Confessions of a Cryokid: Quick post on using FamilyFinder DNA

Confessions of a Cryokid: Quick post on using FamilyFinder DNA: "So between advising two DC friends of mine who recently went through with FFDNA tests to help them identify their biological father, and rea..."

Who Am I Today?

There is a bright side to only seeing half the picture of who you are. You can always imagine and define the other half.  Whenever I’m challenged with something I imagine that my biological father had some great gift with which I too have been endowed. I think of this very industrious and anonymous sperm making a very long journey with an amazing gift just for me.

I can “fill in the blanks” with whatever gift would be most useful at the moment. If I’m nervous about a big presentation or speech at work, I fantasize a little to myself that aside from being a cardiac surgeon my sperm donor was a talented speaker..... and he gives amazing medical presentations all the time...the talent is in my blood! Or sometimes when I get writer’s block I tell myself the donor was a great writer and I too must have those skills deep inside.

To be honest, I do a lot of fantasizing about the identity of the donor. Not all of it is a self-serving motivational tool. A greater part of it is a futile attempt to quench an insatiable thirst for knowledge that I do not have.  I say “thirst” because the urge to know feels that instinctual, carnal, like an itch that my mind relentlessly and unsuccessfully tries to scratch. it's this sense that I need to lay my eyes on him, see him, so I can be whole. Imagining him is the only way to put my mind at peace.

I suspect my mother does a lot of fantasizing as well, though I’ve never really discussed it with her.  I mean, if you haven’t seen the face of the man that is fathering your child, I can’t imagine you wouldn’t naturally fill it in. 

I sense she is quite proud that the donor was a medical intern. It also leads her to believe I’ve been endowed with some type of heightened intelligence or knack for the scientific. While there is an element of this that really, really bothers me there is another piece of it that can pump up my self esteem when I need it. 

As with any psychological construct, the donor doesn’t have to be realistic or multi-dimensional, his total identity can exist only to serve whatever emotion needs to be fed. 

It makes me wonder if there isn’t an element of this at play for mother’s who undergo artificial insemination. The anonymity provides a “blank slate” or a “tabla rasa” of sorts on which you can project all kinds of thoughts and desires. Mates in reality are so much more disappointing. All men have flaws, many go bald, some drink...all seem to have a greater aptitude for flatulence than females :) 

Blogs of single women attempting to conceive via AI or raising children already conceived via AI are full of stories about men from prior relationships that just “weren’t right“ or “didn’t make the cut.”  Yet, many (dare I say most) deny that fantasy plays a role in the choice for AI.

Lori Gottlieb, a single mother via AI and author of the controversial essay, “Marry Him”  got lambasted by women across the internet for making the argument single woman who want a family should settle for “Mr. Good Enough.”  She wasn’t commenting on AI, but on the link between some struggles of single motherhood and her previous unwillingness “to settle” for a less than perfect mate earlier in her life (she later expanded this argument in her book "Marry Him".) I bring it up because she highlights the “fantasy” so many women have a the perfect mate. Gottlieb writes:

“A female friend who broke up with a guy because he “didn’t like to read” and who is now, too, a single mom (with, ironically, no time to read herself) similarly felt no regrets—at first. At the time, she couldn’t imagine settling, but here’s the Catch-22: “If I’d settled at 39,” she said, “I always would have had the fantasy that something better exists out there. Now I know better. Either way, I was screwed.”

When AI is the chosen course of action for single mothers, anonymous donation leaves room to make the donor the “something better” that “exists out there.” While I’m not contending this element of "sperm fantasy" is always conscious...it’s pretty hard to argue that it plays no part in the the AI experience.

All this fantasy however is a slippery slope. For me, it’s a constant struggle to figure out exactly which part is “the other.” I compare myself, my mother and my brother all the time to sort out what is the same and what is different.  Beyond basic physical traits it’s the difference in personality and intellect that are most interesting but so much harder to figure it out. Personality and intellect are so complex they don’t easily offer themselves to deconstruction - letting you put your sense of humor in the “mom” basket and knack for math in the “dad” basket.

Geez, the “dad” basket. God.....if it were only that simple.


Technorati Tags: Anonymous, Children, Family, Parenting, Sperm Donor, Pregnancy, Society, Women, Social, Infertility

This Isn't Just How "I" Feel

I have a knack for meeting parents with children conceived via artificial insemination in random moments. Not surprisingly, a few days ago I spent 12 hours on a transatlantic flight with the mother of a child born through artificial insemination.

