[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between Costard and Touchstone Productions and the Dads from the Crypt Podcast who's your daddy? For most of us, that question who's your daddy? It's easy. We know exactly who our daddy is. He's part of why we are who we are.
But what if you learned, quite innocently, that actually you don't know who's your daddy? What if you learned a terrible secret as an adult? That daddy was actually a spirit sperm donor, a total stranger? That's what the donor a DNA horror story is all about. People accidentally discovering via their 23andMe or Ancestry DNA test results that they weren't who they thought they were. And it's all absolutely true. I promise you have never heard a story like this before. Find it wherever you find your favorite podcasts
[email protected] hey, do you really know who you are?
Hello and welcome to this bonus episode of the how not to Make a Movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. The reason I went into the film and TV business oh so many years ago is because I love storytelling. If not for the ability to spin a yarn, I'd probably be a total burden on society. Storytelling. That's the reason I went into podcasting. Can I be honest? I actually like telling stories via podcasting more than I did via movies and TV shows. And I love those media for storytelling. But the hurdles involved, and they are relentless. For starters, to make a movie or TV show, to get an idea from your head out into the world, it takes years. And there are thousands of assholes standing in your way. And at any point in that long multi year process, any one of those assholes can kill your project dead just like that, for no reason other than the fact that they're an.
The way I see it with podcasting, there's only ever one standing in my way. Me.
Well, that I can deal with. And even he loves everything about podcasting. So when a friend of mine from my childhood contacted me because he had a story of his own that he wanted to turn into a TV series, series or a movie, I told him, don't do it. Save yourself, man. Save your sanity. Do it as a podcast, not instead of a TV series or movie. But first, if the story is what we think it is, TV producers will come looking for it by name. A much better way to go. My old friend agreed. And that's how the Donor A DNA Horror Story the Podcast came into being. I can promise you one thing. You have never ever heard a story quite like this one, and it's absolutely true. During the mid-1980s, Hal, that's the name I use for my friend in the podcast. He worked his way through medical school as an anonymous sperm donor. Over the course of about a year and a half, he made about 150 anonymous donations. When he stopped, he was aware of a dozen or so successes. Jump forward 25 years or so. A new company called 23andMe opened shop. Now a successful radiologist, Hal became one of the first customers at 23andMe. Curious about his health genes. He had no idea that adding his DNA to a growing DNA database, that's what 23andMe is. Would destroy his donor anonymity. But that's what happened. Suddenly, seven total strangers found daddy. Except six of them had no idea that their actual biological father was a sperm donor.
Remember, these aren't kids. They're adults in their mid to late 20s learning a secret about themselves they were never supposed to learn. For some of them, this revelation about who they were and weren't it was devastating. Did I mention you've never heard a story like this before? You haven't, but here's your chance to check out episode one of the A DNA Horror Story. If you enjoy it, please check out the rest of the story. You can listen to it on our on the website, or you can check it out at any place where you go looking for your favorite podcasts. The story goes places that will. It'll blow your mind and then some. So without further ado, here's season one, episode one of the A DNA Horror Story.
Costard in Touchstone presents the A Modern Horror Story.
This is episode one. Who am I?
Me. I'm Alan Katz. You may know me from another podcast. I do the how not to Make a Movie podcast, which talks about the years I've spent making movies and TV shows like HBO's iconic Tales from the Crypto. The fact that I tell stories for a living, that's relevant to this story. It's why an old friend from my youth approached me with his story. And once he told me what had happened to him, I knew I'd have to tell it to you. So here we are. Over the course of my career, I've written a fair amount of horror. I've made a monster movie or two. And I promise you, this story definitely has a monster, but a very unexpected one.
Now, telling my friend's story is gonna require a little delicacy. It's about some pretty personal stuff. In fact, it's about the most personal stuff we have our DNA. This is a story about secrets too. And what happens when secrets stop being secret. It's one of those stories where it's more important to know what happened than to whom it happened. So while the story I'm about to tell you is absolutely true, I'm going to change people's names where appropriate to protect their privacy. So how do I know how?
