May 31, 2022 • 34 mins
Eve Wiley tells her wild story of genetic self discovery as a victim of fertility fraud. We have a chat about the shocking legislation that protects perpetrators of fertility fraud and Eve’s journey becoming a leading expert in the space implementing legislation across the United States.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We are in the United States, the fertility industry is
less regulated than Neil salons. A doctor should not have
the legal right to switch out a donor's sperm for
his own, yet it's been happening for years. This episode
features America's leading fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley. After Eve's story,
(00:25):
we have an illuminating conversation about the reality of the
fertility industry. I can't imagine how Eve must feel in
the wick of discovering the long and winding truth of
who her biological father is. This is the unimaginable. I'm
your host, a musician, James Brown. I am from a
(00:51):
really small town in East Texas called Center. It is
affectionately referred to as life behind the Pine Curtain. It's
really hard. It against the Louisiana line and it's about
five thousand people. So my parents, my mom is Margo
and my dad is Doug, and they struggled with infertility
(01:11):
for years. So they went to a fertility doctor, Dr
Kim McMurray's, and at first he wanted to look and
see who had the infertility issue, and it ended up
being my father had it and it was called secondary
mele infertility. Factor. At that point, Dr mcmurs took a
sample of his seamen and looked and he had low motility.
(01:35):
At that point, the doctor really encouraged them to look
into other options and artificial reproductive technologies, and in particular
they decided on artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor.
And you have to remember this was in the eighties,
so this was a time where we didn't know things
about how important genetic identity was. We didn't really know
(01:57):
the effects that this would have on donor because huge people.
But also infertility wasn't talked about. It was stigmatized, and
so there was this cloud of anonymity and secrecy that
was very much portrayed with any infertility practices. So Dr
mcmorey has handed them a sheet of paper and it
(02:19):
listed all of these different sperm downers from California Crowdbank,
and all it had was this number. It had physical characteristics,
um interest, and then level of education and that was it.
Just one line. And they went home and they studied
the whole sheet and they selected ultimately donor one oh
(02:41):
six and it said that he had blonde hair, blue eyes,
he was an editor, his interests were Islamic studies. It
could not have been more opposite than Doug because Doug,
he was six four, He had this beautiful olive skin complexion,
dark brown air, and dark brown eyes, so just complete
(03:03):
opposite profile. And after several attempts at that they finally
conceived me. The doctor at the time told them, don't
tell your child that their donor conceived. It's just not important.
Your dad, your dad, your mom, that's your mom. So
I was born, and then four months later they conceived
naturally with my little sister Joanna, which was a really
(03:24):
big shock to them. And then when I was about five,
Doug got really really sick with something called cardiomyopathy. My
mom was a nurse at the time, and so she
realized the importance of medical information and she was confident
that I was not Doug's daughter, and she obviously knew
(03:45):
that my little sister Joanna was the biological child with Doug.
When I was seven years old, Doug passed away from
cardio my apathy, and that is when my mom started
contacting California Cryobank to figure out what it is that
I needed to know about this medical history. If you
look at a picture of me and my sister, I mean,
total opposites. She looks just like Doug and I was
(04:08):
this bright blond hair, blue green eyes, very fair skin
and freckles and just completely different. But we were fourteen
months apart, and we had are always heard growing up
just how you know, am I the milkman's child was
at a product of an affair. And there's this the
psychological theory called the thought unknown. And I really experienced
(04:29):
this growing up because I always knew there was a secret.
I just didn't know that I was the secret. And
when I was sixteen, I found all of these emails
that she had with California cry Bank and I was
going through them, and my first thought was, Okay, so
my mom is doing something with bull sperm. My grandfather
was a cattle rancher, so that wasn't bizarre by any means.
(04:51):
So I just thought that she was, I don't know,
acquiring sperm for cattle. But then I saw my birthdate
and and that was that moment it and everything made
sense because I had just lived my life thinking, okay,
I'm adopted. So that next morning I went and I
confronted my mom and I was like, Mom, I know
that Doug is not my dad. And she just slowly
(05:13):
turned and looked at me and she's like, what are
you talking about? And then I told her what I
had found, and she just started bawling. And at that
point I was like, Mom, it's it's okay. I'm not
upset by this by any means. But I think it
was just so naive and I was just so young
because I didn't really understand, you know, the complexity behind
(05:33):
donor conception. And to me, I hadn't had a dad
that I could really remember since I was seven, and
this was kind of exciting because I felt like I
kind of got this new chance right just do over
of I get to find them, And it was exciting
at first, and it never occurred to me that he
(05:55):
probably wouldn't want to know me, or that he may
have other children or another family. It was just so
black and white that I'm his daughter, he's my dad,
you know, such this Disney Princess story. We contacted California
Carra Bank and they said that when I was eighteen,
that I could submit this form and they would try
(06:16):
and find him, but it would be only to update
his medical records. I felt a little incomplete because I
wanted to know who he was and I wanted a dad.
So we went through that whole process, and I had
to go get my mother's medical records from Dr mcmurrey's office.
So she drives me over there. I go in, I
have all the forms signed, and I'm waiting. I'm waiting,
(06:39):
and I see him come out and he canceled the appointment.
But I leave with my mom's medical records. We submit
those and then it took California Carra Bank about a
year before they were able to locate him. Um. What
I found out later is that he was getting the
letters to update the medical information. He didn't really know
what it admit. When he was in college and he
was donating, he just kind of assumed that this was
(07:00):
for research. He wasn't thinking, oh my god, this is
going to create a real person. So I had written
a letter and I asked them to forward that letter
onto him whenever they found him, and we get the call,
we get the medical information, and then they forward me
a email from him after he had read my letter,
(07:22):
and so we started corresponding back and forth that way,
and then he ultimately came to Austin when I was
in college and we met. I mean, I just I
can't even describe it. I remember feeling so anxious and
I opened the door and it was just this big embrace.
And I think it's just because he is who he is.
He's just this warm and kind and genuine person. And
(07:43):
I was the same same type, like very warm, like
this is what we wanted. There was a reason for
me to believe that he wouldn't want to be in
my life. We started this beautiful relationship and I started
calling him dad. We started saying I love you when
we ended our phone conversations. And then when I got
pregnant and I had our firstborn son, Hutton, he immediately
(08:04):
started prisoning with some medical complications. And you know, it
was things that were pretty common, like pyloric sinosis common
and boys, you know, not not fun to deal with.
But he had the piloartomie and but he was still vomiting.
And then when it came time for him to start
eating solids, he was having these allergic reactions to foods.
