Stop Posting Secrets You Wish to Keep

If you aren’t telling your donor conceived child they are donor conceived, please consider not telling strangers on the internet either.  If you post – even in a private Facebook group -- are you posting under your own name?  If so, everyone in there knows who you are.  Anyone can look up who your children are and where you live and where you work and where your kids go to school.  A woman just posted in a private 5000 person (!) Facebook group a photo of her donor conceived son side by side with his half-sibling and stated that he is currently unaware the other boy is his brother.  He doesn't even know that he is donor conceived.  She plans to tell him but doesn’t know when.  I'm not sure what backstory she gave him for who his brother was and why they traveled 3000 miles to meet him.

A quick Google search later and I know her son’s full name, date of birth, home address, where he goes to school, and what grade he is in.  He's a minor with no social media accounts.  

Now, I’m not going to do anything with this information.  The only thing I would gain by contacting family members (whose contact information is all too easy to find) would be the ability to brag about how good I am at looking things up on the internet, which is clearly what I'm already doing here.  But PLEASE reconsider posting online about secrets you wish to keep.  I'm not the only person on the internet.  

Let’s say you’ve learned your lesson and have started posting under a pseudonym.  Did you keep the same Facebook account and just change how the name appears?  Are you posting under an alias or username you have used on other sites?  Is your account linked to an email address that is in your name?  Or to an email address that you’ve used on another account that is linked to your name?  If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then everything you post is being linked back to your name.  And not in a fancy only-NSA-and-Zuckerberg-will-know-who-I-am way but in a randos-can-look-me-up-on-pipl way.  The woman I mentioned above uses the same username for Facebook, Pinterest, TripAdvisor and travel forums, her defunct blog and Twitter accounts, and – drum roll please -- multiple donor/sibling websites.  

If her son ever does a Google search on his mother, the fact that he is donor conceived will be one of the first things he learns.  He is already nearly 13.

I’m really not sure what my goal is in writing this post.  I don’t actually want parents to get better at keeping secrets from their children.  I want them to realize that they CAN’T keep secrets from their children.  They suck at it.  Even if they don’t post about it online, they probably confided in someone.  Even in they didn’t, they might announce it themselves in a fit of something.  Or it’ll come out with a DNA test.  Please tell your kids who their biological parents are.  They’ll find out regardless, and it’s in their best interest for it to come from someone who has their best interests at heart.  And it's in your best interest for them to continue thinking they can trust you.  

My Piece on the AnonymousUs Podcast

I wrote a piece about my sister a couple of weeks ago for AnonymousUs.org (and posted it here too because I crave attention and recognition), and Hattie Hart did a very nice reading of it for their podcast this week.  Mine is the last of the three stories, starting at the 5:45 point.  (Thank you, Hattie!)

My Sister

My half-sister Simone texted me over the weekend and it got me thinking.  I wrote the following to submit to AnonymousUs:


When I first found my biological father and his family through DNA testing, I found my only known half-sister.  Our father told her about me at my request.  She was in shock.  "I always wanted a sister," she told me.  "I can't believe I've had one all this time and didn't even know."  I knew how she felt.  We'd both grown up with only brothers.      

My sister and I look a lot alike:  same pale skin, same hair, same eyes, same jaw.  We like a lot of the same things:  hiking, baking, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  We're both half German, though only she grew up learning the language, and only she feels a connection to the culture.  And there are even more things we don't have in common -- the way we dress, the books we read, the music we like.

We've never met.  I was in kindergarten when my sister was born and moved a thousand miles away.  It was another 25 years before we learned of each other's existence.  We've texted, Facebooked, talked on the phone -- tentative efforts to become "real sisters" like ones who've grown up together.  Her parents don't approve, but we're adults and it's out of their hands now.  My mother forbade me from ever seeking out my biological father's family too.  "He was just 'a donor,'" she told me.  "It's different."  Still, even if you believe family is only who you choose to include, my siblings and I have chosen to include one another.  As far as they're concerned, I count.  I feel like their opinions on this matter hold more weight than mine since they aren't donor conceived like me. 

