Dear Readers, I wrote this story in 2006 and posted it on the Fox Forum. One of my readers has asked me to post here because it's easier to read. I hope you enjoy it. Kim (Gorblimey2)
© KBrogan 2010
The Donor
I have enjoyed my life so far. I graduated from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo with a degree in Dairy Science. Before you start laughing, I only had to take two more Chemistry classes and I would have had a Chemistry degree, one more class in Biology and I would have had a Biology degree or two more classes in Microbiology and I would have had a Microbiology degree...so laugh now, but remember Dairy Science requires an extensive background in Chemistry, Biology and Microbiology. So, you ask, what did I do with a Dairy Science Degree? After working five years in the dairy industry I went to law school.
Ok, how does anyone get from Dairy Science to law school? Well, when I=m asked I just say that Dairy Science taught me how to, Amilk my clients...ha,ha. Actually, I have never been able to make up my mind as to whether I am a science geek or a liberal arts fan.
I graduated in the top five percent of my law school and went on to become a civil trial lawyer representing homeowners who purchased crappy houses from unscrupulous builders (a group of which California has an abundance) and doctors who made dumb mistakes. After 10 years of being a lawyer I had two back to back cases that paid off in spades. One case was a large construction defect case in which the developer built a tract of homes with leaking roofs, windows and showers. To add insult to injury, mold had developed in the walls and some of the homeowners were sick. When it was all over, I settled the case for $5.1 million. I received a third of that or $1.683 Million.
Then I brought suit on behalf of ten California couples who had gone through a sperm bank in California whose parent company was in Baltimore. We were able to prove that the sperm they were given did not match the profiles from which the couples chose the sperm. How did we know this? My clients were two Nordic descendants who chose a profile of a blonde, blue eyed, white male for their sperm donor. A child would then have some resemblance to them. Their child was born with African-American characteristics. Luckily for the child, the couple adored their baby. But still, we were able to sue the company and obtained a verdict for this couple and nine other couples in the amount of $12.0 million dollars. I was supposed to receive $4.0 million. However, the insurance company only insured the company up to $10.0 million. I agreed to receive the assets of the sperm bank as part of my compensation. In other words, when it was all done, I owned a sperm bank in California and one in Baltimore.
I sold off all the assets of the California branch including the sperm. It was the California branch that had all the problems with keeping their records straight. As soon as I had liquidated the California branch I flew back to Baltimore to check out my new sperm bank and to see what I wanted to do with it.
I now had $4.1 million dollars and a sperm bank to my name. I was ecstatic, I didn=t have to work anymore. I closed my practice, invested the bulk of my money and made some life-altering decisions.
I knew right away what I wanted to do; I wanted to have a child. I had dated a lot of men, but none of the relationships stuck because I was married to my cases and at the mercy of trial dates. Night after night of my working until the wee mornings would finally break the camel=s back and they would take off and never come back. I guess that was the luck of the draw, I was a fairly famous attorney but I had no one to come home to at the end of the day and I wasn't getting any younger. I was 38 and I wanted a child.
It was a marriage made in heaven, I owned a sperm bank and I wanted to get pregnant. I also had inside knowledge. As part of the lawsuit I had the files on each and every donor. I decided to do my homework and so I sat down to do an in-depth analysis of the available sperm that was cryogenically frozen and sitting innocently in the clean room.
I asked myself what I wanted and realized that I wanted a child that wouldn=t have too many siblings running around out there. So out of the sperm that was left, I eliminated the really popular donors.- the guys who claimed on their application that their families had no genetic diseases, that they were top in their class, studying physics, musical prodigies and incredibly athletic. These popular donors were, in my mind, too good to be true, but they had been chosen frequently meaning there were a lot of their progeny out there. These were the ones that had been selected ten or more times by couples. That left me with two dozen donors. Then I decided that I wanted blue eyes so that the child would look more like me. That eliminated another 15 possible father, leaving me with nine potential donors.
In the 1980's the intake forms for the potential donors were very interesting. The donors were given two forms to fill out. One was a standard medical history; the second was a background history. Most of the sperm donors gave glowing reports or themselves, describing themselves as tall, athletic, intelligent, etc. I felt like I was reading a Playboy Centerfold Interview. AI like walks in the park and men with soulful eyes.
I found that two out of the nine potential donors had not been chosen by anyone. One poor soul was 5'4" which, if your husband was short, you might want to choose someone who was short too. But I didn=t have to worry about trying to match my child to a husband, so I was free to build a better human race without worry.
That=s when the second one attracted my attention. The medical history started out with a typical question, "Sex?" And this individual had put down, AAs much as possible. I chuckled. When he responded to questions about his family medical history, he had put down that there was substantial mental illness in the family, diabetes, coronary heart disease and breast cancer. What struck me as odd about this is that it was not a glowing report like all the others. This was the form of someone who wanted the money for his sperm but didn=t want any of his sperm impregnating anyone. This was one smart guy.
I looked at the rest of his history and it didn=t ring true. He said that he was going to work with monkeys when he got out of school; that where he worked now was a circus. If you took what he said as a metaphor, then this guy was pretty funny. I decided that he would be a keeper. He had five vials of sperm frozen in 1987 in Baltimore.
I had narrowed it down to two donors. I now had to cross-check them with the payment files to come up with names since the vials themselves were identified only my a serial number. I discovered that Jeremy Edwards was paid $300 for three vials of sperm in 1995. and Gregory House was paid $500 for five vials of sperm in 1987-1988. Gregory House=s address was close to Johns Hopkins. Did he work at Johns Hopkins? Not likely, how many men sell their sperm if they are gainfully employed. No, students were more likely to sell their sperm. Gregory House was probably a med-student or a low-paid intern at Johns Hopkins. I looked at the form, Gregory was 28 when he sold his sperm and that would make him 50 now. I suspected that Gregory House was probably married with two children by a trophy doctor's wife and living the high life. It would be interesting to see what his children looked like.
After narrowing my choices, I did what I always do, I went out and hunted down the information that I needed to make a decision. I needed to investigate Jeremy Edwards and Greg House. I needed to know which would make the best donor.