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Shumita Basu, Narrating: This is "In Conversation," from Apple News. I'm Shumita Basu.
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Basu, Narrating: When Amber Van Moessner was growing up, her parents used to call her their "miracle baby."
Amber Van Moessner: I was born quite late into my parents' marriage, and I had been told my whole life that they were told by doctors that they couldn't conceive and that they had just magically had a healthy baby, and that was me.
Basu, Narrating: She never questioned that story until she was in her late 20s, when she got the results back from a 23andMe genetic test.
Van Moessner: So, the first thing that popped up was that my ethnicity was predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish, and that was a huge surprise.
Basu, Narrating: Even after doing some research, she couldn't find anyone on either side of her family who was Jewish.
Van Moessner: And I immediately called my parents, and they just kind of swept it under the rug. My dad, he was like, Oh, I guess, like, I must be Jewish then.
Basu, Narrating: But then, Amber received a message through 23andMe from a woman who said, Hey, we're a match. I'm your half-sister. I was conceived via a sperm donor. Were you donor-conceived too?
Van Moessner: My mind just started reeling. I remember my first reaction was I didn't even know what the term "donor-conceived" meant.
Basu, Narrating: This message completely changed Amber's life. She confronted her parents, and finally the truth came out.
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Amber's Father: All right, well, this has been heavy on my heart, honey. There's a good chance that girl is your, uh, half-sister.
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Basu, Narrating: Amber's story is just one of many you'll hear on the podcast "BioHacked: Family Secrets," hosted by T.J. Raphael. It's about the donor conception industry, how closed and unregulated it is and how it affects people's lives. I spoke with T.J. about how little the industry has changed, even with the rise of mail-in genetic tests. But first, I asked Amber to tell us more about her story, and what happened when she first got that message from a half-sister named Kaitlin.
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Van Moessner: So, I messaged her back immediately and I was like, Hey, like, you know, excited to connect with you, but I'm definitely not your half-sister. There must be some kind of mistake, I'm not donor-conceived. But, you know, a half-sibling match from a genetic perspective could also be a first cousin, potentially. So I was like, Oh, maybe this woman is my cousin, or maybe, you know, she, you know… I was trying to put the pieces together, but I completely put it out of my mind that she was my half-sister because there was no way that that was real to me in that moment.
Basu: So did you decide to get in touch with Kaitlin and get to know her better next? Or did you decide to take it to your parents?
Van Moessner: I was doing both simultaneously. I immediately reached out to my dad, and I was like, Hey, I got this message from this woman. What is this about? You know, I was like, You were never a sperm donor, right? And he was like, No. And I was like, Were your brothers? And he was like, I don't think so. And even then, the conclusion I came to was, Oh, well, you know what, my dad had an affair, and this woman is the product of that affair and her mother must be ashamed, and her mother told her this lie to protect her and I'm-- we're, like, unraveling this now. And I say that not to say that that was something that I believed was within my dad's character or, you know, something I thought he was capable of. But in my mind, again, that was the only thing that was possible because it was not possible that my dad wasn't my dad.
Basu: So you recorded the conversation that you had, by phone, when you finally confronted your parents and really asked them for the truth about this genetic test. And I should say that they gave permission to play parts of that phone call on the podcast, so we can hear this very charged exchange that you have with your parents. What was that conversation like?
Van Moessner: I'm a recovered journalist, I always have the TapeACall app on my phone for interviews. And you know, at that point, I had been going back and forth with my parents, their answers were getting kind of vaguer and vaguer, and I knew something was up. And after talking to Kaitlin so many times, I kind of felt like I knew somebody was lying. You know, somebody was lying in the equation. Either Kaitlin had the wrong information or my parents were withholding information. And so I decided that night I was gonna call them, but then on my drive home in my car, I was like, I literally cannot wait till I get home. Like, I need to know what's going on. And so I just turned on TapeACall and I called my parents.
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Amber's Father: Amber?
Amber Van Moessner: Can you hear me?
Amber's Father: Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me?
Van Moessner: Yeah.
Amber's Father: Okay. What's up?
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Basu, Narrating: In this phone call, Amber's parents finally revealed what they had been keeping from her for so long. In the 1980s, they desperately wanted to be parents, but they were having trouble conceiving, and so they decided to try using a sperm donor.