Her eyes accidentally caught the title of an article on donor offspring I was reading and you could immediately feel the energy shift. We went from two people preoccupied with those first minutes before a flight, putting things away, settling in, to her barely moving and clearly focused on me.
I kept reading, but through the corner of my eye I could see her eyes quickly darting around to my other items, my clothing, my books....trying to investigate quickly..."who is she?" We sat quietly until about 30 minutes after takeoff, when she exploded with a question.

"Are you interested in artificial insemination?" she asked.

It was as if she had been holding it in for as long as she could and all that suppression had given her words the propulsion of a rock from a slingshot.

Literally, seconds earlier, the flight attendant stopped to ask, "would you like some water?" I had to laugh because this follow up question just sounded so random....
 
"Are you interested in artificial insemination?"
 
....ah yeah........"yes actually, would you happen to have an sperm on you that I could have? I'd like to go into the bathroom and inseminate myself once the seat belt sign goes off. you know, join the mile high AI club...."  - Just kidding

Anyway I explained that yes I was and asked why she was so interested. Now as an aside here (and I promise I will be back to the story in just a second) what strikes me as an notable contrast between the parents of donor offspring and the offspring themselves is how eager the majority of parents involved in AI are to chat and connect in public. On the flip side, while I "hear" the voices of many donors online I don't normally meet them in public and have the "hey your dad is a donor too? whaddya know?" kind of moments.

As donor offspring, we are typically far more anonymous, cautious and afraid of how our "secret" will effect others.  We have typically been brought up in families where the nature of our conception is the source of great pain and sometimes intense secrecy. It's not something your parents reveal to you and say, "go on now honey.....go play and tell your friends....then we'll have a my daddy is a donor party!...." But I digress.

I think she assumed that I was a mother that wanted to conceive. When I explained I was instead the conceived, I thought her eyes might just pop out of her head and roll back through the isle. We sat for a moment looking at each other.

"Really," she said

"Yes, Really," I said

"Really" she said again...this was getting ridiculous.

"How do you know? " she asked.

"I found a stamp on the bottom of my foot that said "donor-conceived" -- no I didn't say that, but I wanted to because jesus christ what an awkward question.

So I explained how I'd found out all that jazz. What is hilarious is that I could tell that there were like four people sitting in seat around us glancing over. This is such a curious topic for so many. I thought for a moment, "perhaps I should get on the PA and do a public service announcement...you know, educate people," but I controlled myself.

Then came the inevitable so "how do you feel about it?"

And....I shared what I thought, what those of you who read this blog know, that I'm not to thrilled with the fact that I am disconnected from half my genetic lineage. I shared that the nature of my birth, which is  typically such a wondrous thing, is steeped in secrets and shame and that I have carried this loss, this heavy heavy burden for many years and it makes me at first very angry but then eventually depressed.

Boom!! - you would have thought I slapped her across the face...and I did not I promise :).  In fact, I am being a little more frank and grating with how I spoke here because in person, I'm actually quite diplomatic and agreeable; my delivery much less harsh.

And then she said what most of the parents I have spoken to say:

"I'm sorry you feel that way" - with and emphasis on the "you."

----------
I have to take a moment here, because writing this down, recollecting the moment, actually makes me so darn upset.  I get many, many comments on my blog from the parents of donor offspring. One comment on one of my most read posts: "A Mother Considering Artificial Insemination" from a father echos the same sentiment as my flight partner. He wrote:

"I am truly sorry for how tormented you are by your origin, and I hope my son never feels that pain; if he does, I want to be there with him to confront it. "

It's as if the subtext of both of the above commentaries is that the way I feel is unique.  They are sorry that I'm not satisfied with the status quo but that is me and "if" their child feels that way it will be unfortunate.

Now I'm a very logical and analytical person and I truly try to be objective in my analysis of topics in general. In reading so many donor conceived and adoptees blogs, talking to them via email, reading the scientific literature and engaging the community in general, I have to say if there is one thing of which I can be absolutely certain it's:

THIS ISN'T JUST THE WAY I FEEL

There is such a common sense of loss and seeking among every single child conceived through anonymous artificial insemination that it's almost a badge of identity. It's not to say that there aren't varying levels of these negative feelings and that some parents have better equip their children to deal with these feelings, but they are still there. They are, in every way, unavoidable.