(08:27):
When he was about three years old, I was so
tired of hearing you're a first time mom, this is
just how kids are. I knew that something was wrong
and no one would listen to me. So I went
in and this is right before I had my second child,
and I was just like bawling to the doctor. I'm
like please. He had had so many surgeries, so it's like, please,
just one more endoscopy. You've got to do something. And
(08:49):
the doctor did the endoscopy and he came back and
he said, oh my god, he has reoccurring pyloric sinosis,
which is not something that this doctor had ever seen before.
It's like, but something else is weird. I want to
check genetics or something, some variations. And he's told us
that the easiest way to gather that data was to
do twenty three and me plus health, and so I
(09:10):
did it, my husband did it, and then we had
our son do it. He called back after all the
results came in, and this was in two thousand seventeen,
and he said, Eve, your son has Celiac disease. And
I had no idea what Celiac disease was. He proceeded
to tell me that it's an autoimmune disorder. It's hereditary,
(09:31):
and from what he could tell, it likely came for
me because I had the genetic variations of it as well.
So I immediately called my mom. I'm like, Mom, who
and our family has this? Have you ever heard of it?
She's like, I don't know, I've never heard nobody that
I know in our study of the families. So then
I called Dad Steve and the same thing. And so
(09:52):
I was like, Okay, well maybe this is just one
of those weird things. So we proceed. We get all
of Hetton's food stuff, right, we know, away from gluten
blah blah blah. And then I get a message from
twenty three and me that says you have a new
close match. So I always knew, just from talking with
(10:12):
California Crabbank that I would have half siblings out there,
but they had told me that I was one of
the older ones. And because I was so you know,
like tunnel vision with my child sickness, that I wasn't
really looking for any half siblings and I just honestly
didn't have the space or the time for it. When
(10:33):
I got that email, I opened it and I started
to dig a little bit further and I found these
two guys. So I contact one of them. He knows
he's donor conceived, and we figure out that it's a
half brother, and he was around my age, so that
wasn't surprising. He's from my area, and to be completely honest,
we were so different. So then I talked to the
(10:55):
other one and he is very adamant that he is
actually a first cousin, and I'm telling him, this is
how all of these stories start with donor conceive people,
you know, non parent expected result, and this is what
this is. But I said, okay, I'll walk this with you.
Tell me about your uncle's and he said that he
(11:16):
only had one uncle and he was actually from my
area and his name was Dr mc morey's and my
world stopped because Dr mcmury's the hero that had been
in my parents story, the hero in my birth story,
my entire life, was the man that delivered me. Dog
mcmur's was the man that they got them pregnant, but
(11:36):
instead of using the donor sperm, he swapped a sperm
and used his own. This was without my mom's knowledge
or her consent, and he was my biological father. She
said that whenever they were going in for artificial insemination,
there was one donor that they had selected before and
it was Donort and it wasn't working, so they switched
(11:59):
to donor one of his X and when they were
going that process of switching, Dr mcmoury's has said, Hey,
we have a local donor and we call him the
Bull because he's our most successful donor. And my mom
was like, okay, well that's really bizarre, kind of gross
for you to have a sperm donor you called the bull.
(12:21):
And also, no, I don't want a local donor, and
certainly if it's your most successful donor, I would be
a little concerned that my child may have accidental incest um.
If you know, no one's supposed to know their donor conceived,
and I don't know who the donor is, so that was,
you know, hindsighting. She looks back and she thinks that
that's really bizarre, and she truly believes that that he
was referring to himself as you know, the successful donor.
(12:46):
And then there was another time when I was I
was nineteen, and she went over for her I don't know,
annual exam or something. He asked about me and she
was giving him an update and she said, well, he's
going to go to the University of Texas at Austin,
and he stopped what he was doing and he turned
around and he's like, well, that's a very liberal school
(13:09):
for her. Don't you think she needs to be somewhere
where there's more Christian conservative values. And when my mom
reflects on that conversation, she was like, well, that was
really out of line things to say to your patients,
But it was just that interest that he took. And
at the time she just thought, because he was, you know,
very conservative and very Christian, that that was just him
(13:31):
giving you know, unslow advice. But in reflecting on that,
she did think that was kind of bizarre. But other
than that, no, everyone has always described him as this
very kind man who is self spoken, has a higher
pitched voice, and is very gentle. He's very disarming, I
think in that way, which is why people have a
very hard time believing that he could do something like this.
(13:53):
I took a while to confront him because I just
didn't know I needed it in writing. So I was
it going to show up his office and I wasn't
going to call because I wanted I never wanted there
to be a he said versus she said, right, I
wanted no room for interpretation. It needed to be very concrete,
(14:14):
and so I wrote him a letter and said, hey,
through commercial testing and appearance that I'm your daughter. So
he writes back, he's like, you know, oh, it appears
that you may have inherited some of my genetics, and
I'm like, some of your genetics, okay. So he goes
through and he tells me, you know, he had this
program in the eighties and there were five women that
(14:37):
were in his A I. D. S. Who his artificial
extermination program. And of those five women and five pregnancies,
two ended a miscarriage and then three were from donor sperm.
And he said that he used like one from californ
to Craybank and it wasn't working. And at this time
he didn't know that I had my mom's notes, so
(14:59):
he and say whatever he wanted, right, so I could
see all of it. But he didn't know that, and
so he was saying he didn't have his. But as
he's going through this, there's three of us, but he
said there's one to two. So that was the first
kind of red flag of oh, he's not being honest.
So he goes to this whole thing about how he
went back and got sperm from when he was a
(15:21):
donor and when he was in college, so that would
have been thirteen years before I was conceived. So I
proceed to ask him what his donor number was. He
doesn't know when his donor number was, but there were
just so many holes in his story. He was like,
I signed off on all my peronal rights, and your
mom knew about this, and it was a gratifying and
satisfying experience to be able to deliver them a healthy
(15:43):
baby girl. So then I kept asking him more questions
and told him about the medical stuff, and then told
him how many I had found, And so it's kind
of like peeling back all the layers as he just
lied more and more. Even though I knew that I
had this version of events for my mom and the
notes backed that up, and then I had this man
that I knew was lying to me, I still wanted
(16:05):
to know him. And I think that it speaks to
such a testament of genetic identity and this this drive
that we have to know who we are and our ancestors.
And I still wanted to know him, and I think
I had this Disney princess view still that it was
somehow going to work out, because I had such a
wonderful dad experience with Steve that I was thinking that
(16:29):
that I could have that again, and you know, I
was afraid of that replacement. I was afraid of being
rejected again. I was afraid of you know, there were
so many fears, like a fear of a bandiment, that
it was really kind of difficult to process. And even
though I cognitively knew that this man was lying and
manipulating me and we were never going to be able
to have this genuine and authentic relationship unless we were
(16:53):
truthful with each other, because I was always going to wonder,
is he just giving me just enough to hold onto you?