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Amber's Mother: There was a genetic thing between, some sort of a chromosome thing, between dad and I. When we talked with, um, you know, a specialist, they had said that, um, we'd be better-- best not to take the chance. But, you know, it didn't work a couple times.
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Basu, Narrating: Eventually, Amber's mom did get pregnant, and they decided to move forward, assuming, by some small chance, that the biological father was Amber's dad, not the donor.
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Amber's Mother: So we just chose never to find out. [SOBS]
Amber Van Moessner: Okay. Well, listen, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay, um…
Amber's Mother: That's why it hurt Dad when you started… when you even started to look into the genetics. It just… Dad was so worried because we so hoped, Amber, that… [GULPS AND EXHALES]
Amber's Father: It's just that I was so concerned, like, well, what are you gonna think of me?
Van Moessner: I love you, are you kidding? Why would I think any differently?
Amber's Father: I am so glad to hear that it… it doesn't make any difference to you because it sure as hell ain't gonna make no difference to me. [SNIFFLES]
Van Moessner: I feel terrible that I kind of forced you guys into this. Oh, wow. Um…
Amber's Mother: We were afraid you were gonna be-- be upset that we never went and had a blood test on to see whether or not-- We didn't wanna know.
Van Moessner: I'm so sorry, Mom.
Amber's Mother: I know.
Van Moessner: It's really crazy. I'm really sorry. Um…
Amber's Father: Don't-- It's… It's okay, honey.
Amber's Mother: You know, the things is, the way Mom and Dad have always been with you, that when you get down to asking "What's the truth?" we have to tell you the truth. Just wish you'd never asked it.
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Van Moessner: My mom told me that she just really thought she could go to her grave with this. And we're talking about, you know, it's the 1980s, DNA sequencing hasn't been completed, there's no DNA testing, and, you know, my mother's doctor literally told her to tell no one. And she, you know, just proceeded with that advice. So they really never thought this conversation would happen. I was completely blown away because, again, when you're told your father is your father your whole life, why would you believe any differently? And so I just remember just being completely in shock. And then as soon as I got off the phone, all of the emotion just, like, rushed out of me and I was just crying so hard that I couldn't breathe because it was completely overwhelming. I mean, I just felt like my entire life, my entire identity as it relates to my family, was completely shattered.
Basu, Narrating: Amber's parents went through the donor conception process more than 30 years ago. Some things still look more or less the same. Today, you can go the more traditional route, basically going to a fertility clinic that coordinates with a sperm bank, also known as a cryobank, that can guide you through the process. But as "BioHacked" host T.J. Raphael explains, there are other avenues these days.
T.J. Raphael: You can also buy sperm online. You can go to any of the major cryobank websites, essentially shop for a donor, put in your characteristics. Do you want someone who's at least 5'10", who has green eyes, who has brown hair, who enjoys playing music? Get all of your qualifications, add to cart and then check out with your credit card. And you could inseminate yourself at home. Also, later in the season, we're going to be covering sort of the black market for sperm that has popped up. There are lots of Facebook communities now. We've interviewed a couple folks from these communities who have donated their sperm to multiple couples, and that's way more of a one-to-one interaction where you might meet someone in a hotel who just did their business in the bathroom and are giving you a cup, and they leave, and you inseminate yourself there. And there's also apps nowadays. There's an app called Just a Baby and it's essentially Tinder for sperm, egg donors and co-parenting situations. I've downloaded that app as part of my reporting. [CHUCKLES] Yeah, and it's really interesting. You swipe left or right, just like you would on a dating app.
Basu: Wow. So interesting.
Basu, Narrating: Despite all these new ways to connect with potential donors, the industry is still largely unregulated. When someone signs up to be a donor, a clinic will typically ask them to share some information: their education level, whether there's a history of cancer in the family… But there's no requirement that these clinics actually verify that any of this information from the donor is true.
