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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Confronting Identity

When I saw Jake's note I my heart started to race, and I wondered if I was weird. This man was not a potential date, he was potentially my biological father. Why then, did I feel such titillation?

I stopped for a moment and looked around the room, as if I were doing something bad, like looking at a questionable or dirty Web page or something. I switched on the light on my desk - as if turning a light on made things less sketchy.

Why were there all these emotions? I pushed away from from my desk and went into my room to put some things away and gather myself together. Organizing my room always made me calm, brought internal order. Entering the brightly lit room, I was caught by a picture of my mother, brother and myself, in a frame on the bookcase. I walked over to it and although it was in front of me, my mind flip back to his email-

"Dear ---,

Fate would have that I checked my yahoo email today, something I rarely do anymore. I went to myspace and was only able to open one of your attachments. You are a very beautiful woman. Can you send the attachments to this email. I check this email daily. I do see a resemblance. The only way to find out is to do a DNA test. The test cost about 130.00 which I would be glad to split the difference. I also have copies of my DNA test.



Truly yours.
Jake."


"You are a very beautiful women" ----- Is that appropriate? I thought. I looked at the photo I held in my hand -- was I beautiful? Yes, I mean I guess.... I think. I put the picture down and laid in my bed. I remember my Dad would always stop by the bathroom when I was a self-concious teen putting on makeup and standing in the doorway he would say "you know, you are so beautiful sweetheart" ---"DAD!!!!" I would whine in my teen embarrassment, and he would walk away.

Fifteen or so years later I was overcome with tears. The type of blithering, runny knows tears they reserve for day time soaps. Was he admiring something he was in awe of? Was my father wondering where my beauty came from? What is the difference between this man who did not know me, and this man that had carried me home from the hospital admiring the woman I was?


I was not prepared for this. I had to work, I had things to do. How dare someone I did not know create this drama?

In seconds, tears switched to anger and I charged back out to my desk and slammed the laptop closed.

A day or so went by and I realized I need to reply and get the testing done. I wrote him back after I had looked at a few DNA test sites. I had to laugh when I saw the DNA site. It was clearly a baby's momma - site. The kind of site they use on Maury Povich show called "Who is my baby's daddy?" A female guest sits in tears with two men competing for paternity of her child. Maury - speaking in the background as they do a split screen of the child in question and the father.

This is what it had come to...good grief. The site had a home made kit you did not even have to send away. You use swabs from the drug store ( apparently qtips do not work too well) and envelopes and you follow the instructions printed from the site. Include a check and your baby daddy drama is close to over. They had overnight, high-cost, tests. I thought, when would you need to know tomorrow if someone was you father? I opted for a the second fastest method - one week and we would know.

I swabbed my cheek and asked Jake to do the same. We never spoke live although he offered to meet in person and put the cheek swabs together. I chose to keep in email. I was such a live wire, I could not imagine how I would be meeting this person.

It was right before Thanksgiving - could we get any more ironic?

Technorati Tags: Anonymous, Technology, Gay Parenting, Parenting, Children, Family, Pregnancy, Women, Sperm Donor, Infertility, Society, Artificial Insemination, Gay

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Flirting with Identity.

Jake was the gay, liberal dad I never knew I had. Late one night I sat staring at his quirky MySpace page on my laptop in a state somewhere between elation and confusion. There he was, standing with two hands resting on the handle of a shovel stuck in the dirt. The crooked smile and deep brown eyes looking back at me from the screen seemed familiar.

Jake's post had been on the donor sibling registry board for a long time but since it said "Jewish Russian" I'd passed over it. He'd donated to the same Park Avenue clinic in which my mother was inseminated, but she had asked for a Christian, Polish donor. Hence, I assumed that's what she got. A day earlier, in a moment of lucidity I wondered how she could be so sure. I mean, what verification occurs to assure the nationality of a donor or his religion if we don't even know his name? I mean, duh.

I surfed further to his online photo album via a link provided on his profile. My hands grew a bit sweaty and my finger vibrated a bit with each click of the mouse.  I wasn't quite sure why I was so nervous. My initial exploration was driven less by the desire to identify him and more by basic voyeuristic curiosity. How could this man be bearing his soul online when I'm afraid to post my picture on a blog where I have poured my heart about a family secret? And there he was, a gay actor.

 I stared, refocused and read again.

A gay actor?

He had been with his "partner" for years. They stood together in picture after picture, sometimes at home, sometimes on vacation.

A sudden fire engine outside my apartment made me jump up and then a split second later I was struck by laughter. Not because he was gay - how cool is that - but at the sheer ridiculousness of this entire situation. From my mother's insemination by some medical intern 30 years ago, to me sitting at a laptop contemplating gentic relation via a frigin MySpace page, this was just total ridiculousness. I could just imagine my Mom reacting to the news about the donor....

"But I ordered a Catholic polish medical intern!"she would say angrily.

"Sorry Ma, looks like things went a little differently," I'd say.

God, I would need a camera when I told her.

I continued to click through pictures with a guilty pleasure. It was like I was exploring myself in some detached way. He had an entire album of family photos. While his recent photos made him look a bit worn out, my resemblance to his younger photos was uncanny.

So I wrote an email to him via MySpace:

"Hi - I saw your post on the Donor Sibling Registry and viewed your pictures.You donated to the same clinic the same year that my mom was insemminated. Here is a photo of myself and if you see a resemblance too, we can move forward from there."

Short and sweet, I thought. Not to weird...very matter of fact. I mean there isn't a book of etiquette out there on this type of stuff. It's funny because I'm normally not so rigid but for some reason I felt a need to be stern, be sterile, be emotionless, but logical. Ironically, so similar to the essence of artificial insemination itself - something so special and life changing done in a methodical medical fashion. I can never forget my mother telling me in the days before sperm freezing, the vile was brought in a brown paper bag to the office from the hospital around the corner. God, can't get more detached than that.

I waited. I checked mail every hour - as if there was any chance that he check email at 11pm at night. I obsessed about it. Was he near a computer, now? How about now? Was he opening it? I tried to visualize him opening my message. Did he have an organized desk, or a cluttered desk? A laptop or a PC? Was he a Mac guy?

The night past without response.

In off moments on busy days I would find myself thinking about my email or Jake. I would practice redirecting my mind to something else. I had perfected this practice when I had gone on that first date with some guy I was interested in but wanted to temper my excitement so I wasn't hurt..keep my options open...guard myself. Yet we weren't dating, this man could be my biological father- weird, I know. But there was a similarity, this was the first step in a potentially important relationship and I felt so vunerable.

And then, I checked my personal mail at work and saw it "Jake2134." I clicked to open it:

"Dear ---,

Fate would have that I checked my yahoo email today, something I rarely do anymore. I went to myspace and was only able to open one of your attachments. You are a very beautiful woman. Can you send the attachments to this email. I check this email daily. I do see a resemblance. The only way to find out is to do a DNA test. The test cost about 130.00 which I would be glad to split the difference. I also have copies of my DNA test.

Truly yours.
Jake."

To Be Continued.......

UPDATED - This story was continued in two later posts Confronting Identity and Not The Man


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