Mar 22, 2025
hanne, Daughter of elsa
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hanne, Daughter of elsa
Guilty Of Being Selfish
I have written about my non-existent father on here before, and all of my negative feelings still remain, but today I realized how selfish I am for feeling that way sometimes. I have friends that listen to their parents fight every night as they sit through the walls of their room listening. I have friends with parents in such a nasty divorce that their clothing and belongings are shipped from house to house in a box. Yet I sit here complaining about loneliness, when the whole time all of these people probably long for that peace and quiet. Today I realized that not having a dad still makes my life harder day after day, but I also came to terms with the fact that my friends' lives are hard too, and they can't just make the pain go away -- they hear it through their parents' voices slowly drifting away, they see it as they sit in a court room and listen to a verdict, and they probably relive the hell every time they transition from house to house. And it makes me feel horrible to say how unhappy I am for never getting to feel my mom fight with another parent, or how sad I get on Father's Day because I don't know who my dad is. Because while I say those kinds of things, there are people I know covering their ears to muffle fighting shouts and spending Father's Day at their mother's house because of custody. So today I am posting a different story, one where I see my whole situation as more than coming from anonymous sperm, today I see my story as part of a whole. Today I see my story as a part of many who have troubles at home that extends past having a puzzle for a life with a mystery as my father. -Anonymous April 12, 2015 http://anonymousus.org/stories/story.php?sid=1875#.VTW1kRPF-Sc
I See Myself in the Mirror
Every morning I see my mother when I look in the mirror. I see her in my nose, its slightly bulbous end sitting in the middle of my face. I see her in my chin, its lack of natural definition constantly making it appear as if it was doubled. I see her in my sparse eyebrows, thin hair, the shape of my hands, my toes. When I look inside of myself I see her as well. She is in my anger, my love, my heart. I share with her my love of books and philosophy as well as my inability to sing. I share so much of me with her or her with me that sometimes I forget. I forget that when I look in the mirror, I only see her and me. There have been days where I searched the mirror for clues. Is it my eyes? My lips? My pale skin? My narrow and small fingers? My small mouth? Where was HE in ME? I searched and I searched, analyzing the parts of myself that I cannot explain by my known nature and are incongruent from my nurture. The questions of "Why this?" and "Who am I?" constantly echoing in my head. Eventually, these echoes began to interfere with my life. How could I go to class and work every day when I didn't know who I was? How could I know who I am unless I knew who and what MADE me? This obsession would last for weeks at a time. Recently though something has changed. There has been some part of me that has learned to accept, not only accept, grow and thrive, off of my lack of knowledge. I used to hide my beginnings, sure that no one would know, but I realize that they do. Family is screwed up, I am not alone in not knowing my father. It was not and is not wrong for me to look in the mirror every morning and have a piece of me wonder WHY and WHO, but it is wrong for me to believe that the world would not understand, because, in truth, no one truly understands another. For me to believe that my pains were somehow worse than another's or harder was selfish. I still wonder, but I no longer do it silently. Others need to know of my story, even as I learn about theirs. I have taken this identity that I do not know, despite the knowledge of it since my birth, and made it into my own. I am at peace, not with having a sperm donor as my father (I may never come to terms with that) but with my position as a DC person, one with a story to tell and advice to give. I have managed to complete myself, somehow, from something broken to someone whole. When I look in the mirror now, I see echoes of others but mainly, I just see me. -Anonymous on anonymousus.org January 27, 2015
I'm pretty upset nothing has come out of my search for siblings. I was able to contact one family who had 2 children from my sperm donor father but they (my siblings) still haven't attempted to contacted me and don't seem very willing to. Plus their parents haven't been very prompt with emails. Meanwhile there's 4 other siblings out there who haven't even replied to my emails that I sent a month ago. Looking at the registries, they only seem interested in finding the donor and they get so freaked out when they are, instead, found by a sibling. Is there any other donor offspring out there that isn't interested in contacting siblings (I find it so bizarre that one wouldn't want to)?
What do you guys refer to your donor as?
Growing up I used to call him my "donor dad".
National Sibling Day for Donor Siblings
Posted by Deborah Goldstein on April 11, 2013 at 9:11 AM
Yesterday was National Sibling Day. Did you know? I didn’t know until it was too late. It was too late for me to organize some sort of card exchange or celebratory cupcakes for the boys, allowing them to officially appreciate each other. I wouldn’t mind establishing an annual tradition of brotherly love for our two sons.
Next year, I tell myself. Next year, we’ll do something to recognize the day. Next year, both brothers will say a few nice words and then maybe go swing side by side on the two swings in the backyard or maybe we’ll get them a tandem bicycle for the two of them to ride together, or….
That nagging voice interrupts my event planning with an uninvited correction.
There are more than two of them.
Shut up, Voice! I know!
It’s true. There are others. I don’t know how many for certain, but I am certain there are more out there thanks to some Jewish mother who told her son that he was God’s gift, so he donated millions of his swimmers to a sperm bank, providing a service to all those in search of mensch genes.
I’ve been to Donor Sibling Registry to check out how many kids our donor has spawned, but it’s an incomplete list. I know the list is incomplete because I haven’t registered my own name, and I assume there are other lurking parents, too. I confess that the idea of opting into a polygynous tribe like a herd of elephant seals makes me wee bit uncomfortable, perhaps due to the fact that I am describing us all as a herd of elephant seals; admittedly not the most flattering of comparisons.
There have been a number of articles and documentaries about children of donors who reach out to their half-siblings through the Donor Sibling Registry in order to find connection as in Kids of 5114 and Donor Unknown. When they meet, they marvel at their physical similarities, shared mannerisms and mutual interests. They find a deeper understanding of who they are. Would we deny our own children that experience? No, we wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. We certainly did not choose the donor sperm path in order to plug in to some sort of extended family. What do all of us parents have in common anyway? We all wanted skinny, Jewish children who were destined to wear corrective eyewear?
I imagine the first meeting of all our donor families. It’s a summer picnic, potluck of course. I picture Big Love without Bill, Sister Wives without Kody, and I ask myself if the mother of the oldest child is the First Wife. Then I berate myself for fearing the unknown. I picture our boys checking out their newfound half siblings and identifying all the donor traits they have in common. They quickly realize that while the donor provided them all with impossibly thick eyelashes, I alone am responsible for the ears that stick straight out from the sides of their heads like Mr. Potato Head’s. I wonder if they will resent me for their sticky out ears.
Then I imagine that eventually I get over myself. I find an ease amongst parents who wanted to create their own families just like we did and who are there to support their children’s curiosity and openness. I imagine our children find answers and connection and are as grateful to our donor as we are.
Who knows if the day will come when the boys ask to find their donor-siblings. They will take the lead on this one. If they want to know them, we will do whatever we can to make it happen. After that, we’ll have to play it by my Mr. Potato Head ear.
So today, a customer at the grocery store I work at asked if I had a big family and I didn't know exactly what to say. Referring to my biological family, hell yeah I do. But referring to my own family, eh sorta. Perks of being a donor baby.
Visibility
I have never knowingly met another donor-conceived person (besides my siblings). I often look at the LGBTQA community and see that they are very organized with support groups and such. They also have visibility. They have subtle and overt ways of showing that they are part of the community. For example, they can wear rainbow bracelets, attire etc. and this makes it easier to meet other in the same community. It would be great to have a subtle way to show we are in the donor-conceived community, whether its through certain color bracelets, designs, or sayings on shirts. I know there's a popular brand out there DC, but i'm not so sure about that. Any ideas?!
Date submitted: December 14, 2014 -Anonymous on http://anonymousus.org/