I grew up in the 60s and 70s in an upper middle class Jewish suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. My dad was a physician whose friend group was pretty much other physicians. So I grew up surrounded by doctors and their families. Most of my friends were doctors kids. Every summer from age 6 to 12, I went to sleepaway camp in Maine for eight weeks. There my friend group expanded to include kids from the whole eastern seaboard, from D.C. to Philly and Pittsburgh, all the way up to Boston. A lot of them turned into doctors too. The key is I first met Hal when we were both kids. Hal's a very nice person, tall, athletic, smart, Jewish. He'd tell you his road to a very successful career in radiology zigged and zagged in unusual ways. He has a remarkable talent for being in the right place at the right time. That, combined with an open minded approach to life, set him up perfectly for what was about to happen to him and his sperm.
At what point in your medical school career did you begin donating sperm?
[00:07:17] Speaker B: That was in my third year. Have your different rotations at pediatrics and surgery and psychiatry and internal medicine and ob gyn. I hated my obgyn rotation. I didn't like being up in the middle of the night to have to deliver, you know, babies I wasn't good at. It just didn't interest me. I was walking down the hallway one day pushing an empty gurney when one of the obstetricians came up to me. The hallway was empty and he started to help push the gurney with me. And he just looked at me and.
[00:07:51] Speaker C: Said, hal, would you like to be a sperm donor?
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Talk about bolts out of the blue. Wasn't really expecting that doc, you know. And I said, research, you know, kind of hoping or to make babies.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: And he said, no, the real thing, to make babies.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: He said, you have the three things that a lot of my patients are looking for.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: You're tall, you're smart, you're Jewish. And I have a lot of Jewish patients.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Like any major city in the country, any big city, there's going to be a lot of affluent Jewish couples who want to have kids.
[00:08:26] Speaker C: He said, come on, Hal, if you don't do It. I really don't know who else to turn to. I've asked almost every medical student here, but no one will do it. And I don't understand why. There's no downside. Everybody wins. It helps the patients who want it. They try so hard to get pregnant. It helps me and my practice. It helps my employees by keeping them employed. And of course, you'll get paid, too. The hell can you get one?
[00:08:53] Speaker B: It wasn't a whole lot, you know, Maybe it was 25 bucks a shot or something back in the day. I knew it would be enough not to pay rent, but at least it would help go to the grocery store and not worry. And I thought about it for about 15 seconds. 15 seconds. That's all it took me to say, well, this is easy.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: For the record, what year is this?
[00:09:10] Speaker B: This would be in the early mid-80s.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: So 1985, roughly.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: I said, yes. And he said, now, you'll have to.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: Go through some testing first.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Make sure you don't have STDs or Tay Sachs disease, which runs in Jewish community.
[00:09:26] Speaker D: A little bit.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Those were the easiest tests I ever took in my life.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Is that a blood draw or.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: It was a blood drop, and it was also a urine test, so.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: So you still haven't cranked it up for action yet? No.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: The secretary calls me up and she.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Says, I need you Monday, Wednesday, Friday of this week, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, the following week, and then I'll call you with the rest of your schedule.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: I thought, wow, they weren't kidding around, that they have a lot of patience. Now, it so happened that my girlfriend at the time was a bank teller who worked like a block from his office. She would take the sample in in the morning while it was fresh, and at the end of the week, she'd bring home a roll of $20 bills. She became the bag lady. This went on for nearly a year and a half.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Every other day, more or less, pretty much.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: I mean, you know, there were some lulls, you know, OB, obviously here and there, times where I'd be out of town or whatever. But more or less, for a year and a half, at least twice a week, I was donating.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Roughly how many total donations do you think you made?