So I keep his secret? And I don't know if
I could have ever proceeded with that. But then also
there was this other really big thing, and it was
I had the answer to these medical mysteries, and because
(17:13):
he was lying to me, who what was the scope
of the problem here? How many half siblings do I have?
And what if they have a child like I did,
or what if they themselves were suffering with this medical
crazy stuff? So I really had to decide what to do,
and and that's when I decided to come forward of
my story because he wasn't being truthful. And then it
was every new half sibling that popped up really kind
(17:35):
of validated that because he kept saying it was one
to two, and then it was there, it was five,
and then it was five per area, and then you
know it just it kept changing. Every time we hit
his number, he would change his story a little bit,
and then he always falls back to, well, I wish
I had my donor records because I don't know. I
ended up contacting one of his former nurses and it
(17:58):
was crazy. One of and said Eve he was seeing
between fifty and seventy patients a day, like let that
sink in, Let that sink in. But you got to
think about this. At the time of the eighties, this
is i mean just already the wild world was this.
This guy has now fertility training. He's just an O
B and a little mom and pop. He just like
hung out a shingle with his medical license. But also,
(18:21):
this is in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. No
fresh sperm was supposed to be inseminated, was supposed to
be frozen, it was supposed to be quarantined and tested.
You have this doctor who's inseminating his patients with his
own sperm, and he's been exupposed to blend the o
R almost every single day, so there was this huge
negligence piece of it to you. So after speaking with them,
(18:41):
they said that there was an instance and it was
actually my my brother. The mom came in, there was
no sperm that was ready to be prepped, and so
Dr mcmaoury's went to his office and came out five
minutes later and handed them the cup and the nurse
was like, it was warm, and so in that moment
(19:04):
she knew what was going on. But then she said
a week later he shut down the program. Well, that
shut down the program in six I wasn't even conceived yet.
And then I have sister that was conceived or she
was born in nineteen eighty nine, so he was still
running this program outside of his nurses. So you have
that crazy number, right, So I mean we, I mean,
(19:25):
we don't want to know. The protocol he changed is
that the nurses would no longer prep the sperm, so
they would no longer unfreeze it or put it in
a syrene or whatever. It was just him, so he
could have been doing that in his office and then
just walking into the rooms and then the nurses wouldn't
have known any different. But then you also think about
this the eighties. These are women that are driving thirty miles,
(19:47):
sixty miles to see this man. So if we know
that sperm can live outside of cervical mucus for roughly
thirty to forty minutes, he's not going to take a
chance that his patient gets a flat higher she's running late.
He's gonna wait until she gets into the office. He
preps her cervix, then he goes into the next room.
He masturbates to procure the sample and it comes right
(20:09):
back in, and then inserts the sample. So you really
have the question. There are so many unintentional consequences to
this when you think about accidental incest. I mean, we
are all in small towns. We went to college together.
I grew up with my house siblings. I didn't even
know it. I have two sisters who have used him
(20:29):
as a doctor, their biological father. As a gynecologist. He
delivered their children. But for him to just think so
clinically of it, of oh, but I signed off all
my rights, so it doesn't make me your father. It's like, no,
you are my biological father. The biodiversity concern is very
That is the most concerning part. I mean, there's a
whole other layer of trauma when you find out that
(20:51):
your biological father has been your gynecologist. But he's also
practicing with one of his sons. So that's another thing,
is he did a surgery and one of my sisters.
You see, I mean, there's the ethical it's wild. Has
(21:14):
Dr Kim McMorris ever like come around to the idea
of the fact that he is your biological father and
is he ever like apologized for handled things as he
has he ever said anything along those lines. He admitted
that he was my biological father, but under the pretense
that he was an anonymous firm downer and that that
hiding behind that cloak of anonymity somehow made this Okay,
(21:38):
what are the laws around this? Because obviously it sounds
highly illegal, um, and it sounds like you shouldn't be
practicing any kind of medicine anymore. Um. But obviously he is,
you know, so what what's the what's the story there?
This was probably an even more shocking thing to figure
out is is that it's not illegal and there's not
(21:58):
even a civil cause of action to bring against the
doctor and it's largely because we don't have laws written
around this, and any time you have an industry that
operates under a cloak of anonymity, they can get away
with it. And so he firmly believes that because he
was an anonymous sperm donor, I mean, that's it. There's
(22:19):
it doesn't matter if he was the doctor. And that
is why finding on this out, I decided to go
and change the laws, because what I can recognize is
that we have this huge gap in between technology and
our laws, especially when it comes to artificial reproductive technologies.
We have our infertility rates that are climbing. We have
(22:41):
the LGBTQ community who this is their only resource to
use this, but our nel salants are more regulated, and
we are starting to see because of commercial DNA testing,
we're starting to see a lot of fertility negligence and
fertility fraud. And so that has been a big part
of what I've spent the last three years doing is
(23:01):
really trying to educate our legislators and to educate the
public that they are not protected and because of that,
because of the loose regulations, they need to be able
to make choices for themselves and be their own advocates
so they don't become that statistic of experiencing fertility fraud
(23:21):
or reproductive negligence. One of the some of the big
roadblocks you've come up against in terms of trying to
approach lawmakers or change legislation. I mean, the biggest thing
is the lack of education. Unless you have a legislator
who has gone through a r T, then they don't
even have the language to talk about the problem. Then
(23:42):
you have me coming in and sitting down and I'm
talking to a sixty year old man. As soon as
I say the word sperm, they get so wildly uncomfortable.
They're like, how can I get the scrawl out of here?
So I really think that the lack of education, it
has been the biggest struggle. But then also, and I
don't know if this is just like an American being
(24:02):
or not, but we have this that this narrative that
exists that is, you know, you should just be grateful
to be alive, or you wouldn't be here if it
weren't for him. And this toxic positivity that is really meant,
as you know, to make someone feel better about it,
but really it is a projection of their own discomfort,
(24:23):
but it's projected back on to me be quiet, you know,
but like don't like don't talk about it, you know.
Oh yeah, But then it's also existing in we're just
out coming out of infertility being so stigmatized. People are
just now starting to talk about it. And I think
the biggest thing for legislators is that it touches on
(24:43):
things like abortion, and it touches on nobody wants to
regulate when it comes to creating families unless it comes
to destroying embryos or creating embryos. And I truly believe
that that the doctors probably aren't doing this today, but
it is still really important to create laws around fertility
(25:06):
fraud legislation because because what these legislators decided to do
now is something that both parties can agree with. This
is going to determine how they handle things in the
future and things that we haven't even thought of yet,
to name a few, gene editing, and the ethics around
that artificial wounds, is that ethical surrogacy, um the embryos,
(25:29):
the creation, the destruction, things that aren't as as easily
agreed upon, and if we don't have at least the
foundational words defined or the foundation of the education. Then
that's going to be a lot harder. How does the
American Society of Reproductive Medicine fit into all of this,
Like what role do they play? They are their professional organization.