Raphael: From my reporting, I've found that most cryobanks seem to operate on the honor system, meaning they're trusting what the donor says is true. They're not calling up other doctor's offices, verifying those records, or conducting family interviews to make sure that information is true. And that's the same thing as it goes to educational history as well. I've talked to two people. One person I know, she donated her eggs six times. She's in her early 30s now. She says she has at least probably 20 living children out there. She donated out of Manhattan Egg Agency. The last time she donated was in 2019. I asked her, Did they ever ask you to get records from other doctor's offices? She said no. I said, Did they ever verify that you went to college or request college transcripts to prove that, you know, your educational background was actually what it said? She said no. And the same thing goes for a sperm donor, or a person who was considering donating sperm, then in 2019 decided not to after he thought, Oh, I might be able to be found. He's also in his early 30s. And he told me the same thing. And he was also donating through a Manhattan sperm bank. And, you know, I have to think that the sperm banks on the Upper East Side or the egg banks on the Upper East Side are probably the best in the country, and if they're not doing it, it leads me to think that probably a lot of other places are not doing it. The problem here is there is no national regulatory system here. There's no national oversight body, so it's not like I can log on and check out every cryobank or fertility clinic in the United States and say, Oh, I can see that these ones do these things, because it just doesn't exist. The industry, for decades, has been self-regulated, and they would really like to keep it that way. Later in the season, we're going to be hearing from Sean Tipton, who is the chief public policy officer for the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. And I put all of these questions to him and he says, We just think it would be too expensive and we don't wanna do it.
Basu, Narrating: So, let me ask Amber to actually return to her story, 'cause I wanted to ask her about tracking down her biological father.
Basu: You know, to go back to this idea of there being so much secrecy in the industry and sort of a lack of record keeping and willingness to be transparent about those records. Amber, I understand that you and your half-sister Kaitlin decided you really wanted to find out who your biological father was, but it wasn't easy to figure out the answer. So, tell us about that process.
Van Moessner: Yeah. I mean, immediately following that conversation with my parents, I remember looking in the mirror and just being like, Who am I? Like, who was this other person? And the idea that this person was just kind of a question mark in my mind was just really upsetting. And beyond that, you know, my thoughts immediately went to, you know, All of my medical information is wrong. What if there's something wrong with me and I don't know about it? There was just suddenly, like, a ton of uncertainty. So, I tried to reach out to the clinic where I was conceived. It no longer exists. We have a running joke in the donor-conceived community about the many fires, floods and catastrophes that befall these clinics because they all seem to lose their records… [LAUGHS] …uh, in suspicious ways. And, you know, from there, Kaitlin and I quickly realized we shared two matches on 23andMe, two first cousin matches, so we were like, Okay, that must be our biological father's nephews. So that was sort of our first avenue. We contacted them through 23andMe, they didn't respond. So we were kind of stuck. And then, fortunately, one of them eventually responded to a 23andMe message, which led to them adding me on Facebook. And once we were connected on Facebook, it was through searching their mutual friends that I was able to find Kurt.
Basu: [LAUGHS] Conveniently.
Basu: Now, who is Kurt?
Van Moessner: Kurt is my biological father.
Basu: Wow, so it's… [CHUCKLES] I'm trying to keep track of all the technological aspects here. A 23andMe test led you to match up with a nephew, and then you found, through Facebook, this connection to Kurt.
Van Moessner: Which I then confirmed via LinkedIn that Kurt, our biological father, on his LinkedIn, he was currently a doctor. One of the things we did know from the information Kaitlin's mother had was that he was a med student at the time he was donating. And we saw that he went to med school in Albany, where we were conceived, and that he was currently a doctor. So that made us pretty confident that this was the right person that we were looking for. And I'll never forget his Facebook profile picture. He's an avid cyclist, and at the time, it was a photo of him in his cycling gear, you know, standing on top of a mountain with his hands on his hips. And at the time, my Facebook profile picture was almost identical. I had just had new head shots done for work and it was me standing with my hands on my hips in the exact same way [LAUGHS]. And it was just a very creepy, creepy parallel. But also, you know, once we found him, it was pretty unmistakable that we were related.
Basu: Oh, wow!
Basu: Okay, so once you tracked him down, how did you broach the subject of trying to be in touch with him more?
Van Moessner: Well, it was off to a rocky start. So, I was talking with this cousin. You know, I basically said like, Look, we're just looking to make contact and get medical history. And our cousin was like, Well, I don't know. I gotta talk to him. Like, I don't really wanna share anything on his behalf. And I was like, That's totally fine. And then he came back and said, Look, he's really not interested. Sorry.
