(Originally published at Anonymous Us)
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 had moved to Idaho to be near family, and we went too because my mom & I are and have always been very close.
I couldn’t help but note that this revelation came once they had divorced & were not getting along at all. Clearly, her decision to tell me stemmed from a place of anger at him…. hoping I would stop having contact with him in an attempt to rob him of me & thereby punish him for hurting her (they divorced because he was unfaithful). I don’t blame her, and don’t believe she was fully aware of the reasons herself. She was hurting. He’d shattered her entire reality – 33 years of marriage – in one fell swoop. I knew how she felt. I thought my parents’ divorce was the hardest thing I’d ever have to get through… my entire life basis, my rock, 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. I loved him, but we were never close. We just never understood each other or connected. I never did tell him that I knew. I felt it would serve no purpose other than to hurt him & it didn’t change my relationship with him, so I didn’t want him to think it would. I also did not feel guilty keeping this from him. He decided, right along side my mom, to take this road. Their situation was a result of decisions already made by them and kept from me. My entire childhood, I felt wrong. I felt out of place and different from other kids. I was an only child…. lonely & desperate for brothers & sisters but my parents told me my mother was told not to have more children due to health problems. I know now that they could only afford “fertility treatment” once. I asked my mother several times while I was growing up if I was adopted. I knew I was different. Note – we are people. We are not easily fooled; our sense of knowing tells us something is off and we know that as surely as we’ve ever known anything. We are not “treatments” or the physical representations of our parents’ desire to have children… We are not donated genetic tissue. We are not sperm. We are not a procedure. We are human beings. And we suffer. Who relishes feeling like a freak without being able to pinpoint why?
Now I know. I have a biological father I’ll most likely never know anything about. I have siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents that I’ll never know. I have ancestral roots I’ll never be able to trace. I have a story – MY STORY – that I will forever be denied the right to read. I don’t look like my mom, or, obviously, my dad. I can sing. Can he? Neither of my parents could carry a tune if it was in a bucket. Does he care that he has a biological daughter who has sang in musicals on stage? Who sangs June Carter Cash’s Wildwood Flower in front of an audience with so much emotion that it made her and the audience cry? Who barely held it together when she got to the lines
“Now I long to see him and regret the dark hour
He’s gone and neglected his pale wildwood flower”
because it suddenly & unexpectedly made her think of him? Who wonders every time she passes a stranger, “Is that him?” Who wonders if he’s where her love of travel & Tudor history come from? Where her nose comes from? Where SHE comes from? I’ve seen stories here that talk about a woman’s innate, uncontrollable need & RIGHT to bear children; to impart her DNA to a tiny new person. What about that tiny new PERSON’s innate, uncontrollable need/right to know where she/he comes from?? A right adoptees are given, and we are not. It’s understood that adoptees’ emotional & mental well being (not to mention their physical well being when discussing the topic of medical history) hinges largely on that NEED we all have to know what has made us and where we come from. But we are not afforded the same. We… the silent suffers, the freaks…. We donor conceived who chose the circumstances of our existence no more than an adoptee…. Where is our choice? My parents were given this “choice” when they could not make children together. My donor made the choice to donate. Where is my choice? Please do not tell me to be grateful I’m here. I did not ask for this. And how do you know I am not grateful? I do not think donorship is a bad thing. I think anonymous donorship is. It is possible to be grateful for the gift of life, and at the same time, question the ethics of our conception. We suffer. And we are not given choice. The signature on the form that accepted the “anonymity” of that donation did not come from me. My parents gave consent. My donor gave consent. I…. did not.
My dad passed away last year. He passed alone, not having seen me for 5 years. We just…. drifted apart. I feel enormous guilt at the thought him dying alone in a hospice center, his body finally giving out…. He died of Parkinson’s Disease. I loved him. But every time I talked to him or looked at him, I was reminded all over again of my donor origins. Our relationship suffered. He suffered. We suffered. I could not change the way I felt, no matter how guilty that made me feel – which, in turn, made me feel even more guilty. And even through all this pain, one fact was clear… this was not my guilt, but it had been given to me. This “secret” was not my shame, but it had been given to me; given to me because who else is it going to be given too? S**t rolls downhill…. and settles on the flat ground at the bottom.
We have to realize that this is wrong.