It frightens me that so many parents of donor-conceived children seem to be in denial of the potentially negative and hurtful consequences of their decisions. This is not to generalize and say that all parents are unaware but there is definitely an overarching trend of detachment from what's going on here.

I'd also say their is a direct correlation between the level of anonymity in the donation and sense of loss of the child. So the less anonymity (as in, say, a situation where a donor is a known to the family and has actually engaged the child once or twice) the less the loss. But the loss is still there in this case - and more importantly this is not the case in most AI scenarios. They are mostly anonymous.

It's as if the very same detachment that occurs when a man masturbates in a cup and sends genetic material along to a destination unknown or a young woman undergoes an egg extraction with little knowledge of their recipient, seeps into the entire process. A "contagious detachment" pervades the entire process as parents and doctors alike detach from the very real consequences of this decision to focus solely on the delivery of a child.

If there are any children conceived through AI reading this that disagree with me, that feel total peace and happiness and at absolutely no loss for their circumstance I wholeheartedly and openly request your commentary.

But alas, I have serious doubts that will occur as I know in my heart, this isn't just the way I feel.

Technorati Tags: Anonymous, Children, Family, Parenting, Internet, Pregnancy, Society, Women, Social, Infertility

The Dirty Little Secret

I visited the donor sibling registry yesterday and as usual, discovered nothing new or revelatory. It's starting to be one of those meaningless rituals we all have, like looking in the same jewelry store window on a street you walk down everyday. Nothing you can have, just nice to look and dream.

I ended up looking at all the video clips of Wendy Kramer and her son, Ryan, on everything from Oprah to GMA. Man this pair get some serious airplay. I do appreciate the work that they have done with the DSR and the exposure they have given the cause but I still find myself getting annoyed. I questioned myself, ----why were these 10-20 minutes of the two talking so infuriating? I mean they are doing a great thing, right?

 In one segment Ryan is described as a "rocket scientist"  and Wendy as a "trailblazer." God, you have to love TV, soon we'll have AI "super heros." Ok, Ok,  I know we need speakers out there and we need a core Web site, but there is something inside me that cringes at some of these clips.  I'm not saying this to bash the pair in any way but something here is a little artificial. The donor-conceived "story" needs more voices.  It shouldn't be dominated or owned by one (or two) core voices.

Just as I was contemplating this anger, a note popped up that I had to pay my DSR dues. The subscription fees on the DSR have gone up to $50 a year  but you can also pay a one time fee of $150. Images of a really bad infomercial popped into my head..."are you looking for half your genetic heritage?...so you wonder who you are?...fret no more....get a year of endless searching for your father for just $50 or.... order now and get our limited time offer to search for a lifetime for just $150!"

With more than 30,000 connected on the site...that adds up to a lot of money. Curious, I started looking through the tax returns publicly available on the site. I didn't realize that they took a salary, albeit reasonable $80,000 for Wendy and around $6,000 for Randy plus all the office and online fees and coverage for travel around $11,000. Somehow I thought this was all being done out of their pockets but I guess that would not have been feasible. It's become a career, at least for Wendy. Still, however much this made me less grateful and put a chink in the "saintly" image I had of the DSR, I guess there is no other way to keep it going.

All this reviewed and weighed, I was STILL irritated.  It's not as if I want them to go away, so what is irking me?

I think part of it is that these stories, Wendy and Ryan traveling around the world giving speeches, the movies with pretty actresses like Annette Benning and J. Lo are the appealing, easily-exploited side of artificial insemination. In these made for TV stories, everyone is aware,. There is strife but family and friends are mostly supportive. The families, though a little taxed, operate mostly functionally. There is a far more complex and painful underbelly to the donor offspring experience that is not explored or given a voice.

What gets barely mentioned is that much of artificial insemination is kept a secret. A secret, that like a tangling ivy grows through a family and holds people back. A secret that can't be evaluated or studied in the myriad reports and recommendations out there. The numbers can't be documented but I would argue those hidden in shame and silence are the majority.

When there is divorce (as I believe is the case with the Kramers) then things get revealed. Yes, there are some lone "DI Dad's" out there supporting the cause, but they are few and far between.  For that reason, I don't think their open and accepting viewpoints are truly reflective of reality. Most men, including my father, are not so keen to announce they are incapable of having children.