(25:51):
They they're not there to protect you, their professional organization
of doctors, and they're just guidelines. I think people are
shocks when they realize that the a s r N
is there are no sanctions. If a doctor chooses not
to follow him, nothing happens to him. I think people
are really surprised by that. Yeah, it's wild. Is there
are there any companies that have sprung up over the
(26:13):
last couple of years that are there to kind of
advocate for people like yourself, for for people that have
been have experienced fertility fraud. I think it's really grassroots
right now because when it comes to fertility fraud legislation,
I mean, you can go to my website and you
can email all the legislators from THEYROR, but it's really
kind of piece mold together. I think that the biggest
(26:34):
group in the movement are the very people that this
industry helped creates, and I think that those donor conceived
persons are a threat to the industry, because for so
long the industry has said, oh, you can have a family,
and here's this donor, but it stopped at that. It's
like once the existential transaction of getting someone pregnant, once
(26:56):
that is done, there's no further education on how to
help that child navigate these massive half sibling relationships, or
if you're a donor, how do you navigate, you know,
having this person who's not an adult come to you,
knock on your door and say, hey, i'm your child. Um,
you know, there's there's so much emphasis on when a
(27:18):
recipient parent desires to have a child, they really put
a lot of value on that biological connection of at
least otherwise they would adopt, right, But there's no value
when when that that child grows up to an adult
and they desire to know the other. And so it
really comes down to it's either valued or it's not.
(27:40):
And why is it that the recipient parents can value
the connection, the biological connection, but then that offspring can't.
And there's such a huge disconnect with that. And so
what I see as I see the donor conceived persons,
they are the ones that that are really hey, you
have y'all have completely excluded our voice here, and this
is actually how we feel about being intentionally separated from
(28:03):
a genetic parent. And it's not all sunshine rainbows like
the industry probably told you it was. Yeah, what about
what about Steve? Is he like, why does he feel
about this whole thing? And I think the I mean,
there's been a lot of hard parts with this, but
telling my mom and telling Steve were dad, it was heartbreaking.
(28:23):
I told my mom immediately, and she didn't believe me,
because you know, he was such an amazing person. She
just couldn't believe someone could do this to her, especially
not mcmoury's um. But for her this was hard because
she felt that toxic positivity and it took her a
long time to really recognize that she's allowed to have
opposite feelings about this. She can love that I'm her daughter,
(28:45):
she can be so happy and not want to change
out for the world, but she can also be really
upset around the deception around my conception. And it's almost
like she felt that if she honored that um, that
trauma are around my conception, that she was also saying
in the same breath that she wished I wasn't here
and that wasn't the case. And then with dad, Steve Donor,
(29:09):
when I was six, I was I mean, I was
data stated I was. I was so fearful that that
he was going to be like, oh my god, this
is too much. I can't I can't do this. And
I was fearful of that rejection, and so I waited
several months to tell him. And and when I told him,
(29:30):
I mean, we both were just bawling and and and
it could have been five minutes, it could have been
two hours. I don't even remember. I just remember saying
I'm still here, I'm still here, I'm listening, I'm listening.
And at the end of it, he said, this changes
some things, but but you're still my daughter. And that
was all I needed to hear. You know, we're like
the joke was okay, So here are lemons and lime,
(29:53):
let's make a margarita here, and you know, basically, how
do we move forward with this? And and that's why
we all moved forward by coming forward basically, So there
was a healing part of that. And we talked a
lot about the importance of nearrative therapy. And you know,
I didn't start this, I didn't do this, and it
really sucks to have to read consequences of things that
(30:17):
that that weren't you choosing. And so we talked a
lot about how, you know, we didn't do this, but
but we get to decide what to do from here.
And I think that that was really healing to be
able to do that together, um, to really bring us
together even closer. It's really difficult to kind of like
take something that's happened to you and turn it into
something that's positive even though it's seemingly a very negative
(30:40):
thing or something that's really hurtful. Um. So for that,
thank you. Now, I think you hit on some you
actually hit on really good points there. I knew that
there was a purpose in the pain. I just had
to find it. And I think that's just I don't know.
I think I'm just like a doer. And but maybe
it was more of a projection of if I sit
(31:02):
here in this, it's just gonna get me alive. But
if actually do something with it, then I can work
through it and I can grow through it. Um. But
I god, I felt so lonely. I mean, you think
about this, you know, being donor conceived like, yes, you
can find like blogs and on Facebook groups. But three
or four years ago, I mean, there was nothing and
(31:24):
it's not something you just that everyone can really understand.
And I just remember feeling like, oh, like almost like
an alien. I'm I'm on an island here. Everybody feel
sorry for me, But you don't want people feel sorry
for you, right, It's like that, like I didn't want
people to pity me, but at the same time, I
wanted them to be like, this is awful. It was
(31:44):
just so weird, you know, it's nothing that no reaction
anyone can give me would satisfy me. Right, And and
and I remember just diving into World War two books
and just this trauma bonding was Okay, there are people
that have it worse than me, and I'm just going
to dive into this. And I don't want to compare
myself to, you know, a warrior, hero and soldier coming home,
(32:06):
but I can compare my loneliness to that of coming
back and just having this altered reality. Um. You know,
when I think when you have something really traumatic that
happens in your life, it really just it changes the
lens from which you view the world. And and I
didn't have the I didn't have the barriers or even
the stories to help guide me to compare to you,
(32:28):
except for other really extreme forms of trauma, when we
get blindsided by life, it can existentially displace us and
(32:49):
change our point of view forever. We can't have so
many years of existence suddenly be in question and not
feel like an alien or alone or misunderstood. But I
believe we can take hold of loneliness and use it
in a way that provides a perspective that is truly
unique and helpful. He found purpose in her pain and
(33:12):
is now as successful in implementing fertility legislation in multiple states.
We chatted a bit about the American Society of Reproductive Medicine,
which is a professional organization that sets up guidelines, but
those guidelines aren't maundated, so they're really just suggestions. One
of those suggestions is only twenty five offspring per donor
(33:34):
perd people, which allows for a donor conceived person to
technically have over ten thousand half siblings in the US,
yet offers no way to document those live births. I
find that not just hard to take in, but also disturbing.
This is an industry that allows for the people at
(33:56):
AIDS to create to have less human rights than those
worn by more conventional means. By denying them their medical
history and their genetic identity, you've just listened to the unimaginable.