[00:10:31] Speaker B: At least 120 to 150. I would say somewhere in that range. Thinking about the total amount of money, I bought some stereo speakers. You know, I'm thinking about, you know, how much money did I make? And then, you know, so much went for the stereo speaker. And I had so much for pizza. And so it was probably about 150. The weird thing was I didn't. I never saw the doc because my girlfriend was taking the samples in, so I had no idea what was going on. All I know was that I was jerking off or my girlfriend was helping me, and that was it. You know, off she'd go. And a lot of SolidWorks were the 20 bills.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Sperm donation has been a thing for centuries. There's a record of a doctor in Philadelphia in 1884, inseminating a woman with sperm donated by his most attractive medical student. The proximity of medical students to sperm donations has been a constant in its earliest years. In the late 1950s and early 60s, the sperm business would only work with married women. Secrecy in secrets ruled. Married couples didn't want to admit failure, especially on the man's part. And clearly that was the problem here. Record keeping early on, was deliberately spare. In a 1979 survey of physicians likely to perform donor inseminations, only 30% of them kept any permanent records of their donors. They worried about privacy rights and parenting responsibilities. Today, sperm recipients do all the choosing. Donors might as well be on a dinner menu. Back then, the doctor doing the inseminating played matchmaker, using nearby medical undergraduate or graduate students who, like Hal, had all been paid for their contributions.
Each time you crank out the donation, it's got to get from.
Yeah, from your apartment, I take it. Has to get to their office. And she's the mule. Yeah, each and every time. Each and every.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Yeah. There's no. There was no way for me to store it or.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: So three times a week. And not only are you. Are you jerking off, she's muling it. Uh, what did that do to your sexual relationship with her?
[00:12:38] Speaker B: It actually put a damper on it. They wanted to have a high sperm count. So if you came the night before, that means in the morning, you didn't have the count that you had the night before. Essentially, I had to limit myself to having sex on the evenings that I donated. So if I donated Monday morning, I could have sex Monday night, and then I'd be okay for Wednesday morning.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: You're kind of like a hooker. Hey, this one's on the house. Did you ever contemplate ways to help what you were doing via diet?
[00:13:06] Speaker B: I tell you, I didn't take it that seriously. Med school is pretty demanding. I was busy doing everything that a medical student does. There wasn't a lot of time to research anything anyway. You know, I was busy trying to pass exams, studying and whatever.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: It became like a job.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: It was exactly that it was just a job. The funny thing was, while I was doing it, I wasn't even curious. It never once entered my mind until graduation, what had happened. I never asked myself any of these questions. And then at graduation, I saw the OB gyn. He was a graduation. For the first time since I started, I couldn't help but ask, well, what can you tell me? Because I was wondering if I did have some successes, were they healthy? That's the only thing I wanted to know. Because if I was damaged in some way, I'd want to know that. I asked the, you know, are they healthy? Are there any? And are they healthy? And he said, you've got two healthy.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Ones and four more that are on the way. That's all I can tell you.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Holy shit. And this was how long into the process?
[00:14:10] Speaker B: I donated for about a year and a half. A year and a quarter. Because after that I was traveling, doing rotations around the country in different places. So this was really two years after I had started. That's when I saw.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: So at two years in, you were already aware of half a dozen successful donations. There were people walking around biologically related to you?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah. The funny thing is I didn't think about it like that. It just didn't occur to me. I didn't care. That they were healthy was the only thing I needed to know. But my career didn't end at that point.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Your donating career?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Before I started my radiology residency, every you know, all the medical students, you have to do a year of internship.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: So how does a year of internship in another city and at that hospital, another prestigious institution? Hal found another sperm donation program urgently in need of tall, smart Jewish donors just like him. And since being an intern paid for shit, Hal thought, what the hell? So he took things in hand again and went to work. But first there were a couple of caveats.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: You know, here we have a limit. Six pregnancies and you're done. They also said, by the way, we have to treat you for uroplasma, urea lytica, which I'd never heard of before. I said, what the hell is that? And so. It's a bacteria. A huge percentage of the population carries it, particularly men. They're asymptomatic. But a small percentage of women who get this can become infertile. You tested positive for that. You'll have to take some doxycycline for a week or two, and then you'll be fine. The funny thing about the doxycycline, I took it for the first time on an empty stomach. And on my way into work one day I got so sick that I had to stop on the side of the highway and the bar my brains out. And I was thinking, is it really worth it? I really want to be doing this because this is embarrassing at rush hour having, you know, hundreds of cars passing me while retching on the side of the road. I did my six. They notified me, said, hey, you've done your six, you're done. We don't want these kids to meet each other down the road. That's why we limit it to 6. When I finished that last one, I swear to God I did not give it another thought.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: On July 25, 1978, Louise Brown was born at Oldham General Hospital in Greater Manchester, England. Louise was the world's first baby conceived by ivf. In vitro fertilization.