Basu, Narrating: But that wasn't the end of it. Amber and Kaitlin decided to write a letter to Kurt, and after several weeks, they got a response.
Van Moessner: I woke up to a text from Kaitlin saying, Oh, my God! Kurt, the email. And I was like, What? And she was like, Kurt emailed us.
Basu: I mean, did he seem surprised? How did he receive the news?
Van Moessner: Uh, yeah, he was surprised. I think, you know, he also-- similar to my parents, he had been told that he would be completely anonymous. that none of these offspring would ever find him. But he's also, you know-- he's a doctor, he's a smart guy, he had been following the advancements in DNA technology. His nephew had reached out to him to tell him that we had contacted him and he was, like, kind of freaked out by it, especially, I think, the social media aspect of it. He was just like, Uh, I don't know about this. I don't really wanna deal with it. But he told us, you know, the more he thought about it, the more he was curious. And I think he mentions this in the podcast as well that, you know, it started to, you know, roll through his mind, like, Well, I have these kids. Like, you know, who are they? What are they up to? [LAUGHS]
Basu: And it turns out, I mean, you found out that Kurt had donated sperm hundreds of times, right?
Van Moessner: Yes. And we didn't know that until we spoke to him for the first time, but he was like, Yeah, you know, I did this hundreds of times over, you know, a couple years. So you probably have 75 to a hundred siblings out there.
Basu: Have you gone looking for other half siblings?
Van Moessner: I have 23andMe, Kaitlin has both 23andMe and Ancestry because she had started actively searching before she found me. So we kind of have people roll in that way. That's the only way we have to find each other. So we are now up to ten half-siblings, and, you know, the rest of them likely don't know or maybe they know and they don't care to find us. So there's quite a few more out there that I'm sure we'll meet eventually.
Basu: Wow.
Basu: So, when you and Kaitlin met him for the first time in person, what was that like?
Van Moessner: It was completely surreal. I mean, Kaitlin and I had FaceTimed and then the three of us had FaceTimed, and that was crazy. But meeting in person, it was just-- it was just completely surreal. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror. You know, we all got along really quickly and really easily. You know, not to sound cliché, but it felt like I'd known them my whole life. We all had a lot in common. And I just remember sitting at dinner and, like, looking at Kurt and looking at Kaitlin and looking back at Kurt again and just, like, realizing how here are these people that I have all these things in common with, that I look like. It felt like a missing piece had fallen into place. So it was really, really special, and I feel really grateful for that, because there are so many people in the donor conceived community who never get that closure.
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Basu, Narrating: All of this was unimaginable, and really close to impossible, before the rise of mail-order genetic tests. When 23andMe came on the scene, people started to learn a lot of family secrets. Secrets that were largely encouraged by the fertility industry.
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Raphael: In the '80s, '90s, early 2000s, there would be no conceivable way that DNA would be able to reveal this in the future. 23andMe literally seemed like something from science fiction, the idea that you could send away for something, spit into a tube, mail it back and then go onto the computer and be able to trace your genetic matches. It was something out of science fiction. So, in terms of practicality, yes, there was a practicality, but I think there was also advice of doctors. Through my research I found, and we're going to be talking about this later in the season, our ideas of masculinity, our ideas of what means to be a man, our ideas of sexuality, as it relates to whether or not you can impregnate your wife, have really driven the medical advice. So, for a long time, it was thought that if you told a donor-conceived person "We had to use a sperm donor," that it would be detrimental to the family, that the man would love the child less. And of course we're talking in the context of heterosexual couples here. So that is one of the reasons why people were encouraged to keep it quiet, to keep it hidden.
Basu: Yeah, and actually, T.J., maybe you can speak to that a bit. A lot of people might describe some trauma associated with this experience, with learning it late in life. The idea of secrets being kept in the family and certainly learning something very new that's fundamental about who they are as a person. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've heard from people who are donor-conceived?
