Hi Hi.
So, as you all know, when I got the offer to move to HK for work, it kicked my TTC plans into high gear and I jumped right in to do my first at-home ICI. BUT, at that time, the vials that I had pre-ordered for Bachelor #1 were still in quarantine AND I was told at that time that he was "off the catalogue" officially, and would not be available for more vials in the future except for sibling vials to families that had already conceived with him. It was a little devastating, but I didn't want to wait, and because of the move with work, didn't have the option to wait. I traded in my Bachelor #1 vials for Bachelor #2 vials and moved forward. Bachelor #2 was in very good health, his grandparents were either still living or had died of natural causes into their 80's and 90's. And he seemed like an all around decent human being. Plus, I had his childhood photo. He was a cute kid, and I didn't see any potential for a bad mix of physical DNA (i.e. ugly babies....just keepin' it real y'all. If I were doing this the old-fashioned way, I'd want to be attracted to the person I'd be making babies with, right?). So June rolled around and I tried my well-timed at-home ICI with Bachelor #2. BFN. But I got right back up and geared up for the next cycle (the last one before I would leave the country for work for the foreseeable future). At the last minute, I got a message from the lovely Miss T. She and I were both in want of Bachelor #1, and she just found out that he was suddenly, very unexpectedly available and back on the catalogue! You can read all about the harrowing tale of my second attempt (ICI 2.0) here. Long story short: BFN. Super depressed. A lot of crying and eating my feelings covered in ice cream.
Well, then I worked through some issues. Did some soul searching and big questions of life, the universe, and everything asking. I looked ahead to see when I might be ovulating in December. If there was just the tiniest glimmer of hope that I might be able to try again while I was back in the States at Christmas time. OMG, more than a glimmer. So, that's the current plan. Step off plane in Boston, sleep, go meet some people about getting knocked up.
Of course, I was well aware that Bachelor #1 is well-liked and may turn up unavailable come December. So I hit the books again (or rather the laptop again) and started pouring over the donor catalogue at The Bank. I like my Bachelor #2, but though he is a man of color, the color is technically not Black (i.e. African or African American ancestry). I figured it's been a while since I looked at other options, so I may as well see if anyone new has come into play. Hopefully, Bachelor #1 will be there when I need him. And if I don't find anyone awesome-r, then Bachelor #2 would suit me just fine. I'd already tried him once and pictured our PFC's during my 2ww last time.
But that's when I saw him: Donor 3997. He was half Black, half a bunch of other things that added up to Caucasian (not completely unlike my own mixed bag of family background DNA). And on paper, he was fertile as all get out. He had a daughter of his own from a previous relationship, and he'd also helped a lesbian couple conceive before getting with the program at The Bank. It also said he was "responsible for 2 other pregnancies". I can only guess that alludes to girls he'd knocked up that decided not to continue the pregnancies. From his childhood photos, you could tell he was very handsome, so it was not a big surprise that women were getting knocked up by him left, right, and center. I liked him so much I was now having a hard time deciding between 3997 (aka Bachelor #3) and Bachelor #1. I think this was back in September or October.
So the months go by, and I still haven't made a final decision. But my IUI Christmas Holiday Spectacular is getting closer, and I wanted to order my samples in advance. Then I had a detour. My cousin was traveling with work and stopping off in HK. We'd planned a weekend trip to Beijing together. I had to work for a few hours before heading to the airport, so she met me at work (the kids were anxious to see her. she was a somebody from New York that they were actually going to get to see again, unlike their school friends...), and we left to the airport from there. I was low on reading material, so I grabbed a couple of magazines from the coffee table at work to read on the flight. One would change the entire game for me...
Have you seen this Newsweek article on so-called "donorsexuals?" "Free Sperm Donors - and the women who want them"? It's a bit creepy. BUT reading about creepy guys who are willing to hook up with women to get them knocked up (not all the donations are "asexual" is all I'm saying) isn't what freaked me out. In the article, it highlights one donor in particular, and then tells of a website where donors and recipients can interface and make plans. Like a dating site almost. It's called the Free Sperm Donor Registry. For some reason, after reading this article, I had this odd, defenses-up feeling gnawing at me all weekend until I came home from Beijing.
I found the FSDR site and signed up. Then I started looking through files for potential donors. Somewhere around page 6 or 7, I had my apprehensions confirmed. Donor 3997, who has a limit to how many families he can create via The Bank, also goes by FSDR10103 (you have to be signed in to see his profile), and according to his stats page, he's fathered 8 children through donation. I'm not sure if his "AI", or artificial insemination, offspring includes donations to The Bank or not, but some of his offspring on the FSDR are the result of "NI" or natural insemination. That means he actually had sex with women that he met through FSDR. How can I be sure it was him, you ask? Well, he has a photo of himself as a young man posted with his profile and first name. And I recognized his face instantly from the childhood photos I'd ordered from The Bank! I was sick to my stomach.