In vitro fertilization changed the fertilization game and business entirely. In a fetal heartbeat, fertility went from being a niche business into a significant part of how more and more people were actually becoming people.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: It was a dream job, and particularly when I looked at my classmates, some of whom would be bartenders, working hours in the middle of the night to earn the same money that I'm earning in two minutes. I spent four years in a big city learning radiology, which was fun. I really enjoyed what I was learning.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: This is the doctor's kid in me poking his nose in. Among physicians, radiologists are under unusual. Okay, special. To do their jobs correctly, they have to know at least a little about every other physician's territory, from obstetrics to sports medicine to orthopedic surgery. Another interesting factoid, most radiologists never see patients. Their input on our health care occurs between them and other physicians. Radiologists don't need to have a bedside manner.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: I was always awkward. I didn't really learn my way around the social world how to chat with women, how to.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: You grew up with two brothers.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Two brothers, correct.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: You, you were the middle of three.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Middle three. My parents split when I was a teenager. My mom actually left the house, so I was with my dad, my two brothers.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Obviously very male oriented house. I definitely learned some bad habits.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: What would you say those bad habits are? Or were?
[00:18:13] Speaker B: It were. I lacked the respect for women that I should have had. That I've certainly learned since then. I came out of my child rearing years lacking some fundamental knowledge that left me very awkward in social situations. It wasn't like I was desperate, couldn't get a date kind of thing. But I couldn't date the women I wanted to date, you would think that I'm tall, I'm relatively smart, horrible to look at, great career potential. You would think it wouldn't be that hard to meet women that I wanted to go out with.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: It was first it was the matter of how's medical school? Girlfriend, Our sperm mule. After a year and a half together and countless deliveries, at some point I.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Realized that intellectually we were so divergent, I was already getting bored. I just said, my next step I need to make without you. I still feel badly to this day. I much rather have a woman break up with me because I know I'll get over it. Might be two months, three months. I've had broken hearts. I know what it feels like. It's horrible to have that feeling, but I know I'll get over it. But I still feel the guilt of breaking those engagements.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's engagements, plural. Not too long thereafter, while in turning elsewhere, Hal fell in love with another young woman and proposed to her. But just as they were about to actually tie the knot, to this day.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: I can't tell you why, something just went off in my brain that says, this is not the girl. I was looking at other women, I was flirting with other women and I thought, I'm not even married yet and I'm doing this.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: And so another serious relationship crashed and burned. Ironically, relationships are a lot like orgasms. You can't fake them and expect to be happy. But then Hal met the woman he ended up marrying and staying married to for 20 years. She was smart, funny, very pretty, and she had a 7 year old son from a previous marriage.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: What's interesting is I never had children of my own. Maybe part of the problem that this whole podcast is going to be intertwined around. I don't know what it's like to have my own biological child. My only experience in child rearing is with my stepson who's adopted. So I call him my son. For most of the time. Marriage is good. I'm working hard. I was the Dirty Harry of my group. You always did those jobs for the San Francisco Police Department that no one else wanted to do. All the shit jobs. That was kind of like me. In my group, if there was a hospital that needed coverage 100 miles away from home, I was the guy who schlepped and stayed overnight and covered that hospital.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Among Hal's Dirty Harry assignments, covered the night shift for a week. As challenging as working nights can be, it suited him.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: People don't go to the ER at 3 in the morning unless they're sick. So the percentage of positive cases is very high. Exciting. You know, I was actually seeing some of the stuff for the first time that I learned about my residency that I hadn't seen as an outpatient, you know, outpatient basis. And once we had the schedule fine tuned where we had a lot more vacation time and the pay was increased, it made it tolerable.
