Blood Ties

*Note: Very likely the longest post I’ve ever written.

There are times in my life when everything is whirling around me in some tornado of new stuff, confusing stuff, or just plain emotionally-heavy stuff. This pregnancy/journey to parenthood turns out to be one of those times.

In creating my recent “Meme,” I didn’t put much thought into adding the fact that I have never met my biological father (or donor, as I’d like to call him instead, since he most certainly did no fathering whatsoever). It’s something unique about me, and when I’ve told most people they find it interesting.

It’s something I’ve dealt with my entire life, and I’ve gone through – and continue to go through – various phases of dealing with it. My father, that is, the man who helped raise me and I’ve known since I was a year old, is the person I consider my father. So – who is this other person whose DNA makes up 1/2 of me?

He’s a fantom father, a figure in my head I can imagine to be anything I want him to be. When I was an adolescent and angry at my dad for scolding or punishing me, he was my savior, someone who would most certainly treat me better if only he were my dad instead. Other times he was the loser my mom always described him as, an uncaring a**hold who couldn’t get over himself enough to know his own daughter.

The truth is, all I know about him is his name and address. I don’t know what part of my face might resemble his, or if my walk or way of sitting when I’m not noticing myself might be a direct trait from his family line. To cope with this unknowing, growing up I pretended that all my features – my body build, my laugh, my skin tone, everything – was from my mother’s family. I convinced myself so much that I pretended we were clones – that I had no other possibility out there to help explain myself. I saw everything about myself in her – and it helped me forget about him.

Eventually accepting that almost everyone I know has something that resembles each biological parent – either in looks or personality – was a difficult and only recent development. It brought back the wonder that I buried deep down inside me so long ago: would meeting him explain my out-going-ness, my artistic leanings, my reflective nature – all of which are clearly not from my mother? Or are these parts of me just the uniqueness that comes from my own personality that has nothing to do with biology?

When we started our journey to parenthood, both E. and I decided that a known donor would be the best choice. Aside from the logistics of cost and availability, we both wanted our child to know his/her donor. For me – I thought of my own experience, and honestly didn’t want it for my child. I had to grapple with why I felt so strongly about it – after all, I was the one who chose not to contact him, and may never make that choice. But I have the choice to make. And that became so much more important to me for our child. Known donors did not work out, and so I was adamant that we use identity release sperm.

I never expected that I would have a child with a similar relationship to his/her biological dad/donor. Of course, circumstances are different, but those feelings I had as a child trying to piece myself together might be the same feelings that he/she will have. As the non-biological mom, this experience has had an added twist, as I’ve felt surprisingly hostile at friends or family who over-emphasize blood ties by taking keen interest in the ½ siblings we know online, stressing that it will be an amazing connection for our child to have. Will it? Are people assuming it will be an even more important connection than the one to members of my own family because there is no blood relation? Will my child think the same? I have to wonder.

And this puts me smack dab in the middle of a dream I had last night, in which a small toddler was talking to a group of people, much like a prophet might lecture to a group. He (although genderless) turned to me and simply said, “Can you deny that two blood-related parents are what’s best for a child?”

I stood there, dumbstruck and looking down at him, and promptly woke myself up. The question haunted me in my near-sleep state – a question asked by so many right-wing nutjobs that I so often dismiss and rail against. Of course I could write an essay on why I disagree, and recite a million reasons in front of 20,000 people crowded on the Washington mall, and cite myself as one example of someone who will be a loving, caring, great parent despite any blood relation to my future child.

But my subconscious has a different narrative all-together, one that undoubtedly is mixing childhood and present experience with social messages I’ve absorbed since birth. I see myself struggling to both provide my child with at least some ties to his/her blood line, while at the same time defend my role as primary parent to an onslaught of one of the most powerful forces I’ve ever had to deal with. As I deal with my own identity of both feeling ½ mystery as well as knowing myself so well, I have to think my child might feel the same. I’m in a moment where I can burry and ignore my feelings as so many generations did so well with hard emotional stuff before me, or I can embrace them as a possible kinship and point of understanding with my child. I’m thinking my subconscious prefers the latter.