And, yes, I will admit I am talking here about heterosexual families, because, clearly secrets of this nature aren't possible when you have parents of the same sex. Somewhere along the line, the child would figure it out. I think this is an ideal dynamic because it forces these parents to truly consider the loss to the child and at the very least come to some common agreement on what will be said and explained. I'm not saying it isn't less difficult for children of gay and lesbian parents to deal with, I'm saying the scenario is one less ripe for the growth of dysfunction and secrecy.

But, many, many of us inhabit this darker side of AI, where it was used as a band aid for a very deep wound a couple endured when they discovered they were infertile. We find out, often in tense situations where one parent is angered at the other and we are not supposed to tell people. Often, not all of our family knows. It's shameful, its a failure, its something of which our parents are not proud. It's also part of the fabric of who we are.

I have a younger brother and he doesn't know. My aunts don't know. My uncles don't know. Family to whom I have no biological relationship tell me I look them in, have their gifts and qualities and I just laugh inside.

My mother told me in a chaotic moment  and I am not even sure my father knows that I know. She says it would "destroy " my father. To be honest, I don't really care so much about how my father feels, its the situation with my brother that feels like someone is ripping my friggin heart out. He has a very adversarial  relationship with my Dad at the moment (as many young boys becoming men do) and my mother is concerned  that this would add fuel to a fire.

I post for him on the DSR, hoping I can find his donor and spare him some of my own loss. I would give up finding my own if I could find his for him. I can't imagine telling him without having something to share, otherwise it's just delivering a gut wrenching loss.

Is it my place to tell him? I feel like I am betraying him. If I do havoc will breakout in my family and my mother will be in pieces. When I found out in my early twenties I remember being almost numb to the idea. I had never really gotten along with my Dad or connected to him so it wasn't a huge "loss" as I don't think we ever had a real  bond. The part of it that felt terrifying was to hear my brother and I had different donors. I felt ripped from him, my little brother, my pal. 

As I contemplated the thought for the first time it was like an appendage was being ripped from me in some way. I felt sudden intense anger at my mother, who in all her clamor to have a child couldn't think enough to find means to use the same sperm. I felt protective of this little boy, who in my arms I held at seven years old when he was born, pretending he was my baby doll and fighting with my mom to give him his bottles. God, I love him so much and..... I'm suddenly incapable of protecting him from what I know to be an intense feeling of loss ...outside of keeping a painful secret. I felt my mother's actions had separated us and it was unbearable.  At that time I could not think about it without having trouble breathing. Only a few years later can I even talk about it and here, without my identity, its still a secret.

These stories aren't told on Oprah or in the movies.

Technorati Tags: Anonymous, Children, Family, Parenting, Sperm Donor, Pregnancy, Society, Women, Social, Infertility,  Hollywood

Books on Artificial Insemination

A while back I asked for recommendations on Donor and AI books and never got around to providing background and links. Here is a list and links of what I recieved if you are interested:

Who Am I?: Experiences of Donor Conception

Behind Closed Doors: Moving Beyond Secrecy and Shame (Voices of Donor Conception)

Experiences of Donor Conception: Parents, Offspring and Donors through the Years

Sperm Donor Offspring:: Identity and Other Experiences

Disconnected

Have I given up?

Well,  I haven't written in a really long time and I can't say there is a particular reason for my absence other than a general sense of disappointment. After really going at it and not getting anywhere in terms of identifying a donor, I lost some of my steam. I know it could be considered selfish that I only came online to fill in the blanks of my own genetic lineage with nothing more altruistic in mind. This isn't quite the truth as I do care about helping other's in my position, but it would be dishonest to say that the donor sibling community is not based and driven on this very personal goal for us all.

So often the donor offspring "voice" is the sound of someone lost... shouting into the darkness of cyberspace.  The only thing heard in response are other voices of the lost shouting back, "I hear you, I'm lost too, can you help?" Sometimes it's soothing to hear the other voices and know you aren't alone, but sometimes it  can be depressing when you step back, stop your own shouting and listen to the cacophony of  loss.

You realize that some of the strongest voices out there, those of us blogging our hearts out, posting on list-serves likes its our job, and starting DNA warehouses, have not found our donor. It may be a presumptuous assertion, but it's likely we are all filling the void with our efforts. In that darkness, when you know the lights will never be turned on to reveal a biological parent standing before you, you make the best of it. You put that energy, that powerful instinctual hunger for a biological connection into something else.

