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Anthology Part I by Christine

The following selection of poems are from a personal collection on the subject of Artificial Insemination by Donor. They are written from the perspective of someone who has discovered and carefully examined the consequences of their donor conceived status. They may be said to represent a form of therapy, through which the act of trying to identify and define the feelings and issues which have arisen from this unnatural form of reproduction, and presenting them as a coherent thread of thought, acts as a liberating mechanism for the anger and frustration which is, for many donor offspring, a natural legacy of the donor conception process. These poems have been selected not for their polish or proficiency but for their ability to highlight and exemplify particular issues.

Anyone who is easily offended by colloquial language should read no further.

Many people who have discovered the truth about their donor conceived status as mature adults, have reported that they had always been aware of a sense of identity confusion. There is certainly a need, after disclosure, to review one's self perception.

IDENTITY CRISIS

My other self is musing
on the person I should be,
if only there had been a chance
to find the proper me.

But who am I? Where am I from?
My life is all at sea,
from being trapped inside a lie,
a false identity.

Finding yourself to be a donor conceived person requires the acceptance that you exist because of a contractual agreement between your parents, a fertility practitioner and an unknown man. If this was not a difficult enough concept to grasp, the thought of the clinical process of inseminating the sperm donor's bodily fluids, collected during masturbation, are certainly likely to cause some disquiet. This antithesis to normal human reproduction has caused the invention of a special label for such deliberately commissioned people.

WHATS'S IN A NAME?

In a simple matter of terminology,
a name is a descriptive classification
that does justice to the circumstances;

one that is an accurate reflection
of the factual truth
and not one that spares the sensitivities
of the guilty parties.

They called me Christine
but I am termed

a Donor Offspring.

Some might call me a
Turkey Baster Baby,
but such crassness does not hurt
when you have faced the facts,
and admitted to yourself,
that you were never anything more
than a momentary spunk spurt.

My father, if he thinks of me at all,
can call me what he will,
and never has to share with me his family name.
In his conscience I may only ever be
his anonymous
wank stain.

Letter to Melbourne's Child Magazine - Published September 2006

Regarding the recent letters to “Your Views” on the topic of egg donation. The decision to donate eggs, sperm and embryos is surely made with the best of intentions but perhaps not with the knowledge of how it might feel to be conceived in this way.

Donor Conception is not IVF (although it may involve the procedure) and is problematic ethically because the person conceived will not be raised by parents who are both genetically related to him/her. Whilst the use of donated gametes and embryos may seem superficially to be a valid response to the loss of not being able to conceive a child, the practice itself inherently creates another loss, the person conceived is not raised by, does not and may not ever have a relationship with their genetic parent(s), siblings and extended family. The lifelong ramifications of kinship separation are thoroughly documented in decades of research and studies on Adoption and yet we continue to allow the perpetuation of this painful loss in an attempt to circumvent infertility and involuntary childlessness.

I am Donor Conceived, I was raised by two very loving parents, yet the natural need to know and have a relationship with my genetic father ran deep. I did not know him for the first twenty years of my life and yet his impact on it was immense. His genes shape my physical features, my interests and personality and it is only after meeting him and having an ongoing relationship with him and his family am I able to understand aspects of myself which were previously a mystery. I feel a loss of not having known him for my first twenty years along with my six half siblings, three of whom also conceived via the donor program I am prohibited by legislation to know anything about.

Most of society can take for granted the ability to have children and most can also take for granted the meaningful relationships they have with their families. We may not always like our family members but we do benefit from knowing who and where we come from, it is only from these relationships and knowledge that we can truly know ourselves. Donating gametes and embryos is much more than simply providing genetic material (and perhaps some medical “information”), it is the pre-emptive relinquishment of a child, who then matures to an adult with very real needs of their own. The historical practice of non-disclosure means proponents of Donor Conception really know very little about how Donor Conceived adults regard the manner of their conception, so it is irresponsible to promote its continuation when the impact of complexities on the lives of those it creates is not fully known.

I hope that the authors of the letters on egg donation and the readers of Melbourne’s Child will take this opportunity to think more deeply about the often forgotten perspective within the debate on this issue of the person with no voice and no choice.

She, he, they, me
by Narelle (T5sdaughter)

today i had to draw up my family tree
for the first time instead of two parents i drew three

triangles representing unknowns...

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
what a mighty little fleet

my father, T5, we call him the next sperminator
spread his seed, a real ego inflator

a squiggly line between mum and he with no explanation
except for a lab and artificial insemination

the relationship between mum and he
it is non-existant, alive only through...

DUN! DUN! DUN!

his name is [....], he is a professor
of seperating families and making a mess of
it all for the greater... apparently

then squiggly lines down to seven more women
seven more siblings i may never be seein

what a mess, what a tree
it all adds up
and equals me

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