It took its toll on marriage over time during that week, they don't see you, you're working at night, they're sleeping during the day you're sleeping, they're up and about dinner time, you see them at dinner and then you're off to work. But that's what I ended up doing really for the rest of my career.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: And then at some point you had a question about your own genetics.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I saw an advertisement from 23andMe advertising your health gen. Do you have the genes for Parkinson's? Do you have the genes for Alzheimer's gene for whatever. And I saw that and I thought, wow, yeah, I want to know this. You know, I'm a physician working my ass off. If I have something bad, I'm going to change the way I look at my life, you know, if I have some bad genes. And I thought, this is fantastic. The next day when I saw that ad, the light bulb went off and I was like, yeah, now I was way into my career at this point, I got to know this.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Now, was there anything in particular that you wanted to know about?
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Well, my grandmother had. Had Alzheimer's that was worrying me.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: There is a genetic link with Alzheimer's.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Certainly can be. It's something that our family hadn't really talked about. Were there any bad diseases in our family?
Diabetes, you know, is so common. And I know that my uncle had diabetes, one of my uncles and I thought, yeah, I'd kind of like to know. Next day I called them up and said, send me a kit.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Humans have always understood that children are a product of whoever parents them. Tall parents are likely to have tall children. The study of genetics told us why that happens. Enter the personal genomics business with the very genuine goal of putting science to work for all of us and our health. Making our DNA accessible to us empowers us just like all information empowers us. As 23andMe says on its website, know your genes own your health. Our DNA really does contain a lot of history. Personal, tribal, human. Our mitochondrial DNA, the DNA we inherit strictly from our mothers, rarely mutates, making it quite stable. And a reliable document of how we came to be who we are as individuals. My mitochondrial DNA is probably identical to my great great great great great great grandmother's mitochondrial DNA. Pretty cool how so much of the past remains locked up in the present right inside our own cells, if we know how to see it. And that's the gift. The human genomics business, 23andMe ancestry.com etc promised and delivered. Total game changer. Alas, that gift has a dark side.
Now you understood what you were going to have to do to be part of their system.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: To be honest with you, I didn't think it through. I was so excited to see what my health genes might be.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: You were ready to throw your DNA at them.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah. All of these consequences that since people have since talked about. Totally. Because this was new. The average person didn't know about 23andMe. I was one of the first people on the site.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: There's a mosaic of DNA, but all Hal saw was his own individual tile and its connections to the past. The thing was though, the mosaic soon became filled with tiles. Lots of them connecting to each other, including Hal's DNA travels vertically up and down the database, but it also travels horizontally from side to side.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Of course, all of these ancestry.com20threeme.com they all advertise your ancestry. But I know my ancestor Ashkenazi.
You know, I'm from the Middle east and from Eastern Europe and there's not a whole lot to that. So I certainly didn't do it for any of that 100%. I wanted to know my health genes. And that's all I thought about. What a great idea sent in my saliva. A couple weeks later, I get my.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Results exactly as hal expected. He's 100% Ashkenazi Jew with roots going all the way back to the Middle east and interestingly, the Indus Valley in what's now India.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: Then there's, you know, your health genes and I have pretty good health genes. The one interesting thing, you know, talk about the Greek gods who are up there dispersing their very cunning outcomes for people. What's the one thing as a radiologist that I really need more than anything else? My eyesight. Right. Like, I could have a terrible heart, but as long as I can see the cases, I can dictate cases. So I have, I have great genes, except for macular degeneration. And it turns out there's a scale. There's like nine different levels of danger, so to speak, depending on how many of these genes that you have for alleles.
And it turns out I have A bunch of them. Out of the nine risk categories, I'm eighth. The nice thing is the difference between eight and nine is like night and day. If you don't have any of the, you know, alleles or genes for macro generation, your risk is, let's just call it one. My risk is four. So I have four times the risk you do. Given all my shitty macular generation genes I had, if I was on that ninth level I'd have 36 times the risk. So you know, I have a little bit of an increased risk, not so bad. But as I looked over all these health genes I was like, yeah, pretty good, you know, it's, I'll take it now. There was also a table, a column for a family tree and you know, I took a quick look into the family tree and because I was so early into 23andMe, it was pretty empty. You know, there were a few distant cousins. I don't know if you could name a single fourth cousin. I don't know if anyone listening to this could name a single fourth cousin. I certainly can't. And as I saw these distant cousins, even their last names meant nothing to me.
