In my DNA and sperm donation journey, I ended up on Miami’s FOX affiliate for an interview in December 2019. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t make me famous). But it granted me a format (video) and an audience to whom I could tell my story and the story of my father. Roughly 30 million people have […]
Over the course of two years, in 2013 and 2014, I watched my best friend and his wife endure the pain and heartbreak of infertility issues. It was my first experience with infertility, even from a distance, with a couple I know up close. At first, they were candid about their ongoing attempts at natural […]
I’d love to think of myself as a fortune teller in the DNA ancestry test world, because I could make some nice side money by accurately predicting the future. In my last post, I wrote with regard to the discovery of new siblings “…[you know] with a high degree of certainty that within six to […]
This is weird. Being donor conceived. Having five (and counting) half-siblings. Knowing with a high degree of certainty that within six to eight weeks of holiday gifting, you’ll probably find one or two more. Looking in the mirror and not knowing who gave you blue eyes — That is all weird. And yet, it’s all […]
Memorial Day Weekend, 2019: I’ve always loved the idea of being a blogger, or of having a ‘lifestyle blog.’ Whatever the kids are calling it, I finally realized my ticket to storytelling — to being heard by the world — was via my ancestry search. Arriving at a place where I could say that out […]
In the span of two weeks in January 2019, I got married, went on my honeymoon, and returned to discover that I had another new brother. Welcome to the life of a donor conceived child. Mercifully, I’d left behind the ability to be shocked by the discovery of new siblings after I was blindsided by […]
Two more years have passed since this original piece was sent to David and Thomas via email on the first night of Hanukkah as siblings. In the years since, I am slowly gaining experience with my family in our holiday traditions. I can sing the blessing without much of a stumble, retell the story of […]
“The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.” ― Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase August 19, 2018 I went to bed last night thinking — knowing — that down in my bones, I’d been healed by whatever had wrought damage on me in the […]
August 18, 2018. Being told in your early-30s that you’re donor-conceived is not a conversation that happens once, then disappears into the abyss. Not even close. The questions of origin abound, then they shift and eventually reappear. Days at a time. Weeks at a time. In some ways they never go away. Yet an irony of […]
I have tried and failed to explain my father, his story, and all its nuance in under 2,000 words — a blog post. It’s not feasible. But each time I start, I find myself back in the pages of Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father.” It’s a book I read in pieces years ago, but […]