I'm your host, James Brown. Until next time, A
We are in the United States, the fertility industry is
less regulated than Neil salons. A doctor should not have
the legal right to switch out a donor's sperm for
his own, yet it's been happening for years. This episode
features America's leading fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley. After Eve's story,
(00:25):
we have an illuminating conversation about the reality of the
fertility industry. I can't imagine how Eve must feel in
the wick of discovering the long and winding truth of
who her biological father is. This is the unimaginable. I'm
your host, a musician, James Brown. I am from a
(00:51):
really small town in East Texas called Center. It is
affectionately referred to as life behind the Pine Curtain. It's
really hard. It against the Louisiana line and it's about
five thousand people. So my parents, my mom is Margo
and my dad is Doug, and they struggled with infertility
(01:11):
for years. So they went to a fertility doctor, Dr
Kim McMurray's, and at first he wanted to look and
see who had the infertility issue, and it ended up
being my father had it and it was called secondary
mele infertility. Factor. At that point, Dr mcmurs took a
sample of his seamen and looked and he had low motility.
(01:35):
At that point, the doctor really encouraged them to look
into other options and artificial reproductive technologies, and in particular
they decided on artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor.
And you have to remember this was in the eighties,
so this was a time where we didn't know things
about how important genetic identity was. We didn't really know
(01:57):
the effects that this would have on donor because huge people.
But also infertility wasn't talked about. It was stigmatized, and
so there was this cloud of anonymity and secrecy that
was very much portrayed with any infertility practices. So Dr
mcmorey has handed them a sheet of paper and it
(02:19):
listed all of these different sperm downers from California Crowdbank,
and all it had was this number. It had physical characteristics,
um interest, and then level of education and that was it.
Just one line. And they went home and they studied
the whole sheet and they selected ultimately donor one oh
(02:41):
six and it said that he had blonde hair, blue eyes,
he was an editor, his interests were Islamic studies. It
could not have been more opposite than Doug because Doug,
he was six four, He had this beautiful olive skin complexion,
dark brown air, and dark brown eyes, so just complete
(03:03):
opposite profile. And after several attempts at that they finally
conceived me. The doctor at the time told them, don't
tell your child that their donor conceived. It's just not important.
Your dad, your dad, your mom, that's your mom. So
I was born, and then four months later they conceived
naturally with my little sister Joanna, which was a really
(03:24):
big shock to them. And then when I was about five,
Doug got really really sick with something called cardiomyopathy. My
mom was a nurse at the time, and so she
realized the importance of medical information and she was confident
that I was not Doug's daughter, and she obviously knew
(03:45):
that my little sister Joanna was the biological child with Doug.
When I was seven years old, Doug passed away from
cardio my apathy, and that is when my mom started
contacting California Cryobank to figure out what it is that
I needed to know about this medical history. If you
look at a picture of me and my sister, I mean,
total opposites. She looks just like Doug and I was
(04:08):
this bright blond hair, blue green eyes, very fair skin
and freckles and just completely different. But we were fourteen
months apart, and we had are always heard growing up
just how you know, am I the milkman's child was
at a product of an affair. And there's this the
psychological theory called the thought unknown. And I really experienced
(04:29):
this growing up because I always knew there was a secret.
I just didn't know that I was the secret. And
when I was sixteen, I found all of these emails
that she had with California cry Bank and I was
going through them, and my first thought was, Okay, so
my mom is doing something with bull sperm. My grandfather
was a cattle rancher, so that wasn't bizarre by any means.
(04:51):
So I just thought that she was, I don't know,
acquiring sperm for cattle. But then I saw my birthdate
and and that was that moment it and everything made
sense because I had just lived my life thinking, okay,
I'm adopted. So that next morning I went and I
confronted my mom and I was like, Mom, I know
that Doug is not my dad. And she just slowly
(05:13):
turned and looked at me and she's like, what are
you talking about? And then I told her what I
had found, and she just started bawling. And at that
point I was like, Mom, it's it's okay. I'm not
upset by this by any means. But I think it
was just so naive and I was just so young
because I didn't really understand, you know, the complexity behind
(05:33):
donor conception. And to me, I hadn't had a dad
that I could really remember since I was seven, and
this was kind of exciting because I felt like I
kind of got this new chance right just do over
of I get to find them, And it was exciting
at first, and it never occurred to me that he
(05:55):
probably wouldn't want to know me, or that he may
have other children or another family. It was just so
black and white that I'm his daughter, he's my dad,
you know, such this Disney Princess story. We contacted California
Carra Bank and they said that when I was eighteen,
that I could submit this form and they would try
(06:16):
and find him, but it would be only to update
his medical records. I felt a little incomplete because I
wanted to know who he was and I wanted a dad.
So we went through that whole process, and I had
to go get my mother's medical records from Dr mcmurrey's office.
So she drives me over there. I go in, I
have all the forms signed, and I'm waiting. I'm waiting,
(06:39):
and I see him come out and he canceled the appointment.
But I leave with my mom's medical records. We submit
those and then it took California Carra Bank about a
year before they were able to locate him. Um. What
I found out later is that he was getting the
letters to update the medical information. He didn't really know
what it admit. When he was in college and he
was donating, he just kind of assumed that this was
(07:00):
for research. He wasn't thinking, oh my god, this is
going to create a real person. So I had written
a letter and I asked them to forward that letter
onto him whenever they found him, and we get the call,
we get the medical information, and then they forward me
a email from him after he had read my letter,
(07:22):
and so we started corresponding back and forth that way,
and then he ultimately came to Austin when I was
in college and we met. I mean, I just I
can't even describe it. I remember feeling so anxious and
I opened the door and it was just this big embrace.
And I think it's just because he is who he is.
He's just this warm and kind and genuine person. And
(07:43):
I was the same same type, like very warm, like
this is what we wanted. There was a reason for
me to believe that he wouldn't want to be in
my life. We started this beautiful relationship and I started
calling him dad. We started saying I love you when
we ended our phone conversations. And then when I got
pregnant and I had our firstborn son, Hutton, he immediately
(08:04):
started prisoning with some medical complications. And you know, it
was things that were pretty common, like pyloric sinosis common
and boys, you know, not not fun to deal with.
But he had the piloartomie and but he was still vomiting.
And then when it came time for him to start
eating solids, he was having these allergic reactions to foods.
(08:27):
When he was about three years old, I was so
tired of hearing you're a first time mom, this is
just how kids are. I knew that something was wrong
and no one would listen to me. So I went
in and this is right before I had my second child,
and I was just like bawling to the doctor. I'm
like please. He had had so many surgeries, so it's like, please,
just one more endoscopy. You've got to do something. And
(08:49):
the doctor did the endoscopy and he came back and
he said, oh my god, he has reoccurring pyloric sinosis,
which is not something that this doctor had ever seen before.
