”

by Them Before Us | Nov 28, 2018 | Stories

My parents were separated before I knew what was going on. I remember another woman I didn’t know yelling at me about something to do with a baby crawling on the floor. I remember my dad and another woman naked in a sauna that was part of the apartment. Then I...

Tara’s story | “…The father in my house was not really my dad.”

by Them Before Us | Nov 15, 2018 | EXPORT, Stories

My parents married at 18 years of age because of my impending arrival. My mother and I—along with my brother, who came along 15 months later—lived with my maternal grandparents for the first few years of my life. My dad was in the US Air Force and stationed far away,...

Samantha’s story | “In Kansas there were no women, only Dad and Billy and my baby brother.”

by Them Before Us | Nov 4, 2018 | EXPORT, Stories

I was kidnapped when I was 8 months old. My father snuck me out of a diner in Albuquerque, NM while my mother was in the bathroom. My father moved me around quite a bit and stayed off the grid as much as possible to avoid detection from my mother. In Denver Colorado...