Kacie Saxer-Taulbee, 19, was searching for her sperm-donor father. What she discovered was a huge extended family. Read the intriguing story here
When I was 7, my two moms
sat me and my younger sister Kailyn down and gave us "The Talk." We
learned where babies come from and the fact that Taryn was our
biological mother and our father, whom we'd never known, was a sperm
donor. Then they showed us a folder from the sperm bank with info that
described our dad, aka donor 5010, in very basic terms: He was a college
professor born in New York in 1969 who was five-foot-eleven and had
brown hair. I never felt like my family was incomplete, so the info
didn't leave much of an impression, and I went back to thinking about my
next playdate.
Six
years later, it was my love of science that ignited my curiosity about
my father. It all started when I was learning about recessive and
dominant generic traits at school. We got the assignment to compare our
thumbs to our parent's thumbs and see how far they bent back. The second
I got home, I grabbed my mom Taryn and stuck my thumb next to hers.
Mine bent all the way back; hers was straight as an arrow. I must have
gotten my "hitchhiker's thumb" from my dad! I wondered, What other
traits did I inherit from this mystery man?
One
night a few months later, I couldn't fall asleep, so I jumped on my
computer and I started searching for male teachers in New york born in
1969, hoping to find a photo of someone who might resemble me. But it
was pointless – I just didn't have enough info about my father. As a
last ditch effort, I decided to google "donor registry" to see if there
was a public database I could access. Among the results were three words
that would change my life" Donor Sibling Registry. I'd
never thought about having half brothers and sisters! I went to the
site and entered my father's cryobank number. The page refreshed with
small rectangles saying things like, "Boy, born April 1998" and "Girl,
born November 1995." It took me a second to realize the weight of my
discovery. These weren't just boxes – they were my family! And there
were so many of them!
Immediately,
I felt as if I'd found a missing piece and I didn't even know I was
looking for. One by one, over the course of seven months, I started
making contact through the registry with each of my siblings. I was so
nervous and excited about talking to them to find out what we had in
common. I also thought, How many more of us can be out there? I'm part
of this huge group of people just living their lives while sharing half
their DNA with total strangers.
We
started exchanging photos, and it was crazy to see these people who
looked so much like me. It sounds cliché, but I felt like I loved them
instantly. And for the first time, I felt like I could really start to
picture my dad in my head, based on our common "Snow White" aesthetic:
blue eyes, dark hair, and pale skin.
A
bunch of us met in person the following year. I couldn't believe how
everyone felt so familiar. We started calling ourselves 5010ers. It was
interesting to share the experience of not having our dad in our lives.
We compared stories of vacant Father's Days and the unanswerable
sections on official paperwork. Initially, I kept up a pact with myself
to talk to each of my siblings at least once a month, but as in every
family, I got closer to some than others. My older brother Andy actually
took me on my college tour, and my younger sister Lexie came to my high
school graduation. We've even started a "secret sibling" gift- exchange
tradition for the holidays!
Today,
there are 13 of us 5010ers in touch (we even have our own Facebook
group), and we know four others whom we haven't been ale to contact. The
thing that we all have in common isn't a hitchhiker's thumb – it's
relentless passion. We must have gotten that from our dad, as it's the
trait that brought us together. Each of us had to be bold and sign up on
the donor registry in order to be found. I'll probably never know my
full family history, but we've created a mosaic with each of our pieces,
and we help fill gaps in each other's lives. We've also gotten a sense
of who our father is, and I like to think he'd be happy to know that
we've found each other.
Culled from seventeen magazine.
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