Families aren't exclusively made up of intended parents and the children they choose to raise.  That's a family, sure, but sometimes children -- certainly donor conceived and adopted children -- have additional family beyond the ones who raised them.  Sometimes family means shared blood in two people who look alike but grew up apart.  Sometimes two strangers are family simply because they are sisters.  I don't think it's as "different" as my mother believed.

DC Pride

There is a thread right now about what makes us proud or happy about being donor conceived.  This is my sincere and unsarcastic reply:

An Attitude of Gratitude

Some people I went to high school with like to post on Facebook about how, if someone is depressed or having trouble loving life, it's because she is lacking "an attitude of gratitude."  To which I say, "Go fuck yourself."

While I agree that it's great and helpful to look on the bright side and count your blessings, hearing that advice from a third party who knows nothing about your situation can appear to lack empathy and sound a little bit like, "Maybe you'd have an easier time snapping out of it if you weren't such an ungrateful little bitch."  To which I repeat, "Go fuck yourself," and add, "You sound like my mother."

I know this judgment probably isn't what's intended with most "attitude of gratitude" posts and my interpretation is biased by my own experiences, but I also know my experiences aren't unique.  I think audience perspective is worth bearing in mind when doling out blanket advice to hundreds of acquaintances on social media.  Yes, happiness is a choice that comes from within, but implying happy people are doing it right and unhappy people are unhappy because they're doing it wrong is a vast oversimplification of the human experience.  Life is hard.  Maybe we're all just doing the best we can with the hands we've been dealt.

Anyway, I think more helpful advice informs people not what to think or to feel but what to do -- because, while thoughts and feelings come and go regardless of how we try to force them, action is what we actually have control over.  So rather than try to follow "be grateful" or equally unhelpful and invalidating advice, in honor of Thanksgiving today, I am making a list of things for which I am thankful.  Making a list is an action.  It is something I have control over.  Everything on my list of "consolation prizes" belongs here too.

Here is my Thankful list:

1) I am thankful for my BFF Jerry.  We've been best friends since my senior year of high school nearly half my life ago, and she knows my mother firsthand.  I can't even list all the ways she has been important to me and vital to my continued existence.  She is the closest thing I've ever met to a soul mate.

2) I am thankful for my husband.  He works hard and is the most resilient person I've ever met.  This is not hyperbole -- he is the most resilient person most people who know him have ever met.  We have different interests but the same sense of humor, and I never really get bored of spending time with him, even if we're just sitting on the couch watching YouTube videos together.  I ultimately married him because I could not imagine another person who would give me a better shot at being a happy, fully functional person than him.  He's the kind of person you'd want on your team.  I also like who I am when I'm with him.  I feel like myself. 

3) I am thankful for my daughter.  I have never had a greater incentive to keep trying than her.  She is resilient and cheerful in ways I never was as a child.  She is smart and creative and beautiful and legitimately funny.  I hope she somehow develops an athleticism that no known person in her family tree has ever possessed, but even if she doesn't, she is perfection.

4) I am thankful for my home, which is in pretty good shape and which keeps my family safe and warm and dry.  I am thankful for the neighbors who I see when I go outside.  It's so friendly here.  We know each others' names and say hello like we're in a more spacious and physically comfortable version of college.  I am thankful I generally prefer getting rid of things to hoarding them.  I am thankful I generally prefer getting my home repaired to living with issues that make me feel ashamed of it.  I am thankful I have the money to do the things necessary to maintain my home and also that I know how to handle money.  I am thankful my mother taught me about finances, even though she couldn't manage her own.

5) I am thankful for the public library system, which saves me hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per year in books and videos I can borrow rather than buy and keep.

6) I am thankful for my sun lamp, Yogi brand's St. John's Wort herbal tea, my elliptical machine, Netflix, the gym near my house with all the good weight machines, meditation as described in Pema Chödrön's How to Meditate, and everything else that helps me to feel okay.

7) I am thankful for the people who share their stories and feelings on the internet and make me feel normal and sane.  I am thankful for the people who read what I write and make me feel less alone.  Thank you.