There is something to be said about that "powerful instinctual urge"...

I'm reading the book,  How the Mind Works by Steve Pinker which despite the psychologic slant the title predicts, is actually very much about genetic heritage. Pinker talks a lot about the source of the basic programming of the mind and brain. Though highly complex, all our functioning eventually comes down to this powerful instinctual urge for our genes to replicate...to make a copy...to create another of itself. He goes on to explain how all of what we think and feel has links to the codes written in our DNA. Even things like personality and laugh, which so many of us imagine to be the result of divine inspiration can be traced back to DNA.

I can't help but think about implications of his arguments in considering artificial insemination and the experience of the donor offspring.  For us, literally half of who we are is a mystery. I can't begin to describe to you the deep-seeded desire I have to learn about the parts of me that are other. Why, for example, am I such a loner, when the rest of my family is so universally social? Why am I so analytical, nearly to a fault when others seem more comfortable with decisions?

It only makes the loss feel greater. We can't say as my mother does "it's just genes." It's not just genes, its the essence of who we are.

I could go on and on but I keep thinking of the those famous lines from John Donne

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

As donor offspring, we seek simply to know which chapter is ours in "the book" of mankind and read and comprehend it before it is torn out. Yet being unable to know completely who we are, half the pages are blank and so, our chapter cannot be "translated." We can't be connected.

So I guess what it all comes down to is that while Donne thinks, "No man is an island," I feel like I am an island sometimes.  The only heartening thought is that I'm on that island with many, many others, and we are going to work together to assure the world is aware of the isolation this causes and how they must work to prevent it in the future.

Technorati Tags: Anonymous, Children, Family, Sperm Donor, Pregnancy, Society, Women, Social, Infertility

Dr Alvin C. Weseley

So I found out today it was not Dr. Decker but Dr. Alvin C. Weseley who inseminated my mother. It's so frustrating that as donor offspring our backgrounds are kept so secret and guarded. After looking for Dr. Decker for years, now I have to change my search completely. Life can be so overwhelming sometimes.....

A mother considering artificial insemination......

During a brunch in the city, I and three other women discussed life and family and somehow got to the nature of my conception. Halfway into the meal, one of the women, a friend of a friend, shared that she was undergoing IVF treatments with donor sperm. It was like someone ran up to the table and hit me in the back of the head. I was overwhelmed.

Earlier in the meal and prior to her revelation, she had been overly interested in my experience as donor-conceived. While I answered her questions honestly I could sense their was a "motivation" for her interest that made me uncomfortable.  She looked very intensely into my eyes.  When I answered a questions it was rapidly followed by another. I later realized that, in some ways, she perceived me to be her unborn child 30 years from now.  

I imagine if my mother had the chance to speak to someone like me prior to conceiving via anonymous AI, she would have been very similar. However at brunch I found it troubling to listen to this aspiring mom and I was surprised at my impression.  As she sat beside me reviewing her latest trips to the doctor, her motivations, her history, it sounded incredibly selfish. She was in her late thirties and single after divorce. She saw her time as "running out" and without a partner she turned to artificial insemination. I tried to shake my head with familiar understanding but I felt a surge of emotion just beneath my calm.

At 29, I understand the aching desire to have a family and pressure to conceive. With that said, I don't think it gives me the right to deny a child the right to know their genetic lineage through via anonymous AI. As these thoughts ran through my head I felt the grip tighten on my fork with the frustration rising inside me. I looked down at my plate as she went on speaking to all the woman at the table.

"....I wish I had started earlier...people said I had all this time...I feel lonely in this... I hope I conceive soon....I have been waiting so long....I really want this.....I......I ......."she went on.

To calm myself down I had taken to counting the number of times she said "I." 27 actually. She focused alot on the "right to know" status of her sperm bank . Like a soothing mantra, she said it over and over.

"It's a right to know sperm bank.....since it's right to know I feel better...the right to know," she said.

Suddenly I could feel that despite the fact she was talking, everyone was looking at me. My face was flushed and I stumbled for words. "I wouldn't do it" I blurted out.

It was one of those, "did-I-really-just say-that?" moments, if you know what I mean.

She looked at me with a mixture of surprise and disappointment, "What do you mean?"

"I mean I wouldn't do it," I said and paused. "I don't think you have any idea how troubling it can be later on."

