Maybe the title is too specific, but you get my drift.
By artificial insemination with anonymous donor sperm from a sperm bank, I had a wonderful baby boy who is still a wonderful son (though a little less enjoyable at 14 than he was at, say, 4). He has not expressed much interest in his sperm donor or in half-siblings I’m aware of all over the country.
This topic and related topics have been in the news lately. Thought I’d open this up. I’ll answer anything that is at least reasonably related (no, my sex life is not).
Are you saying that you are aware of many (or several) specific half-siblings, or just that you have reason to believe that there are quite a few of them?
Aren’t you concerned about the very real prospect that your son will meet and fall in love with one of his unknown half-siblings? After all they are probably all located in the same geographic area (assuming that you haven’t moved since the AI)
When I had my son, I was in what turned out to be a 20 year plus relationship with a woman. We separated about 5 years ago and maintain separate households, but we still observe holidays together, vacation together, do everything like that together. It’s been pretty easy-going, unlike what you usually hear.
I went over many donors’ materials–they include physical/medical report, background/family info, educational background and plans for the future, essay questions, and his Q/A and remarks about each family member, mother/dad, sibs, aunts/uncles.
Really, there were many men who seemed like possibles, but how many did we really need to go through? We reminded ourselves that we were not picking a husband/father, or the kid him/herself. I think it was the “finalist’s” thoughtful comments about his family that swayed us most.
BTW, the cryobanks claim that anyone who isn’t “better than average looking” is turned away. I consider my son as supporting evidence of that.
I am aware of 4 people who have offspring conceived with my same donor’s sperm. I’ve corresponded with a few. We all have shared our email addresses with one another through the donor/sibling registry. The donor has not signed up with his info and may or may not, whatever.
I know that my son has 3 half-brothers in different families, and twin half-sisters in another family. Parents are both gay and straight.
The media love that phrase “a very real prospect.” Anyone with a basic understanding of the scope of the world or even the country, and even just an intuitive idea of statistics knows that such an occurrence is far from “likely.”
Also, the taboos of interfamilial marriage aren’t based so much on medical risk as people tend to think. In nearly every state, first cousins can marry. Inbreeding problems historically have been after several, even centuries, of generations. And these kids are half-siblings, not full siblings. That counts.
As a matter of course, cryobanks exchange the sperm they collect to a sperm bank on the other side of the country. They distribute to different states. They never distribute to a donor’s birth state, nor to the state where they went to college.
In raising this kid of mine, the concern of half-sibling marriage is so very very far down the line of things that keep me up at night.
We only ever ran into one negative reaction, which was when an older woman who had worked with us (the mommies) in the past in another state heard about my pregnancy and wrote us a letter saying she had always loved us but that we were doing a bad thing by having a baby with two mommies. Huh. We talked about a response but decided, OH WELL, and didn’t respond at all.
We have raised our son in Portland, Maine, which is very liberal about gay anything even among conservatives. I can’t remember ever running into even an unpleasantry about us, or us and our son. Not once.
As for Asa, I asked him in middle school if he ever got flak for it and he said no, everybody just thought it was cool.
This would be very different I think in other states and other size communities. Here, Asa is almost a dime a dozen. Lots of gay male and lesbian couples have kids. We’ve had our own “meet-ups” even.
Does your former partner have any specific legal bond with the kid? Did she co-adopt him, would she be accepted as “a relative” by a hospital or school without your specific say-so?
That’s been a sticky matter. When Asa was born, we lived in Boston and MA had a law whereby a same-sex co-parent couldn’t adopt the relatively easy way a step-parent could, but rather we’d have had to go through what’s called “stranger adoption.”
We left MA before we could complete that process and when we moved to Maine, we sort of lost that as a priority. Yes, I’m ashamed that we didn’t take care of it. But that’s the case.
When we separated, we hired a lawyer to draw up papers making Asa’s other mother his mother by… history… like of financial support, responsibility, emotional connection. It’s kind of murky. MAine would not have let her adopt at that point, if I recall correctly.