And to anyone reading this who is feeling depressed today because they are alone or feel alone or have to spend time with family and only wish they could be alone, I say, "That sucks.  I'm sorry you're having to deal with that.  Have you tried watching Netflix or, if you're with family, surreptitiously watching Netflix on your iPhone?  I hear the new Aziz Ansari show is good, and I always recommend Firefly for a good distraction.  Have you tried making Bingo boards of all the crazy and casually racist things your mother might say over dinner?  Have you considered cataloging the most ridiculous things your parents say and sharing them with friends or the internet for our mutual entertainment so that you can look forward to their madness rather than dread it?  Have you tried bourbon or cheesecake?  I'm sorry you're having a hard time today.  You're not alone.  I hope you feel better soon."

Being DC: They Won't Understand

Back before I found my biological father, I posted my story anonymously on a fairly large website.  Because apparently it sometimes pops up when people do a Google search for "I just found out my father was an anonymous sperm donor" or similar, I have had the honor of being the first donor conceived person some other DC adults have contacted.  Based on those exchanges, there are some things I want to make sure every donor conceived person knows, especially those donor conceived people who haven't yet met another donor conceived person or gotten a chance to talk about how they feel about being donor conceived.  If you fall into any part of those categories, this is for you.

The first thing is that, while not everyone feels the same way about being donor conceived, most people have feelings about it, and that's normal.  If you're bewildered or crying yourself to sleep or spending hours every night trying to find information on who your anonymous biological father and half-siblings might be, or even if you aren't, you're normal.  You haven't done anything wrong.  You aren't crazy, you aren't weak, and you aren't a bad child to the parents who raised you simply because you want to know more or because the revelation of your parentage blew your mind.  You're reacting in a normal fashion to some mind-blowing news.  That's not to say therapy would be out of the question to help you deal with this news -- I advocate therapy for pretty much everybody because I love the simple elegance of paying someone to listen to me rant -- but you're still normal.

The second thing I want DC people to know is this:  people who aren't donor conceived will not understand.  I am surprised this is the case, and I will grant you my evidence is only anecdotal, but it has been the case with everyone I know.  EVERYONE.  My longtime best friend Jerry is the kindest, most empathetic person I've ever met, and she still doesn't get it.  That's not to say talking about it with her isn't still helpful -- talking with her is always helpful -- but the most she can empathize with my situation is to say, "I don't get it.  I know it's important to you and a big deal to you, and I can only assume I might feel the same way in your position, but I don't understand why it matters."  Jerry grew up with two biological parents (one great, one balls to the wall crazy) and a biological sister who is one of her best friends.  When I wanted to write to my biological father to introduce myself and to ask if he'd tell my half-siblings about me, she didn't think I should do it.  She knew he was unlikely to want anything to do with me, so she didn't see the point in reaching out at all -- and that's a normal reaction.  If an empathetic person who is close friends with her parent and sister doesn't understand the allure of possibly meeting new family, who will?

My therapist had essentially the same response as Jerry.  So did my husband.  These are good and kind people with no personal skin the game that they're trying to protect.  They just don't get it, and I know it's not because they don't try or don't care.  I think it's just too foreign a concept for people outside that situation to relate to.  Parentage seems like it shouldn't matter.  I get that.  Why does it matter?  I don't know.  I could name twenty reasons it matters to me, but I can't convince someone else that my reasons are valid.  That seems to be one of the big strikes against rights to information for donor conceived people.  We can't prove that it matters.  For most people in this kind of situation though -- donor conceived people, adopted people, people who have no idea who one or both of their parents are for whatever reason -- it matters.  Even if a person doesn't want to get to know that parent, not being allowed to know who they are usually matters.  Not having a choice in getting to know them matters.  There are too many people who feel the same way I do for you to convince me these feelings are wrong.