We went on to discuss why I felt this way. She raised some valid points as to why my situation was different and how the "right to know" sperm bank would provide her child with important genetic information and medical history. I wanted to be considerate but I couldn't help thinking to myself "medical history?" that is all YOU want to know about the donor...but your child may want more. Your child may want to see the crook of his smile or understand the subtleties of his personality which she shares...."

While I think she took my points to heart I could feel a certain resistance to truly engaging anyone who disagreed with her. I think her desparation to have a child...that instinctual "bell" that rings in the back of a woman's mind was ringing too loud for her to truly weigh the reality of her future child's exisitence.

I believe this desperation, this almost carnal push to procreate, is the driving force of the artificial insemination business. Simultaneously, it is the most erosive force against the rights of donor offspring.

Having a child is not a basic human right; it is a privilege. Moreover, there are many ways to conceive a child that do not strip them of their genetic past such as non-anonymous sperm donation. I would argue that, in contrast to having children, we all have an inalienable "right" to know our biological parents and that right cannot and should not be signed away by another individual endeavoring to have the privilege of being a parent.

Technorati Tags: Anonymous, Children, Family, Parenting, Sperm Donor, Pregnancy, Society, Women, Social, Infertility

Books about children of donor insemination and donors

I'm doing research on artificial insemination for a graduate paper I am working on and noticed its hard to find good scholarly literature about the social and psychological implications of being a "donor offspring." Oh-- as an aside here, can we PLEASE think of a better name than"donor offspring"? I feel like a science experiment or character in a sci-fi film when I use that term.

Anyways here are few books I looked up on Amazon that are pretty good. I used Amazon Associates to post them but I did not write them nor am I associated with the purchase.

Experiences of Donor Conception: Parents, Offspring, and Donors Through the Year

How to search engine optimize your donor blog (or any other blog) Part 1

I typically write about the search for my sperm donor father and all the contemplation and endless whining (on bad days) that entails. Recently, however, I've been getting a lot of questions about technology and blogs. Maybe I am an amazingly popular writer .....but far more likely it's because my blog comes up on top of Google for many key terms. Why? One answer: Search Engine Optimization or "SEO" as the techies like to call it. I have a lot of experience working as a technology consultant for well-known companies and let me tell you, SEO is what its all about.

Funny, if only I could "search engine optimize" my donor search things would be much easier :) How nice it would be if I could just put together a few algorithms, enter a few pertinent facts from my mom, run a search and voila, here is your donor! For know I will have to settle for using technology to help me get my story out there. As all of us donor offspring know, its not so much that something (or someone) is out there - its being able to find that entity.

The more donor offspring blogs we have search engine optimized, the stronger our voice. So I am also going to start posting tips on SEO and blogger optimization you can use for your site. Here is the universal first step:

1 -Check to see if Google has actually indexed (sort of like categorizing) your page. Go to Google and type: "site:" and the name of your site. So for example, I would google "site:connectitblog.blogspot.com"

If you have been indexed you will see results like this:

If you have not been indexed you will see this:

If you get the above result, then you have not been "indexed." Which in simple terms means that the Google web crawler has not yet made it to your page.  See, even though everyone thinks that Google searches the Web it actually searches a copy or "picture" of the Web. Google is crawling the Web all the time, indexing pages, but since the Web is always expanding that takes some time. If the Google Web crawler has not made it to your page to take a picture, you don't exist.

So what do you do to get indexed? 

First, go to : http://www.google.com/addurl/ and you can request your site to be indexed. Next prepare your site to come up high in the results.....

We will go over that next post :).......

Calling all Bloggers with excel spreadsheets of blogs

The custom AI google search engine is really there with about 35 vetted sites in its back end. I have gotten excellent submissions from all over but need more!

Instead of filtering the world wide web for information, let's cut things down to only those useful sites. Then we can use the power of the google algorithm to really find what we need.

If you have a list of sites, please send the urls to me in an excel spreadsheet so I can get them in there. Not only can we search but we could do analysis on what words, terms and ideas come up most frequently. We can see what the average first search is. All anonymous but useful data.

Email, Email, Email and tell your friends to email too.

Try it out its on the right side of the blog....this could get much bigger if we produce a viable solution.

Lets take technology in our own hands and rather than producing a person that will always question their existence, produce a search engine that helps us find some answers.

