Common Denominator

Back in the day when the plan was for me to gestate our first baby and for Lena to gestate our second baby, we did not plan to use the same donor for both pregnancies. We theorized that using the same donor would result in siblings who were genetically linked only through the donor--someone we didn't, and wouldn't ever, know--and we felt like making that choice would over-emphasize the importance of genetics, and the donor's genes in particular.

After Luke and Jaz were born, we began to rethink the idea of never using the same donor twice. Here, we already had--unintentionally--created two children from one donor, and since Lena was no longer feeling the least bit interested in experiencing gestation (I just made it look like so much fun), it started to feel like it made sense to perhaps bank some of Luke and Jaz's donor's sperm for a third child (who I would gestate). Why have two kids from one donor, and a third from a separate donor? We were already appreciating the fact that Luke and Jaz would be able to share in the experience of being conceived with help from a particular donor's sperm, and adding a new donor to the mix would only serve to add more unknowns to the process. I've always been aware of the fact that the kids may one day question our choice to use an anonymous donor, and they may very well long for more information about their donor and his family. I can only hope that having each other--being in the same "genetic boat"--might prove to be somewhat of a condolence.

When it came to be that we were thinking about trying to conceive a fourth child, at first we didn't even consider the possibility of using the same donor we had used previously (referred to as "your donor" when speaking to the children, and as "daddy" when Lena and I were speaking privately). The Cryo Bank had been sold out of his specimens for years (he made most of his donations in 2001), and as I said, we had never intended to have Lena and I both gestate babies conceived with the same sperm anyway. But one evening, after a few hours of searching through the sperm bank database looking for a new anonymous donor, we started to wish that we didn't have to make this choice again. Choosing a sperm donor is a nerve-wracking process. I remember at times wishing that the bank would just give out generic, standard-issue sperm, removing us from the responsibility of selecting attributes that we'd like to see reflected in our children. At other times, I wished we could be more specific in our search, that we could choose our donor based not only on his physical traits, medical history, educational success and athletic abilities, but also on whether or not he liked to climb trees, and if he was bothered by the cold, and how he felt about flying in airplanes or what kind of sheets he liked on his bed. We eventually chose our donor basically by a process of elimination. We never felt any "a-ha!" moment about his profile, nor would we have been the least bit devastated if we'd called the bank and they'd been sold out of his specimens. But after Luke and Jaz were born, we did begin to feel a bit of an attachment to "our" donor. He had, after all, donated the genetic material that had in part contributed to our beautiful, perfect babies. Using his sperm for a second time, when trying to conceive Zeben, did feel like less of a gamble since we already knew something about what babies made with our donor's sperm were like. Thus, as a last-ditch effort before moving forward with choosing a new donor for a fourth baby, we emailed out the listserve of families who have conceived babies with the same donor we used, asking if anyone had an extra vial of sperm that they didn't need. And, as is now perfectly well known, there was one more vial out there, and the genetic material within it contributed to the creation of our sweet baby Leo.

I'm often surprised by how surprised others are upon learning that all of our kids have the same donor. "That's so cool!" they'll say, "amazing!" As if we were the first family ever to conceive all of our kids with sperm from the same man (what a novel idea!). That said, I feel the same way about our heterosexual friends' offspring: the fact that they were conceived out of a combination of their parents' genes just blows me away. I overhear our friends complaining about birth control or worrying over the potential for unplanned pregnancies, and I think, "but do you even realize how truly, outrageously wonderful it is that you guys can make babies by mixing your very own genetic material?!" What troubles me most about the exclamations over our kids' biological relationship is that I often feel people placing value on the fact that all of our kids are genetically related. Some acquaintances have even gone so far as to say, "so they're all real brothers!" Which, of course, they are, but it's irrelevant of the fact that we used sperm from the same man to conceive each of them. This is one of the main reasons why we originally did not want to ever use the same donor twice, because we did not want to place value on a genetic relationship when clearly, in our family, genetics are not a key factor (after all, Lena is not genetically related to Luke, Jaz or Zeb, and I am not genetically related to Leo). If Luke, Jaz, Zeb and Leo are perceived to be real brothers because of their genetic relationship, are Lena and I then perceived to not be real mothers to the children that each of us did not conceive? How can you place value on the fact that the boys all have the same donor and yet at the same time, not infer a lack of relationship between those members of our family who do not share a genetic link?

I am glad that all of our kids (thus far) have the same donor. I'm glad that they have him in common, that when they reach the (inevitable?) developmental stage wherein they can see their sperm donor conceptions as a loss, that they will be able to turn to each other, and perhaps find solace in their shared genetic history. And I appreciate the fact that I can see all of our older sons reflected in Leo's physical appearance, or in expressions he makes, or in the way he holds his body. Now that we have Leo, the donor has become a Common Denominator of sorts. Whereas, when the other three kids shared a physical trait, we could never be sure if it was something they had inherited from me or from the donor, shared traits between Leo and any of his brothers obviously came from the donor (aside from those traits which could be attributed to nurture vs. nature, of course). One strange example: both Zeben and Leo were "early" sitters. When Zeben started sitting independently just before 4 months of age, I assumed it was because he was such a chunk (seriously, his bottom provided him with a solid base). But then when Leo started sitting at exactly the same age (nearly to the day), yet without said chunk factor, I instead wondered if this strange early sitting gene had come from the boys' Common Denominator: the donor. Similarly, Zeben spent many of his first months with his bottom lip sucked completely inside his mouth, a face we lovingly called his "funny face." And Leo? Makes the exact same face all day long. Who would've thought that something like that could be genetic? (As an aside, Zeben's "funny face" drove me absolutely crazy, but I find the same expression on Leo to be incredibly endearing . . . perhaps because it is now a reminder of baby Zeb).

Zeben, just shy of four months old

Leo, just shy of four months old

I wonder more about the donor post-Leo than I did pre-Leo. For me, his presence is more pronounced now that his genetic material has helped to link us all, biologically speaking. Just as, I suppose, I feared it would be were we to choose this path of using the same donor repeatedly. And, yet, of course, nothing has really changed, and in reality the donor has no presence in our family at all. He's like a ghost. And I find that I don't mind this ghost-like presence as much as I thought I would. In fact, I don't mind it at all. I am certain we made the right choice.

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Some previous thoughts on having used a sperm donor