This is why I think it's important for donor conceived people to be in contact with other donor conceived people.  They will be able to relate in ways even the best friends and family can't.  You'll see the whole spectrum of attitudes and feelings a person can have toward being donor conceived (it's pretty wide, and I suspect a lot of the quiet majority sits near the middle), and you'll see that you're normal.  I don't post on any DC online groups, but I do read some of them.  It makes me feel normal (thank you, PCVAI and Worldwide Donor Conceived People Network -- please note these are groups exclusively for donor conceived people, not for parents of the donor conceived as most websites are, which makes for a very different atmosphere).  As much as I feel like a bit of an outsider pretty much anywhere I lurk, I feel an unusual sense of belonging in these groups.  People often disagree, but there is a sense of mutual respect and understanding that I appreciate.

"Won't You Feel Guilty When Your Mother Dies?"

I didn't see a therapist for the first time until after I moved halfway across the country without telling my mother.  I was 28.  I hadn't talked to her in over a year at that point and had realized I never wanted to talk to her again.  My therapist asked, "Aren't you afraid you'll feel guilty if your mother dies before you can talk to her again?"

"I always assumed I would," I told her.  "I choose to stay away from her because I feel better with this distance between us and because I felt so terrible whenever I heard from her, but I always assumed it would be a trade off -- feel worse later so that I can feel okay now.  Then I had a dream that my mother died, and all I felt was relief.  I was just so relieved that it was all over and she couldn't hurt anyone anymore."

My therapist replied, "I don't think you should talk to your mother again."

The moral of the story is this:  If you cut a family member from your life, people will question you.  Your therapist and your family and even your friends might question you.  It's a valid question and one worth thinking about, in my opinion.  After all, lots of interpersonal problems can be remedied with compassionate communication, and most people won't know the full extent of your situation.  But just because someone asks, "Don't you think you should give things another try with your mom?" doesn't mean you can't answer No.  It doesn't even mean other people won't ultimately agree with you.  Only you can decide what's best for you.

Goodness of Fit

When I got pregnant with my daughter, I wondered what she would be like.  I wondered what she would look like, what she would be best at, what she would enjoy.  I had no preconceived notions about who she might be.  I was so different from my own parents that I knew she could be anyone.

People in the parenting realm often cite "goodness of fit" when discussing how well a parent and child get along.  The idea is that you might unintentionally favor one of your children over the other because you have the same temperament or the same hobbies, while the other might function as a sort of stranger in your home.  I don't know how well my adoptive brother, Dante, and I fit with our parents.  It didn't seem like any of us fit well, but my mother and I bonded more than the others.  Even when she favored Dante over me, it seemed more like a strategic alliance than a familial bond.

Aside from her vast volunteer duties and some persistent personality issues, my mother almost seemed like a blank slate.  She knew what foods she liked -- steak, shrimp, lots salt, nothing green -- but she didn't otherwise seem to know what she liked.  Who she was could vary wildly.  On the plus side, this meant she fully embraced my hobbies, including buying us season tickets to nearly every live theater in our area when I showed a passion for it.  She said I made her feel "cultured." 

My dad and I had little in common.  He knew what he liked -- jazz, stargazing, bad '80s movies -- but his hobbies seldom overlapped with my own.  He introduced me to the television show "Ghost Hunters" around the time I was trying to divorce him from my increasingly mentally ill mother, and that gave us something to talk about on our phone calls until I changed cable providers and no longer got the right channel.  He liked what he liked.  He was unwilling or unable to feign interest in topics simply because they mattered to me.

I took music lessons from a young age, but I didn't enjoy them, only the attention gleaned from performing.  I dreaded the actual live performances, but people would hug and praise me afterwards, and I lived for that.  I liked museums and art galleries, though I only got to see them when a friend's parents or a school field trip would take me there.  I loved reading.  My mother read me stacks of books until I took over the job myself at the age of four.  I don't think either of my parents has read a book cover to cover since that day.  I'm also good at baking and enjoy eating elaborate vegetarian meals.  I love spicy international cuisine, despite my mother's insistence that we don't like onions or most vegetables and that everything should be served "plain" and "mild."