I’m still unable to look at my dad’s urn without crying. I can’t listen to Johnny Cash’s It Ain’t Me Babe or Neil Diamond’s Holly Holy without crying, because my dad loved those songs. I still feel guilty because I know I didn’t love him as much as I should have. Because I couldn’t…. and I tried.
Does my biological father love those songs? Does he love hummus like I do? Does he love history like I do? Does he love live concerts like I do? Does he get chills listening to Kurt Cobain singing Where Did You Sleep Last Night like I do? Does he lean left in his politics like I do? I’ll never know. Because I was robbed of two fathers.
It sounds like your Dad rejected you and that’s a big reason for your hurt. It was wrong and unfair for him to do that. Relationships are a two way street and love isn’t something we are obligated to do. It’s something you either do or you don’t do. I wish you peace in processing this all.
. I could not change the way I felt, no matter how guilty that made me feel – which, in turn, made me feel even more guilty. And even through all this pain, one fact was clear… this was not my guilt, but it had been given to me. This “secret” was not my shame, but it had been given to me; given to me because who else is it going to be given too? S**t rolls downhill…. and settles on the flat ground at the bottom.
Oh my word. You spoke my truth right there. Words I have been searching for and could never find. I wasn’t donor conceived but my mom was young and didn’t bother getting his name. I don’t fit. I’m lost. I love my mom but I am so angry. Then I feel guilty, makes me more angry. I’m lost. I have no identity. No one understands.
You did not choose to be donor conceived, and I did not choose to be born in a “traditional” family that has a lot of disfunctional issues. I am not close to either of my parents because both are very judgmental. I can only share the good news because when something goes wrong, it is always my fault and they are annoyed to hear it. Neither are good listeners, my mother is passive and narcissistic, she had children because she didn’t want to work. She had hired help at home, and was in constant fights with my father about her spending. My father is very impatient, worked long hours and yelled at us (kids) as soon as we did one thing that he did not like. I am not close to my sibblings. My brother has psychological problems and is anti-social as a result. My sister is a narcissist as well and always tried to compete with me as a child and started hating me when I started having a better career then hers. She still resents it and seizes every opportunity to put me down. I really wish I could have had a great mom who could have been my friend and confidante, but we don’t choose our parent or parents, none of us do, so let’s stop feeling sorry for ourselves and appreciate what we had and have.
Who your biological parents are probably explains your comment here. You seem to have the judgmental gene as well.
I don’t think Ester is being judgemental, she’s trying to be encouraging and positive, pointing out that the grass is not always greener on the other side: “appreciate what we had and have”.
But yes, working through pain is really important, otherwise it just builds up beneath the veneer of happiness and explodes later.
Recognizing pain. Being able to speak it out loud. Working through feelings is not feeling sorry for yourself. Everyone has painful things in their life to be sure. Your pain does not change her pain. Why the need to shut her down?
Anonymus sperm donors don’t have a thought about the many children that could be conceived or anything about them. They don’t even want to think about it. They’re just looking to pay their bills or eat. In my situation I’m trying to understand why my biological father (who did know I existed) wouldn’t answer a simple letter that said “May I please have medical information. No more will be asked.”
You both have voiced that you have pain from your family of origin. I too have suffered from the effects of my family—my dad was bipolar and my parents had a difficult divorce. I feel that my pain that has a different source but certainly does not diminish your pain from discovering your dad was not your bio dad and that you will never have the privilege of knowing your biological father and his relatives.
There’s so much pain and sadness in all’s these circumstances. It’s true, all families have dysfunction, but for some the scars are deeper and more pronounced. It’s clear that humanity is broken… no one is perfect and we suffer from our own failing and from the failings of those around us. But I have found hope. For me it has been through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In Him I’ve found myself and my true identity and real freedom. Look into Him if your open to that. Blessings to all.
Me too. I never knew my bio father or indeed mother I was conceived in adultery, relinquished to an orphanage then adopted by a childless couple
How they loved me through my childhood , teenage years as an identity broken product of the womb- woman to whom I was a disgrace a mistake and horror.
But love wins. We belong where we are loved. And my wife of 53 years has given more of that and I have learned, to her too.
We belong where love is Its bigger than DNA ,thicker than blood, more enduring than ancestry.
Blessings to you in Christ’s Name