No one even had the same last name as any of my grandparents, parents. So there was no one related to me. And I was done. I had good health genes, I was finished, closed it up and that was it as far as I thought.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Years go by. Hal hears nothing from 23andMe. Then an email arrives, it says you have a relative.
[00:27:39] Speaker D: I'm pretty sure it gave us the age, but I'm not 100% sure that that was the case. It definitely gave us the percentage DNA.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: 47% and the predicted relationship.
[00:27:52] Speaker D: Yeah, there it was. Three letter word, starts with the letter.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: S. Son, did you think, this can't possibly be right, they have fucked this up somehow.
[00:28:03] Speaker D: I do remember being shocked and scared immediately afterwards. Nervousness. The first thing I thought was that I had impregnated somebody. You know, I was going back in my head thinking about who I was with at that time. And when I calculated back there are two or three women I slept with that year. But you know, as I thought about it, those just weren't the kind of women that wouldn't have told me.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: They would not have wanted you to make them pregnant. So they would have shared that secret with you. Do something about this, this is your fault.
[00:28:38] Speaker D: Absolutely. They would have told me right then and there. So for a few hours there I'm laying in bed and I don't know what to make to this. You Know, tossing and turning in bed, I can't fall asleep.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: You were married at the time? Yes.
[00:28:50] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I was married.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: Did you tell your wife?
[00:28:54] Speaker D: Nope. We already had some cracks in the marriage at this point. And I was thinking that had she found out about this, something significant like this from my past where I had a biological son, particularly since she and I didn't have a biological. Biological son.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: Had you been trying?
[00:29:12] Speaker D: No. No.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:15] Speaker D: Well, you know, that's actually more of the story. It goes back to some of the difficulties of our marriage. And early on realizing that I didn't want to have a child with this woman. You know, suddenly here I am and I've got this biological son. If I tell her about this, it's not going to help things.
There was nothing to be gained by confiding in her. And then out of the blue, you know, right before I finally fell asleep, the light bulb went off. I calculated back 3rd year med school and it fined on me. This was one of the donor kids.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: The last thing you were told was how successful you were.
[00:29:52] Speaker D: Yes. And that anonymity was assured.
And, you know, after I realized that this was one of the donor kids, it didn't take long to hop to the next step, that there were others that were going to be showing up here.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: But for the moment, there was miles and the word sun staring back at Hal and a rush of emotions, especially overwhelming curiosity. Did you feel through the ether a connection to this person?
[00:30:21] Speaker D: There was probably a part of me that was curious and felt a connection because I didn't have a child of my own. It's strange, everything that's happening.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a piece of information, and then it's the response inside your head. It's. It's a biochemical, emotional response to a piece of information.
[00:30:42] Speaker D: Yeah. And, you know, once you have this little piece of information, you can't get rid of it. You keep thinking about it, the notion.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: Of having a relationship with this person and that this person is a son and you are this person, father.
[00:30:57] Speaker D: And then you start thinking, well, I might be able to have a relationship with this person.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: So the curiosity is eating you up.
[00:31:04] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, totally.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Before Hal pulls the trigger, I want to give you some additional context on Hal and why suddenly this meant so much to him. Let's jump back in time to our sperm mule and to the very first time she and Hal went out. They went to the movies, saw a Field of Dreams. In addition to being a huge Civil War buff, Hal loved playing baseball as a kid. He wanted to be a baseball player.
[00:31:28] Speaker E: The one constant through all the years.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Ray has been baseball, in case you don't remember. The climax to Filled with Dreams involves a father son relationship and a simple game of catch.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: I didn't get a lot of opportunities to play catch with my dad because he was always so busy.
And when that part of the movie came, oh, the kid could play catch with his dad.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: Oh man, it hit me.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: I cried so hard I could not pull the car out of the parking lot.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: A decidedly if you build it, they will come dynamic played inside Hal's head as he wrote that first tentative note to Miles. Hi.