My daughter was born and soon gained a reputation as a smart, funny child with a sunny disposition.  She's still very young and will undoubtedly grow and change, but she fits in well with both my husband and myself.  My mother used to say, "I hope you have a child just like you someday," when she got angry, like it was a curse or a threat.  I battled depression from a very young age (maybe four?), but I tried hard to be good at things and to be kind and to overcome my many fears.  My thought was that if I had a child like myself -- kind, funny, hardworking, smart -- but happy, that would be great.  Why would anyone not want that? I thought. 

Something that I haven't heard much about "goodness of fit" in parenting is that, if a child is raised by her biological parents and they don't hate each other, it should come fairly naturally.  My daughter inherited half her genes from me and the other half from one of my closest friends.  My husband and I have lived together easily for many years, and while we have a variety of hobbies and interests between us, we have the same sense of humor and priorities.  We get along.  We are raising our daughter together in our home, so theoretically, whether you believe nature or nurture is the greater factor, we were always going to have a certain goodness of fit.  That didn't occur to me until well after she was born. 

I don't think I have the same sense of humor as the parents who raised me.  To be honest, it's hard to remember what made them laugh or made them seem happy, but I remember us all favoring different movies.  I don't know if I got my gallows humor from genetics or from my life experiences, but my mother didn't approve of it.  I had to pretend not to laugh at the things I found amusing for fear of being scolded or told I'm a bad person.  My half-brother, Hans, has that same dark sense of humor.  He's says its one of our German qualities.

My biological father reads and enjoys history and science.  My half-siblings do too.  My sister likes baking as much as I do.  These might all just be coincidences.  They're all common hobbies after all.  But I didn't share them with the parents who raised me.  I'm the most educated person in my family, but tied for least educated in my father's family.  Can a person really be more academically inclined -- and I don't mean smart, which I think a lot of my family was in spite of what they thought themselves, but loving of school and learning -- simply because she descended genetically from someone who was?  There are other potential explanations, after all. 

I'm sure I must've had more in common with my mother than I can remember now.  Surely I didn't just inherit similar hair and some maladaptive behaviors.  She liked crafts when I was little, like I did.  We only did them if there were other children around, like visiting cousins or a Girl Scout troop, but she liked doing crafts.  We did jigsaw puzzles together.  We both liked going out to dinner and a movie.  She liked making things beautiful, which was hard because her hoarding tendencies meant she could only beautify our home through shopping and filling it with more things.  I don't remember my mother very well, especially how she used to be before she went off the deep end.  I have a hard time remembering why I used to love her so much.  I'm not sure if that sounds more mean or sad, but it's true.  It is what it is, I guess.

When my daughter started developing a personality of her own, I was surprised.  She wasn't a stranger.  Nothing about her seemed to be pulled from the ether.  She was so much like me.  Sometimes when I saw her from certain angles, she looked like my childhood self.  She cocked her eyebrows and made mischief faces like me.  She mirrored my reactions and behaviors -- if I wanted her to be calm and happy, there was little I had to do beyond modeling good behavior and giving her "cuddles and kisses," as she likes to say.  She is young.  She still has a lot of growing and changing ahead of her, and she will make friends and have experiences outside my home and outside my control, but none of this parenting stuff has been as impossible or even as illogical as I was led to believe it would be.

I don't know what I'm trying to say.  I don't think living with your two biological parents solves all your problems, or even ensures goodness of fit.  If I'd had more in common with my dad, we might have enjoyed each other's company more, but I still don't think it would have been a great relationship because I think he'd still only value in me what he already values.  Having more in common with my mother would have solved nothing.  I'm confident that her self-loathing would have only caused her to hate me more, the more I resembled her.  I don't think my half-siblings get along particularly well with their parents either, though I do know they have more functional relationships than I do with any of mine.  We're all very different people though.  I blame the mental illness more than anything for our lack of good fit.  I believe the parts of my mother that weren't fundamentally broken were fundamentally good.  Maybe.  I guess I think the worst situation would be like Dante's -- being raised by two people whose love is conditional when it's present at all, who aren't related to you, who are not mentally healthy and cannot see far enough past their own pain to consistently give a fuck about you.  It does make me wonder what kind of relationship Dante might have had with his biological parents though.  Or with anyone else really.

