Twin daughters of a sperm donor have SO MANY QUESTIONS

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 06:57:14 -0800

I'm a twenty-six-year-old fraternal twin, writing on behalf of both of us. Our mother has just revealed to us that the man we know as Dad is not our biological father. And the only person who knew the identity of our biological father...is dead. I'd always had trouble thinking of myself as my father's daughter, and I've had several discussions about this with my mom, during which she'd circumlocute around even the most direct questions (e.g. "Is dad my biological father?"). I know many kids doubt that their parents are their real parents, and I never felt strongly enough about it to demand a paternity test or anything (I also never mentioned these doubts to my dad), but neither me nor my sister look like our dad, act like our dad, or appear to have inherited anything whatsoever from him. My mom would always seem cagey on this topic in thousands of small ways, and I picked up on this early on, as kids tend to do. On the other hand, my sister never doubted for a second that we were related to our dad.

Anyway, we've recently met a few of our dad's relatives, and this re-ignited what I'd always thought of as my baseless neuroses. Last week, when my sister and I were alone with my mom one evening, I started in again, frustrated to the point of tears that she wouldn't give me a straight answer to any of my questions. I told her all I wanted her to say was "[Dad's name] is your biological father," and I'd never bring it up again. She said she wouldn't do it. Finally, after half an hour of this, she turned to me and said, "[Dad's name] is...your father." "Is he my biological father?" I asked, and she said, "No," then paused and said, "See, now you have more problems than you started out with."

We were both stunned. She came out with the story reluctantly, after a few days of prodding - understandable, I think, as this was the first time she'd told anyone about this, ever. My parents were having trouble conceiving, and tests revealed that our dad was sterile. They decided to use donated sperm, which was provided by my mom's ob/gyn, a man who died a few years later from cancer. She and our dad agreed to keep all this secret, from anyone, including us, for a variety of reasons.

For the past few days, my sister and I have felt like we're in a waking dream. Our father doesn't know we know, and we've been forbidden to tell anyone for the time being, at least until our dad finds out we know (although my sister has told her fiance). I abhor all the secrecy, which makes me feel very sad and isolated, but I respect that there are people involved who for whatever reason don't want this spread around.

Now for the questions...we have so many, but here are the most important.

1. We're incredibly curious about our biological father's identity, but finding it seems impossible. As I said, my mom's doctor died of cancer nearly two decades ago, and he was the one who chose the donor. The only thing he said at the time was the cryptic, "They'll be tall" (which, incidentally, neither of us are). We know the name of the hospital, part of a medical school, which makes us think that it could have been a med student who was there at the time. Sleuthing could only go so far, though, especially since all this is done so secretively. There's not even a donor number since they didn't get the sperm from a bank - I've found the Donor Sibling Registry but it seems inapplicable to us for that reason. Given all this, is there any possibility, even the tiniest sliver, that we could figure out who our biological father is? (My mom has suggested he might be the doctor himself, which would make things a lot easier, but we don't feel quite comfortable tracking down his family and banging on their door...)

2. We want to know what ethnicity we are, or anything about our background that wouldn't require knowing our biological father's identity (health risks, for example). I've been asked my whole life what ethnicity I am, but I've always thought I was just an odd-looking Northwestern European. I've done some research into DNA tests but the two I've found are inapplicable - mtDNA tests your matrineal ancestry and Y-DNA is only found in males. Any other way we could find out?

3. My sister and I look (and act) very, very different. After we found out, we discussed this and realized that the only ways we look similar are in the ways we look similar to our mother. We know of the fluke story of a mother giving birth to a black twin and a white twin because of a poorly-cleaned test tube or something. What are the odds of this happening? Should we get a DNA test to find out?

4. Is anyone else here the child of a sperm donor? Any advice for coming to terms with this? We're very confused and emotional right now, and though our mother is slowly opening up, this is a very touchy subject for her and she doesn't like talking about it much for her own reasons (although I showed her this article and she said, "shit."). My sister and I feel very lucky that we have each other - I can't imagine how difficult this sort of thing would be for someone dealing with it alone.

5. Any general advice from the crowd for dealing with this stuff?

I know this is all kind of a shot in the dark (um, so to speak) but we don't really know where to go and what to do from here. Anyone who doesn't want to post here can e-mail us at whosourdaddy@gmail.com.

Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with childrenofspermdonors

Twin daughters of a sperm donor have SO MANY QUESTIONS