I was glad to see the sperm donor documentary that everyone was talking about finally played on a channel I could get. As often happens when confronted with shows or articles about sperm donation, though, I cringed a bit while watching it, thinking, anyone I know who knows me is watching this and thinking this is my situation, which it certainly is not.
Basically, it’s a one hour TV documentary about a former sperm donor who signs up on the Donor Sibling Registry out of curiosity, and then starts being contacted by recipients and children – LOTS of them. At the end of the documentary he knows of at least 70 offspring, and there are probably lots more. He agrees to meet one Choice Mom and her two adorable children. The mother is very conflicted about whether even meeting him is a good idea. The kids look just like him and have a fun day with their real biological father, and it really broke my heart. And unfortunately we never get to see the fallout from the meeting because it ends with no follow-up. The daughter, who appeared to be about six, didn’t seem to understand the whole process – she seemed to think that her mother and the donor had been married, or were dating, and that because the donor was actually engaged to someone else that he and her mom had “broken up”. No convincing to the otherwise seemed to work. Which made me think the kid is just plain too young to understand, and made me realize why contacting a donor at 18 is a much smarter idea.
The whole thing was hard to watch. For a variety of reasons. You have the scenes of the donor and his bitchy, self-centered, princess-y bride-to-be (god, I hate all brides, they’re such a pain in the ass!) strolling hand-in-hand through the streets of Boston, having cocktails and sushi, discussing the issue. And for the record, I agree with her – to find out the future father of your children had fathered possibly 100 others, and seems open to meeting them and possibly being a part of their lives in some way, is pretty daunting and threatening. I can’t imagine this won’t become a HUGE problem in the future – “can’t you just come to his graduation? It would really mean a lot…”, “tomorrow is Johnny’s birthday, he would be so excited if you could stop by…”, “Janie’s in the hospital fighting for her life, it would mean everything if you could come…” Where does it end? The guy never should have opened the door…but of course he had no idea what he’d find, and he seems like that kind of nice, accommodating guy who would be easy to emotionally manipulate. If I were the fiancée I’d run for the hills, personally. It’s hard enough to share a spouse with potentially a couple of step kids, much less HUNDREDS of biological children desperate to know him.
The whole thing is a massive emotional minefield. First off, I want to know what are these sperm banks thinking that have no limits on potential offspring…? My bank limits each donor to 20. Now of course this is troublesome because a) people are notoriously bad about reporting births, and b) there’s really no way to prevent a donor from donating at a bunch of banks at once, but considering they are not geographically close to one another, my counselor assured me it was extremely rare that donors use more than one bank and if they do they tend to get caught because the women reading the profiles put two and two together. The whole system basically operates on the honor system – the donor has to promise to only donate to this one bank, and has to promise the information he gives about himself is correct (family history, medical, etc), and then we the recipients have to promise to only use the sperm for ourselves (if doing it at home) and to report all births. There’s a whole lot of room for error there…and there’s really nothing you can do about it. Still, as AI becomes more and more popular, we may start to see certain social catastrophes develop that wouldn’t have been an issue 30 years ago when hardly anyone but infertile couples used donor sperm – half siblings unwittingly meeting and marrying, children of donor sperm somehow getting legal rights against their donor dad, etc etc. In short, it’s all getting very complicated.
And yet here I am, The Face of Donor Insemination. Blithely dismissing any concerns about “but what about raising a kid with no father?” with, “oh, he/she’ll be fine.” What if the kid isn’t fine? What if he or she is tortured by the fact of not having had a father, that they never understand it, resent me for doing it, grow up feeling less than and with a hole in their heart? What if they grow up hating me and spend their entire childhood idolizing their imaginary father, only to discover at 18 that he can’t or won’t be contacted, or that he’s kind of a jerk, or that he really will only be contacted once and then wants nothing to do with my kid, and it breaks the kid’s heart?
But then I think about the supposedly ideal families I know. Statistics show that in ten years, half of all the happy couples just now having babies and raising toddlers will be divorced, and most probably amidst much bitterness. Or those that stay together but don’t want to will have an awful, tension-filled home life. Or a dad that’s cold and distant and uninvolved anyway. Or a mom that’s resentful and feels her children robbed her of her youth. Or a mom or a dad who’s depressed. Or parents that work round the clock for the good life but never spend time with their kids. I have to say these scenarios are a lot more likely than my son or daughter unknowingly marrying a half-sibling, really.
Still, I think it’s unrealistic to sweep all the ethical problems of this process under the carpet with a “it’ll be fine” attitude. It is very complicated and difficult for kids to understand – how did you “make” me, exactly? I was made from a seed with a doctor? Huh? But then you think about the mechanics of sex and how utterly ridiculous that is, and how is that any harder for an eight-year-old to grasp? I mean, at least a kid that age knows about seeds growing…but you put the penis WHERE? And at least my kid will grow up in a very diverse environment – he/she won’t be the only one in school with no dad, or two mommies, or two daddies, or a dad and no mom. And as I’ve often stated, he/she will be close to my family, and my family of dance friends, many of whom are guys who would love to be involved with my kid. So, the situation could for sure be worse. And the kid will be SO loved and wanted and cared for, and I’ll be here doing full-time parenting all day. I also am not trying to be a traditional family, or a traditional person. It’s like hey, we’re different. We march to the beat of a different drummer around here, and that’s ok and should be celebrated. I dress like it’s the 40s half the time and have chickens as pets and watch documentaries about serial killers. It’s not too surprising my family structure would be non-traditional, too.
I just wish there were documentaries that showed a little more positive about sperm donation instead of the worst case scenarios. I know they have to show all sides of the story – as a good documentary does – but just once I’d like to see an unabashed, isn’t this great approach, told from the perspective of the mothers who thought they’d never get to have kids until this idea came about. People like me, who are thrilled with the whole process and feel great about it. Well, if I get picked for that reality show, maybe that can be me!
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