How Do You Feel About Donor Conception?

When I've written about my experiences being donor conceived -- always anonymously, as I do here -- one of the things people ask is how I feel about donor conception.  Would I donate my gametes?  Would I use donated gametes? 

I am not vocal about my opinions on donor conception.  I am not even vocal about the fact that I am donor conceived.  While I've been happy to shrug off the secrecy imposed on me in my youth and tell anyone who asks about my origins, I don't want just anyone knowing.  My close friends and "family of choice" know.  My donor conceived acquaintances know.  My half-siblings obviously know.  When you look up my name online though, I want you to see the delicately crafted persona that I wear for strangers.  Only flattering photos and self-deprecating humor and benign facts I'd want my boss or my biological father to see.  I admire many people who are outspoken about their beliefs, but I can't do it.  If you want to know my feelings or intimate details of my life, I want you to have to ask me.

When I first tested my DNA with 23andMe, I realized I only knew two surnames in my family tree -- my mother's maiden name and her mother's maiden name -- and I wasn't even sure how the latter one was spelled.  I confided in a maternal cousin about the DNA test and being donor conceived in the hope that she could provide me with more family names.  She was very supportive and very helpful.  She also confided that she was currently in the process of trying to conceive using anonymous donor eggs.  I'm not going to tell her how I feel about donor conception.  I'm not going to warn her that her child -- should she successfully have one -- might have some strong feelings about donor conception too.  She had already spent tens of thousands of dollars on failed fertility treatments.  I do not believe my opinion would change her mind.  Instead, I think it would make it even harder for her to talk to me, and I think it would drive a wedge between me and one of the few "original family" members I have left.  Most importantly, her choice to use anonymous donor eggs does not affect me.  I wished her luck and all good things, and I meant it. 

Personally, I would not donate my eggs, and I would not use donated gametes of any kind.  I told my husband before we tried to conceive that, if we couldn't conceive naturally, I knew I could not use donated gametes.  I don't expect someone who isn't donor conceived to understand or to anticipate the pain, but as someone who is and who has gone through it, I couldn't in good conscience do that to another person.  He understood.  He had thought it went without saying. 

I believe anonymous sperm and egg donation should be banned in the US, as they have been in the UK and several other first world countries.  I believe third party reproduction should be heavily regulated, donor medical information tracked, and number of offspring per donor severely limited, the way many people think it already is.  If we continue to let the free market decide the ethics of third party reproduction, money will continue to do all the talking.  Gamete "donors" will continue selling their sperm and eggs, people who desperately want children will continue buying them, and cryo banks and fertility clinics will continue making enormous sums of money as the wish granters and middle men.  People who haven't been conceived yet don't have money.  They are the goods.  Their rights will continue to be leveraged by their parents and doctors, all decisions on the matter made for them before they are even conceived, let alone born.  This is distasteful to me.

Of course, whether anything or everything is outlawed, people can still go onto Craig's List or have one night stands or recruit family friends and refuse to tell their children who their genetic fathers are (traditional "artificial insemination" can easily be done outside a medical setting), but I think fewer people will be willing to do that who weren't already planning to do that.  I'm aiming for improving the current situation.  I don't believe there is a way to fix it completely.  There will always be children born who don't know who their genetic parents are, for whatever reason.  I just want to limit those numbers as much as possible.

I used to feel much more upset about being donor conceived than I do now.  I used to feel much angrier and sadder and more misunderstood when people challenged me or disagreed with me.  I feel a lot better now that I know who my father is.  Knowing his identity doesn't solve all my problems, but it's all I really wanted, and I got it.  No one can take that knowledge away from me, regardless of how strongly they feel that I should shut up and be grateful to be alive.  I wish for everyone who is donor conceived (or adopted, or unsure of their parentage for whatever reason) to be able to know who their biological parents are.  I think it makes things easier.  On that note, please take an autosomal DNA test.  23andMe and AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA each do them for about $99 or less, and even if you know who your parents are, you might help someone else find theirs.