It's like, but something else is weird. I want to
check genetics or something, some variations. And he's told us
that the easiest way to gather that data was to
do twenty three and me plus health, and so I
(09:10):
did it, my husband did it, and then we had
our son do it. He called back after all the
results came in, and this was in two thousand seventeen,
and he said, Eve, your son has Celiac disease. And
I had no idea what Celiac disease was. He proceeded
to tell me that it's an autoimmune disorder. It's hereditary,
(09:31):
and from what he could tell, it likely came for
me because I had the genetic variations of it as well.
So I immediately called my mom. I'm like, Mom, who
and our family has this? Have you ever heard of it?
She's like, I don't know, I've never heard nobody that
I know in our study of the families. So then
I called Dad Steve and the same thing. And so
(09:52):
I was like, Okay, well maybe this is just one
of those weird things. So we proceed. We get all
of Hetton's food stuff, right, we know, away from gluten
blah blah blah. And then I get a message from
twenty three and me that says you have a new
close match. So I always knew, just from talking with
(10:12):
California Crabbank that I would have half siblings out there,
but they had told me that I was one of
the older ones. And because I was so you know,
like tunnel vision with my child sickness, that I wasn't
really looking for any half siblings and I just honestly
didn't have the space or the time for it. When
(10:33):
I got that email, I opened it and I started
to dig a little bit further and I found these
two guys. So I contact one of them. He knows
he's donor conceived, and we figure out that it's a
half brother, and he was around my age, so that
wasn't surprising. He's from my area, and to be completely honest,
we were so different. So then I talked to the
(10:55):
other one and he is very adamant that he is
actually a first cousin, and I'm telling him, this is
how all of these stories start with donor conceive people,
you know, non parent expected result, and this is what
this is. But I said, okay, I'll walk this with you.
Tell me about your uncle's and he said that he
(11:16):
only had one uncle and he was actually from my
area and his name was Dr mc morey's and my
world stopped because Dr mcmury's the hero that had been
in my parents story, the hero in my birth story,
my entire life, was the man that delivered me. Dog
mcmur's was the man that they got them pregnant, but
(11:36):
instead of using the donor sperm, he swapped a sperm
and used his own. This was without my mom's knowledge
or her consent, and he was my biological father. She
said that whenever they were going in for artificial insemination,
there was one donor that they had selected before and
it was Donort and it wasn't working, so they switched
(11:59):
to donor one of his X and when they were
going that process of switching, Dr mcmoury's has said, Hey,
we have a local donor and we call him the
Bull because he's our most successful donor. And my mom
was like, okay, well that's really bizarre, kind of gross
for you to have a sperm donor you called the bull.
(12:21):
And also, no, I don't want a local donor, and
certainly if it's your most successful donor, I would be
a little concerned that my child may have accidental incest um.
If you know, no one's supposed to know their donor conceived,
and I don't know who the donor is, so that was,
you know, hindsighting. She looks back and she thinks that
that's really bizarre, and she truly believes that that he
was referring to himself as you know, the successful donor.
(12:46):
And then there was another time when I was I
was nineteen, and she went over for her I don't know,
annual exam or something. He asked about me and she
was giving him an update and she said, well, he's
going to go to the University of Texas at Austin,
and he stopped what he was doing and he turned
around and he's like, well, that's a very liberal school
(13:09):
for her. Don't you think she needs to be somewhere
where there's more Christian conservative values. And when my mom
reflects on that conversation, she was like, well, that was
really out of line things to say to your patients,
But it was just that interest that he took. And
at the time she just thought, because he was, you know,
very conservative and very Christian, that that was just him
(13:31):
giving you know, unslow advice. But in reflecting on that,
she did think that was kind of bizarre. But other
than that, no, everyone has always described him as this
very kind man who is self spoken, has a higher
pitched voice, and is very gentle. He's very disarming, I
think in that way, which is why people have a
very hard time believing that he could do something like this.
(13:53):
I took a while to confront him because I just
didn't know I needed it in writing. So I was
it going to show up his office and I wasn't
going to call because I wanted I never wanted there
to be a he said versus she said, right, I
wanted no room for interpretation. It needed to be very concrete,
(14:14):
and so I wrote him a letter and said, hey,
through commercial testing and appearance that I'm your daughter. So
he writes back, he's like, you know, oh, it appears
that you may have inherited some of my genetics, and
I'm like, some of your genetics, okay. So he goes
through and he tells me, you know, he had this
program in the eighties and there were five women that
(14:37):
were in his A I. D. S. Who his artificial
extermination program. And of those five women and five pregnancies,
two ended a miscarriage and then three were from donor sperm.
And he said that he used like one from californ
to Craybank and it wasn't working. And at this time
he didn't know that I had my mom's notes, so
(14:59):
he and say whatever he wanted, right, so I could
see all of it. But he didn't know that, and
so he was saying he didn't have his. But as
he's going through this, there's three of us, but he
said there's one to two. So that was the first
kind of red flag of oh, he's not being honest.
So he goes to this whole thing about how he
went back and got sperm from when he was a
(15:21):
donor and when he was in college, so that would
have been thirteen years before I was conceived. So I
proceed to ask him what his donor number was. He
doesn't know when his donor number was, but there were
just so many holes in his story. He was like,
I signed off on all my peronal rights, and your
mom knew about this, and it was a gratifying and
satisfying experience to be able to deliver them a healthy
(15:43):
baby girl. So then I kept asking him more questions
and told him about the medical stuff, and then told
him how many I had found, And so it's kind
of like peeling back all the layers as he just
lied more and more. Even though I knew that I
had this version of events for my mom and the
notes backed that up, and then I had this man
that I knew was lying to me, I still wanted
(16:05):
to know him. And I think that it speaks to
such a testament of genetic identity and this this drive
that we have to know who we are and our ancestors.
And I still wanted to know him, and I think
I had this Disney princess view still that it was
somehow going to work out, because I had such a
wonderful dad experience with Steve that I was thinking that
(16:29):
that I could have that again, and you know, I
was afraid of that replacement. I was afraid of being
rejected again. I was afraid of you know, there were
so many fears, like a fear of a bandiment, that
it was really kind of difficult to process. And even
though I cognitively knew that this man was lying and
manipulating me and we were never going to be able
to have this genuine and authentic relationship unless we were
(16:53):
truthful with each other, because I was always going to wonder,
is he just giving me just enough to hold onto you?