Looking forward to hearing from anyone who can here me :)

Seeing the world

I travel a bunch for my job and its always surreal to look out the window of the plane. When you are close enough to actually see the world beneath you, it seems so small. I especially like the little cars travelling in lines and the houses laid out like honeycombs . It's almost like an ant farm. I realize that while it seems vast, the world is not so big.

Then, like everything other time I philosophize, my mind leads me "to him." Am I flying over him. Is he maybe in his yard and, in a moment of rest, looks up to see a tiny plane flash by. "Up here....it's me."

And then its usually a pushy flight attendant offering nuts that pulls me out of day dreaming.

Why are there so many connections "to him." Why do so many of my thoughts lead to this invisible person....its almost literary...like the "eyes" in the Great Gatsby that look down on everyone or Dicken's unknown benefactors. I think the fact that he has no shape or form is what leads my mind to him most. Our unconcious minds are simple. They do not think grand thoughts or complex ideas, instead they want something simplistic, a face, an image, a mantra. But this isn't simple. How can my mind simply grasp the artificial inseminnation process and the transfering of DNA anonymously to another. My unconsious is like a skipping record or something, searching and searching for something to fall on. Ahhh the joy I would feel to have a face...just a face to hold on to.

One afternoon over Starbuck's coffee, a friend of mine commented on the fact that this "unknown" being that is my biological father almost sounds biblical, like god or something. I had to laugh, so hard actually that I spit a bit of coffee across our table attracting the attention of those around us. But then come to think about it there is an element of truth to her observation. I think the link is less religious and more faith based.

By this I mean that because you can't see this person, because in some cases like mine you have to come to terms with the idea of never knowing, you just have to have faith that he is out there. You have to have faith that while you may never meet him, he is a good person. You have to have faith that he is whatever your mom was told he was like tall, smart, and handsome.....and the only thing you have to go on is yourself. You - the only place, ironically, you can find "him" insomuchas half his DNA is written into every cell in your body. Talk about the "holy spirit" . Too bad I'm not religious or I could really take this comparison somewhere meaningful :)

But anyway....you get the drift.

Not The Man

Well, it turned out Jake was not my biological father. When I sent in my samples I opted to get the results via email - funny how technology is laced throughout this story from conception to revelation. It was a Thursday and I couldn't sleep, so I got up and brought my laptop into bed. I tried to be quiet as my boyfriend slept soundly next to me.

The results were not due for another day or two, but when I opened gmail, there it was - "DNA Results." In the middle of the darkness, my heart literally spasmed - a feeling I only remember having once before when I watched my brother just miss getting hit by a car.

The feeling was panic I think, which was so unexpected. I mean, I had been researching, blogging and corresponding for a couple of years on this topic and had been coordinating with Jake nearly two weeks, why such sudden panic? Feelings came forward that I never new were there, it was like I had repressed so much trying not to upset my parents, keeping the secret, not telling my brother. I opened the results scanning feverishly......where does it say "it"? where is the yes and no? I actually read and read the marker results with no understanding of the answer. For a moment I thought to myself that this was a metaphor for my conception a pivotal moment, a meaningful event, reduced to technicalities, to tests and medical procedures. And then:

"With 99.9% accuracy the donor is NOT biologically related"

It was as if a shot had rung out and there is that odd silence when you wonder what damage has occurred or who was shot. I actually felt physically nauseous. I started to cry......so much crying about this all. It never ends.

The only way I can describe it was that it felt like someone had died. Jake was alive and well in Brooklyn, but he wasn't my biological father and that hope, that chance to truly know myself - evaporated. I'm even crying writing this. Aside for a love of narrative writing and literature, I'm not a very dramatic person so this crying, this constant emotion is so unlike me.

My boyfriend woke up and his eyes were squinting from the laptop glow. "What's up hun?"

"It's not him" I said. He knew, he hugged me. I just cried and cried and cried.

I remember stories my mom told about finding out she and my dad could not have kids, how she cried herself to sleep, how she would breakdown when she saw children and how terrible it was to want something so very badly but be unable to have it. How the feeling just ate her up in side, consumed her.

She doesn't realize, but I understand. It is that very same carnal ache, that heart-breaking urge to have something so out of reach but so intimately linked to who you are that defines the life of a donor offspring. Sometimes I want to scream from the rooftops -

"where are you?" just let me see this person, understand myself, know that half of me exists somewhere outside of my imagination but alas - unlike my mother a sperm bank offers no resolution for this despair, quite the contrary - the sperm bank is where this mess all started.

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

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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