I think it’s the kind of thing where, if I didn’t let her see him, she could use those papers to support a bid for partial custody. But if I swooped him up and took him to California, no one is really going to come after me they way they would if there were two equal legal parents.
Schools, doctors, anything like that, have never raised an eyebrow about it all. Then again we haven’t really tested things in this area.
Thank you for making me stew about this. I’m going to look further into it today!
{opens bag of popcorn, gets comfortable and watches}
I have a younger sister born of my mother’s partner via AI. Unfortunately they did not take care of the legal niceties. After my mom and partner split the bio mom (under pressure from her own mother, we believe) asserted total parental rights and shut my mom out. No visitation. Ugly accusations ensued. They live in a state not known for being friendly to gay rights.
Little sis turns 18 later this year. We’re waiting to see what happens. No idea what her bio mom or grandmother told her over the years. I’ve looked from time to time on Facebook and other social media but never found her.
So, my question… when are you going to take care of the legalities?
ETA: just googled again. Found an obit for little sis’s grandfather. Apparently sis is living overseas now, probably with her aunt.
Thanks for telling me about that, Ig. So sad that you–and your mother–haven’t had contact with your half-sister.
I looked into our situation immediately after posting that I would. I mean, I went and got the papers we had drawn up and read them over. I believe that Asa’s other mother is pretty well covered as to rights and responsibilities of a parent.
Now, looking at it dispassionately (if that’s possible) I don’t need to worry about establishing my rights further. I’m the birth mother. I guess if I ever wanted to swoop him away, I might not have the clearest full rights it might necessitate to sort things out totally in my favor, given the legal arrangement we have. I know my legal standing as his birthparent would override any way she might want to keep him from me.
The situation here is that I’m in Maine now, with him and her, because she wants to be. I’d rather move back to California. But no way would I make a move that meant he didn’t have us both around full time. No summer/holidays vs. school year arrangement for us. We’re all too close–I can’t even imagine that.
Do you know about the Donor Sibling Registry? Without further details, I can’t know if it might be a source for you but you might check it out.
You might not know this on a national scale, but you’re more likely to know than me…
Are same-sex adoption laws in step with same-sex marriage laws, or are they behind? As in, once SSM is legal does adoption become legal or does more have to be worked out? Or is it easier for two same-gender people to adopt a kid than it is for them to get married?
If the adoption laws are behind, then do you see that as the next fight people will need to take up after states begin to allow same-sex marriage? Is there, uh, an agenda?
Yeah, we’re in a pretty good place. I can’t imagine how children with gay parents ever deal with their classmates that have been raised to condemn.
But then, I can’t imagine even not being out. If you don’t know I’m gay, then you don’t know me at all. I’ve been lucky to live in California, Mass, Maine all my adult life.
That’s a good question! Of course, I say that because I don’t know the answer.
It seems to me that same-sex adoption in some states has been easy for quite a while. Maybe not somewhere like Florida, though, given that when I looked into adopting a child there, the application had stamped across the top:
DO NOT APPLY IF YOU ARE A DRUG ADDICT, A CONVICTED FELON, OR A HOMOSEXUAL.
Marriage hasn’t been legal in any states until relatively recently. I do suppose gay marriage will open up the adoption by gays even moreso.
Interesting sidenote: Many lesbian couples I know have looked to adoption to build a family but frankly, as long as you can get pregnant, it’s way easier and faster to have a baby than to adopt. And I mean even to adopt older kids, and others deemed “hard-to-adopt.” Foreign adoptions from some countries can be worked through, but only if you lie about your sexuality and say you’re just a single woman adopting.
Swinging through to give you a Top Gun high-five for further exploding the ridiculous myth that same sex couples ‘can’t have kids’ or must adopt. Good on ya.
Ok, here’s a question; the film, ‘The Kids Are Alright’; have you all seen it? Did it spark any new discussions in your family, like who would get dibs on Mark Ruffalo should such a decision become necessary?