So I keep his secret? And I don't know if
I could have ever proceeded with that. But then also
there was this other really big thing, and it was
I had the answer to these medical mysteries, and because
(17:13):
he was lying to me, who what was the scope
of the problem here? How many half siblings do I have?
And what if they have a child like I did,
or what if they themselves were suffering with this medical
crazy stuff? So I really had to decide what to do,
and and that's when I decided to come forward of
my story because he wasn't being truthful. And then it
was every new half sibling that popped up really kind
(17:35):
of validated that because he kept saying it was one
to two, and then it was there, it was five,
and then it was five per area, and then you
know it just it kept changing. Every time we hit
his number, he would change his story a little bit,
and then he always falls back to, well, I wish
I had my donor records because I don't know. I
ended up contacting one of his former nurses and it
(17:58):
was crazy. One of and said Eve he was seeing
between fifty and seventy patients a day, like let that
sink in, Let that sink in. But you got to
think about this. At the time of the eighties, this
is i mean just already the wild world was this.
This guy has now fertility training. He's just an O
B and a little mom and pop. He just like
hung out a shingle with his medical license. But also,
(18:21):
this is in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. No
fresh sperm was supposed to be inseminated, was supposed to
be frozen, it was supposed to be quarantined and tested.
You have this doctor who's inseminating his patients with his
own sperm, and he's been exupposed to blend the o
R almost every single day, so there was this huge
negligence piece of it to you. So after speaking with them,
(18:41):
they said that there was an instance and it was
actually my my brother. The mom came in, there was
no sperm that was ready to be prepped, and so
Dr mcmaoury's went to his office and came out five
minutes later and handed them the cup and the nurse
was like, it was warm, and so in that moment
(19:04):
she knew what was going on. But then she said
a week later he shut down the program. Well, that
shut down the program in six I wasn't even conceived yet.
And then I have sister that was conceived or she
was born in nineteen eighty nine, so he was still
running this program outside of his nurses. So you have
that crazy number, right, So I mean we, I mean,
(19:25):
we don't want to know. The protocol he changed is
that the nurses would no longer prep the sperm, so
they would no longer unfreeze it or put it in
a syrene or whatever. It was just him, so he
could have been doing that in his office and then
just walking into the rooms and then the nurses wouldn't
have known any different. But then you also think about
this the eighties. These are women that are driving thirty miles,
(19:47):
sixty miles to see this man. So if we know
that sperm can live outside of cervical mucus for roughly
thirty to forty minutes, he's not going to take a
chance that his patient gets a flat higher she's running late.
He's gonna wait until she gets into the office. He
preps her cervix, then he goes into the next room.
He masturbates to procure the sample and it comes right
(20:09):
back in, and then inserts the sample. So you really
have the question. There are so many unintentional consequences to
this when you think about accidental incest. I mean, we
are all in small towns. We went to college together.
I grew up with my house siblings. I didn't even
know it. I have two sisters who have used him
(20:29):
as a doctor, their biological father. As a gynecologist. He
delivered their children. But for him to just think so
clinically of it, of oh, but I signed off all
my rights, so it doesn't make me your father. It's like, no,
you are my biological father. The biodiversity concern is very
That is the most concerning part. I mean, there's a
whole other layer of trauma when you find out that
(20:51):
your biological father has been your gynecologist. But he's also
practicing with one of his sons. So that's another thing,
is he did a surgery and one of my sisters.
You see, I mean, there's the ethical it's wild. Has
(21:14):
Dr Kim McMorris ever like come around to the idea
of the fact that he is your biological father and
is he ever like apologized for handled things as he
has he ever said anything along those lines. He admitted
that he was my biological father, but under the pretense
that he was an anonymous firm downer and that that
hiding behind that cloak of anonymity somehow made this Okay,
(21:38):
what are the laws around this? Because obviously it sounds
highly illegal, um, and it sounds like you shouldn't be
practicing any kind of medicine anymore. Um. But obviously he is,
you know, so what what's the what's the story there?
This was probably an even more shocking thing to figure
out is is that it's not illegal and there's not
(21:58):
even a civil cause of action to bring against the
doctor and it's largely because we don't have laws written
around this, and any time you have an industry that
operates under a cloak of anonymity, they can get away
with it. And so he firmly believes that because he
was an anonymous sperm donor, I mean, that's it. There's
(22:19):
it doesn't matter if he was the doctor. And that
is why finding on this out, I decided to go
and change the laws, because what I can recognize is
that we have this huge gap in between technology and
our laws, especially when it comes to artificial reproductive technologies.
We have our infertility rates that are climbing. We have
(22:41):
the LGBTQ community who this is their only resource to
use this, but our nel salants are more regulated, and
we are starting to see because of commercial DNA testing,
we're starting to see a lot of fertility negligence and
fertility fraud. And so that has been a big part
of what I've spent the last three years doing is
(23:01):
really trying to educate our legislators and to educate the
public that they are not protected and because of that,
because of the loose regulations, they need to be able
to make choices for themselves and be their own advocates
so they don't become that statistic of experiencing fertility fraud
(23:21):
or reproductive negligence. One of the some of the big
roadblocks you've come up against in terms of trying to
approach lawmakers or change legislation. I mean, the biggest thing
is the lack of education. Unless you have a legislator
who has gone through a r T, then they don't
even have the language to talk about the problem. Then
(23:42):
you have me coming in and sitting down and I'm
talking to a sixty year old man. As soon as
I say the word sperm, they get so wildly uncomfortable.
They're like, how can I get the scrawl out of here?
So I really think that the lack of education, it
has been the biggest struggle. But then also, and I
don't know if this is just like an American being
(24:02):
or not, but we have this that this narrative that
exists that is, you know, you should just be grateful
to be alive, or you wouldn't be here if it
weren't for him. And this toxic positivity that is really meant,
as you know, to make someone feel better about it,
but really it is a projection of their own discomfort,
(24:23):
but it's projected back on to me be quiet, you know,
but like don't like don't talk about it, you know.
Oh yeah, But then it's also existing in we're just
out coming out of infertility being so stigmatized. People are
just now starting to talk about it. And I think
the biggest thing for legislators is that it touches on
(24:43):
things like abortion, and it touches on nobody wants to
regulate when it comes to creating families unless it comes
to destroying embryos or creating embryos. And I truly believe
that that the doctors probably aren't doing this today, but
it is still really important to create laws around fertility
(25:06):
fraud legislation because because what these legislators decided to do
now is something that both parties can agree with. This
is going to determine how they handle things in the
future and things that we haven't even thought of yet,
to name a few, gene editing, and the ethics around
that artificial wounds, is that ethical surrogacy, um the embryos,
(25:29):
the creation, the destruction, things that aren't as as easily
agreed upon, and if we don't have at least the
foundational words defined or the foundation of the education. Then
that's going to be a lot harder. How does the
American Society of Reproductive Medicine fit into all of this,
Like what role do they play? They are their professional organization.