[00:32:08] Speaker D: This is very interesting. I hope you contact me, son.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Hal waits for a response with bated breath. It comes quickly.
[00:32:16] Speaker E: Hello, Hal. Of course, this is a bit shocking for me as well as I'm quite confident of my birth parents. I don't know where to start.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: Holy shit. He didn't know at all. That was total news to Miles. And at that point, the information that Hal was his actual father had not yet computed. The bomb had only just begun to detonate inside Miles head. He was actively resisting the new idea that the man he'd always thought of as his father was not his biological father. Now I have to be a little delicate here because when Miles dmed Hal back, he asked if Hal lived where his mom had lived and if certain surnames meant anything to Hal. Miles had racked his brain just like Hal had. He went for the most obvious explanation. If Hal was indeed his real father, Miles clearly thought then it was because his mom had had an affair with Hal.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: To his credit, you know, he was, he was nice about it.
[00:33:13] Speaker D: He wasn't, you know, overtly accusatory.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Hal wrote back and gently tried to explain his connection to Miles. Mom.
[00:33:25] Speaker D: Hi, Miles. So where do I start? I'm a 55 year old radiologist. Let me assure you right off the bat, I do not know anyone by either of the names you mentioned from that time period. Frankly, I don't recall having a relationship with anyone other than my girlfriend at the time. But I did earn some extra money on the side as a sperm donor. I suggest at this point you think about where you wish to go with this. The next step may be to quietly ask your mother whether she ever participated in a fertility program. If so, perhaps you can find out where she was treated and where you were born. If she correctly identifies a location where she underwent treatment, I can confirm for you what we are both thinking at this point. I hope you won't mind telling me a little bit about yourself. I hope all is well, Hal.
[00:34:12] Speaker E: Hi, Hal. I originally submitted myself to 23andMe had a curiosity about my genetic health. I certainly didn't expect the surprises to come from the relative section. I'm positive this hasn't fully sunk in yet. All I can do is stagger on while I tell you about me and try to collect myself. My dad is an ophthalmologist and my mom is a nurse, now retired. By my understanding, they met while he was in his residency. I have not yet asked them about this. I've decided to wait until I'm home, closer to Thanksgiving. Naturally, all this raises a few questions. I'm no longer certain about my relationship to my brother either. I'm not familiar with the level of anonymity and fertility treatment, but intentionally or otherwise, my middle name is How. I'm sure I'll have many, many more questions. At the moment, though I'm most curious to know if you have any children of your own. I'm stunned, bewildered, but also delighted to make your acquaintance.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: And Hal responded.
[00:35:22] Speaker D: Hi Miles. I've been staggering about a lot myself. I donated when I was a medical student. I was told at the time that I had six healthy children there. You would be the seventh. You will also be the only one I am aware of. While I have a very dear stepson, ironically enough, I did not have a child of my own at this point. My stepson has gotten married and produced two kids of his own. So in a sense, I've been consigned to the role of a father and grandfather. Of course, I do not feel old enough to be a grandfather, but such is life when one is unable to control certain circumstances. It's 4am As I write this. In a few hours I am taking my wife and son and family to the Big Island. It's almost ironic that the last donations that I made I made in May and June 1987. This would have been exactly the right timing for your March birth. I remember before donating, they had me take a course of doxycycline to eliminate an ubiquitous bacteria called Urolytica uroliticum. The doxycycline made me nauseous on my way to work one morning. And if you can imagine this, I had to pull off on the side of the road in order to start retching my guts up right there on the shoulder. Gosh, there are so many stories to tell you. It's late and I really should try to get some sleep before my flight. Miles, thank you for writing back I think some good will come of this here.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Howe suggested they all figure out a way to rendezvous. Hal, Miles. Miles mom. And Miles Dad.
[00:36:40] Speaker D: This is one of those very rare warm personal stories that always happen to other people. Stay in touch. I will try to write some more later. Obviously I have many questions of my own. Hal.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: And so this odd little relationship created by information sputtered to life, not unlike electricity sputtering Frankenstein's monster to life, Miles responded.
[00:37:03] Speaker E: I hope your travels with family have gone well. I imagine, like me, you've been taking time to settle into this new info. I really enjoyed hearing about that car ride. It's funny the things we remember.