On the FSDR, you can contact other users directly, so I got in touch and asked him flat out if he was the same donor I'd found at The Bank. He replied back asking how I knew he was at The Bank, and saying that he thought he was off their catalogue. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible that he only donated at The Bank for a year and thought that several years later, his dealings there were done. But if he has 8 kids via donation (in any form), then how likely is it that he's been playing on both sides of the fence during some overlapping time period? I thought very likely. I didn't think he was being completely honest. So I messaged him back and told him how I'd gone through The Bank, and he was in my top two choices. I asked if he wouldn't mind telling me a bit more about himself. He never replied. Then, I thought to myself, The Bank is in Area X, and he's listed as still living in Area X on the FSDR. I googled other Banks in that area and started going through their donor catalogues. I found another profile that looked surprisingly similar at Rainbow Flag Health Services (Donor #46-201-421). No photo, but ethnicity, height, weight, and eye color all match up (hazel eyes are not that common).
So I guess that settles it for me, Bachelor #1 it is! I re-googled him and searched other Banks for similar profiles and found zip on that by the way. After what happened with Bachelor #3, I had to check! I called The Bank to place my pre-order. Then, after that was out of the way, I broached the subject of Donor 3997. I told her about the article I'd read and the FSDR. She said a registry is different from a sperm bank, and it probably just showed offspring. That it was unlikely that he was donating there. I elaborated and told her about his personal profile and that he listed himself as a donor willing to travel to meet the recipient for in-person inseminations. I actually heard her jaw hit the floor. I gave her all the info for where to look online. Then she asked if that was the only place I'd found him. I told her about Rainbow Flag as well. She asked if I wanted to be kept in the loop on follow-up with this. I said no because now that I know what I know, I won't be using him as a donor EVER, but that I felt obligated to share the information with The Bank because they have a strict policy on family limits. I mean, I'm looking at The Bank trying to wrap my head around the idea of 20 other families having a kid (or two or three) who are half-siblings to my own PFC's. The notion that he is out there spreading it around like Johnny-freakin'-Appleseed because he needs to see more little versions of himself running around in the world, and there could be hundreds of half-siblings out there if he's not stopped is completely abhorrent to me. Perturbed is not even the word...
Even more disturbing is that his profile still shows up in a search at The Bank. Currently very creeped out and embracing the divine intervention that put Bachelor #1 in my path in the first place.
Stay tuned...
3 comments:
Babe, you seriously deserve a medal! Wow, that's some major PI work! So glad we're on the same team! Thanks for doing all the leg work - 3997 is no longer my 2nd choice! Sick though, that he's still on the catalog!
Interesting post. Am curious why this is so disturbing to you though, that this donor has donated to so many women? In a country of millions of people, fears regarding incest are pretty overblown. I think it's his right to help create as many families as he wishes to .
In reply to Anonymous:
When I chose my Bank, part of that decision was based on their lower family limits for donors. I'm sure accidental incest in the future is less likely than nighttime network dramas would have us believe, but the more a man donates in various locations, the more likely it is to happen. Especially if parents/children of families he helped create are not aware of all of his alias donor numbers at other banks and registries.
It's my opinion that donor kids should not be deceived about their origins, and moving into adolescence, it's important for them to know their Bank and donor number. That way, if they meet other kids in the same situation that they feel attracted to, they can compare donor numbers before they go any further. It's just a part of sex education. But if your donor has been to several clinics to donate (and in overlapping time-frames as is the case here), how can your kid be sure that he/she's not hooking up with a half-sibling?
Apart from that, it's also a breach of trust (and in some cases a breach of contract with the sperm bank/clinic in question). On his profile at my Bank, for instance, the donor is asked specifically if he's ever been a donor anywhere else before. He listed one lesbian couple that he'd helped conceive, and left it at that. But my research showed that, at the time of his interview at my Bank, he had already donated at another bank. And though the FSDR doesn't ask if he's donated elsewhere (at least I don't think they do), he breached my bank's protocols by having donated or having direct sexual relations there while still active in the program at my Bank.
On top of that, when choosing a donor, you are looking for someone with the best qualities, both physical and personal, to pass on to your potential child. I don't think I want someone who is a well-documented liar passing on that tendency to my child. I also found, through the FSDR site, that he was adopted as an infant. Perhaps this explains why he wants to put so many of his offspring out into the world. An effort to have blood ties out there where he grew up with none. But how can I even be sure that the health history given to my Bank was accurate and/or truthful? I do have some heritable tendencies on both sides of my family (my mother is a breast cancer survivor. adult onset diabetes and hypertension are two worries on my father's side of the family), so when I searched for donors, I set aside otherwise suitable candidates because they had similar family histories, and I didn't want to up my child's chances of developing a condition unnecessarily. But if the information I have is inaccurate or fabricated, how can I make that informed decision?
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