Raphael: There is a big difference between learning early in life and learning accidentally in your 30s, by surprise, through an at-home DNA kit. So, when it comes to heterosexual couples, nowadays psychologists really encourage parents to tell their children early and often, so that essentially children don't even know a time where they didn't have this information. A couple that we're going to be speaking to later in the season who have three children that are donor conceived, and they're all under five, so, you know, they have books for them, they talk about it openly, they say, you know, Mom and Dad needed some help to have a baby, and somebody gave a special seed to us. You know, in terms that children can understand. And it's not a secret. And also those parents-- you know, they have the benefit of living in a country where anonymity is banned. They're in the United Kingdom, so their children will have the right to the donor's information and potential contact when they turn 18. And those parents are really excited for their children to be able to potentially one day connect with their half-siblings. So I think, culturally, a lot has changed. But to your question, you know, if you find out accidentally, by surprise, later in life, it can be shocking, it can be traumatizing, reality-shaking. You know, your identity can crumble kind of before you. So there has been a real shift in terms of encouraging parents to disclose. But of course, you know, some don't, so it's just really up to individual parents to do this at this point.
Basu: Mm. And Amber, what's your position? What do you advocate for? What should donor-conceived people have a right to?
Van Moessner: I believe that the way donor conception is practiced in the United States today is highly unethical. Other countries have put guardrails in place to make the industry more ethical, whether that's eliminating anonymous donations, whether that's eliminating for-pay donations, whether that's putting restrictions on the number of children born from a specific donor, which helps eliminate issues like widespread genetic conditions, having lots of related children all in the same geographic area, which is the case with my biological siblings. We all grew up, for the most part, within a 50-mile radius of one another, which obviously can create complications down the line if you don't know who your biological siblings are and you're growing up and you're dating in a specific, you know, geographic pool. So, these restrictions exist, and the United States has just chosen to do nothing about them. The industry has never concerned itself with these regulations. The industry has only self-regulated once, and that was around the HIV crisis. They switched from using fresh sperm donations to freezing the sperm and STD-testing the donors. That's the only time the industry self-regulated, and that was because there were women and children contracting HIV from donors and dying. So, these are things that would be relatively easy to put in place, but it would impact the bottom line of a multi-billion-dollar business. And where there's money to be made, it's very hard to put regulations in place.
Basu: Amber, everything that you're saying is making me think about your relationship with your parents today. I mean, how is your relationship with your parents? Do you feel any sense of blame or-- I mean, especially when I went back and listened to your conversation, I had a lump in my throat when I heard your mom saying "I just wish you'd never asked." Does she feel that way still?
Van Moessner: You know, my relationship with my parents has gone through a lot of transition since that conversation. I honestly feel like I am closer with both my parents now than I ever have been. At first, I was really angry that it was kept from me. One of the things I really got hung up on was there was a point where I had a medical issue and my doctor said, you know, You should really talk to your mom because I know you mentioned in your medical history that your parents had trouble conceiving. You should get more details on that as you're, you know, thinking about starting a family. And I asked my mom, and I was like, Hey, you know, I'm having this issue. Was that something you ever dealt with? Is there anything I need to know about my conception that would affect my medical history? And she was like, No. And so that was the thing that really got under my skin later was, like, this lie was more important than, like, my health. And that was something that I really-- I really struggled with. But the more conversations I've had with my parents and the more time that has passed, they feel terrible. They feel really awful for the grief that I went through in learning this. And, you know, they're very sorry. They wish things had been done differently. And, you know, I accept that. I love my parents so much. I know that they really wanted to be parents and that's why they did this. I think they made the choices that were presented to them, and they did what they thought was best. I was frustrated that I had to really dig for it, but we've come to, like, such a great place in our relationship because I think that they're really proud of me. They're proud of the work that I've done to share our story and keep this from happening to anyone else. That's really the only reason I'm, you know-- It's not super fun for me to trot out my trauma and talk about this, you know, all the time, but if one person can hear this and make a decision to disclose to their children, you know, their true identity, or if one person hears this and feels seen or heard as a donor-conceived person, then all of this is worth it to me.
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Basu: T.J. and Amber, thank you both so much.
Raphael: Thanks for having me.
Van Moessner: Thank you.
Basu, Narrating: You can listen to "BioHacked: Family Secrets" from Three Uncanny Four and Sony Music Entertainment on Apple Podcasts.
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