(25:51):
They they're not there to protect you, their professional organization
of doctors, and they're just guidelines. I think people are
shocks when they realize that the a s r N
is there are no sanctions. If a doctor chooses not
to follow him, nothing happens to him. I think people
are really surprised by that. Yeah, it's wild. Is there
are there any companies that have sprung up over the
(26:13):
last couple of years that are there to kind of
advocate for people like yourself, for for people that have
been have experienced fertility fraud. I think it's really grassroots
right now because when it comes to fertility fraud legislation,
I mean, you can go to my website and you
can email all the legislators from THEYROR, but it's really
kind of piece mold together. I think that the biggest
(26:34):
group in the movement are the very people that this
industry helped creates, and I think that those donor conceived
persons are a threat to the industry, because for so
long the industry has said, oh, you can have a family,
and here's this donor, but it stopped at that. It's
like once the existential transaction of getting someone pregnant, once
(26:56):
that is done, there's no further education on how to
help that child navigate these massive half sibling relationships, or
if you're a donor, how do you navigate, you know,
having this person who's not an adult come to you,
knock on your door and say, hey, i'm your child. Um,
you know, there's there's so much emphasis on when a
(27:18):
recipient parent desires to have a child, they really put
a lot of value on that biological connection of at
least otherwise they would adopt, right, But there's no value
when when that that child grows up to an adult
and they desire to know the other. And so it
really comes down to it's either valued or it's not.
(27:40):
And why is it that the recipient parents can value
the connection, the biological connection, but then that offspring can't.
And there's such a huge disconnect with that. And so
what I see as I see the donor conceived persons,
they are the ones that that are really hey, you
have y'all have completely excluded our voice here, and this
is actually how we feel about being intentionally separated from
(28:03):
a genetic parent. And it's not all sunshine rainbows like
the industry probably told you it was. Yeah, what about
what about Steve? Is he like, why does he feel
about this whole thing? And I think the I mean,
there's been a lot of hard parts with this, but
telling my mom and telling Steve were dad, it was heartbreaking.
(28:23):
I told my mom immediately, and she didn't believe me,
because you know, he was such an amazing person. She
just couldn't believe someone could do this to her, especially
not mcmoury's um. But for her this was hard because
she felt that toxic positivity and it took her a
long time to really recognize that she's allowed to have
opposite feelings about this. She can love that I'm her daughter,
(28:45):
she can be so happy and not want to change
out for the world, but she can also be really
upset around the deception around my conception. And it's almost
like she felt that if she honored that um, that
trauma are around my conception, that she was also saying
in the same breath that she wished I wasn't here
and that wasn't the case. And then with dad, Steve Donor,
(29:09):
when I was six, I was I mean, I was
data stated I was. I was so fearful that that
he was going to be like, oh my god, this
is too much. I can't I can't do this. And
I was fearful of that rejection, and so I waited
several months to tell him. And and when I told him,
(29:30):
I mean, we both were just bawling and and and
it could have been five minutes, it could have been
two hours. I don't even remember. I just remember saying
I'm still here, I'm still here, I'm listening, I'm listening.
And at the end of it, he said, this changes
some things, but but you're still my daughter. And that
was all I needed to hear. You know, we're like
the joke was okay, So here are lemons and lime,
(29:53):
let's make a margarita here, and you know, basically, how
do we move forward with this? And and that's why
we all moved forward by coming forward basically, So there
was a healing part of that. And we talked a
lot about the importance of nearrative therapy. And you know,
I didn't start this, I didn't do this, and it
really sucks to have to read consequences of things that
(30:17):
that that weren't you choosing. And so we talked a
lot about how, you know, we didn't do this, but
but we get to decide what to do from here.
And I think that that was really healing to be
able to do that together, um, to really bring us
together even closer. It's really difficult to kind of like
take something that's happened to you and turn it into
something that's positive even though it's seemingly a very negative
(30:40):
thing or something that's really hurtful. Um. So for that,
thank you. Now, I think you hit on some you
actually hit on really good points there. I knew that
there was a purpose in the pain. I just had
to find it. And I think that's just I don't know.
I think I'm just like a doer. And but maybe
it was more of a projection of if I sit
(31:02):
here in this, it's just gonna get me alive. But
if actually do something with it, then I can work
through it and I can grow through it. Um. But
I god, I felt so lonely. I mean, you think
about this, you know, being donor conceived like, yes, you
can find like blogs and on Facebook groups. But three
or four years ago, I mean, there was nothing and
(31:24):
it's not something you just that everyone can really understand.
And I just remember feeling like, oh, like almost like
an alien. I'm I'm on an island here. Everybody feel
sorry for me, But you don't want people feel sorry
for you, right, It's like that, like I didn't want
people to pity me, but at the same time, I
wanted them to be like, this is awful. It was
(31:44):
just so weird, you know, it's nothing that no reaction
anyone can give me would satisfy me. Right, And and
and I remember just diving into World War two books
and just this trauma bonding was Okay, there are people
that have it worse than me, and I'm just going
to dive into this. And I don't want to compare
myself to, you know, a warrior, hero and soldier coming home,
(32:06):
but I can compare my loneliness to that of coming
back and just having this altered reality. Um. You know,
when I think when you have something really traumatic that
happens in your life, it really just it changes the
lens from which you view the world. And and I
didn't have the I didn't have the barriers or even
the stories to help guide me to compare to you,
(32:28):
except for other really extreme forms of trauma, when we
get blindsided by life, it can existentially displace us and
(32:49):
change our point of view forever. We can't have so
many years of existence suddenly be in question and not
feel like an alien or alone or misunderstood. But I
believe we can take hold of loneliness and use it
in a way that provides a perspective that is truly
unique and helpful. He found purpose in her pain and
(33:12):
is now as successful in implementing fertility legislation in multiple states.
We chatted a bit about the American Society of Reproductive Medicine,
which is a professional organization that sets up guidelines, but
those guidelines aren't maundated, so they're really just suggestions. One
of those suggestions is only twenty five offspring per donor
(33:34):
perd people, which allows for a donor conceived person to
technically have over ten thousand half siblings in the US,
yet offers no way to document those live births. I
find that not just hard to take in, but also disturbing.
This is an industry that allows for the people at
(33:56):
AIDS to create to have less human rights than those
worn by more conventional means. By denying them their medical
history and their genetic identity, you've just listened to the unimaginable.
I'm your host, James Brown. Until next time, A
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