So you were told that there were six others out there? Wow.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:37:24] Speaker E: I'm shaking my head with a grin as I write this.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Alas, said Miles, getting everyone together right then would be hard. He didn't poo poo everyone getting together. But right then, when his family got together at that Thanksgiving, that's when Miles was going to drop the bomb on them.
[00:37:40] Speaker E: Perhaps the conversation will change things. It's hard to see into the future past that point. Maybe we can all make plans to meet somewhere next year. I hope all is well, Miles.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: By that point, it seemed Miles was beginning to see the possibilities. First, there was getting to know the man who actually donated half of who Miles was. But then there was this other world filled with half siblings he never suspected he had. Miles was, as he put it, settling into this new info. But now the clock was running. There was going to be a D day. How would Miles parents react to this piece of information that they never expected Miles to ever have? For his part, Hal was over the moon.
There's literature and data that describe this relatively new phenomenon of sperm donor fathers connecting to their donor children for the first time. One sperm donor quoted in the Atlantic described it as feeling like coming out of the trees on the coast and suddenly seeing the ocean. It's a moment of awe. And that's how Hal was leaning.
[00:38:48] Speaker D: Hi, Miles. It was a great trip to the Big Island. We go almost once a year, usually to escape the winter for a week and attend a radiology conference. This year I slipped in a trip to accommodate the kids. I can't help but think that I was about your age when you were conceived. It's heartening to know you've turned out just fine. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you have that discussion with your folks. Go easy on them. I'm quite sure it will be difficult all around.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: And then Hal went into A list of health gene related issues that he felt Miles, being his genetic son, should know about. Mild hypercholesterolemia, incidence of diabetes, and unfortunate smatterings of colon, bladder and prostate cancer.
[00:39:31] Speaker D: But otherwise, no significant Alzheimer's in my family tree. As far as I know, my father and the sibs all lived to at least 85. My mom and her sister are still going well at 80 and 84, respectively. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And yes, it would be wonderful to meet up sometime. Looking forward to it. All is well, Hal.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Hal has a pretty good Thanksgiving with his family.
And then December comes and goes without a word from Miles. Christmas comes and goes. New Year's comes and goes without a word from Miles. Were you getting apprehensive in any way? I mean, what did you think was going to happen?
[00:40:14] Speaker D: I really thought that his parents would be excited to, you know, have this opportunity to meet the guy that did this for them. I did everything I could to put myself in their shoes. I mean, if it was me, it would be wonderful to be able to thank somebody for having helped produce this wonderful, intelligent, creative, successful young man. I really thought they would simply just say thank you.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Most of January came and went before finally Hal got a message from Miles. It had those first lines you write as a setup for bad news.
[00:40:49] Speaker E: Hey, Hal, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch for a while. I hope you had a good holiday. I did finally sit down and talk with my parents. It was difficult and really, really emotional. As expected. My dad took it especially hard. I think he was upset at not having had the chance to disclose it on his own terms. He thinks you violated ethical guidelines when you analyzed your genetics while knowing you were a sperm donor.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Imagine that scene from Miles Dad's pov. You didn't go to a sperm donor because you wanted to. You went because you had to. There's literature and data that says some men in that position get quite hostile toward their sperm donors, even if they're family.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: So when I read his response, it was very chilling.
[00:41:37] Speaker D: Here it was. I was expecting this.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:41:40] Speaker D: Instead, I'm getting, you have violated medical.
[00:41:45] Speaker B: Ethics and I'm angry. I could easily see him lodging a complaint with the state licensing.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: And he knew who you were and where you were practicing.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: Like I said, I've never been investigated.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: You know, even one minute you're just living your life, the next you're being threatened.
[00:42:03] Speaker B: The process would have been draining. I would have had to hire an attorney. And it was scary.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: The truth was, Hal had a very real problem now, back when he'd made his donations, he'd signed a contract, he'd given up all parental rights, and he'd agreed to maintain the boundaries of privacy. And now, having lost his privacy, his secret, and perhaps his relationship with Miles, Miles dad began gunning for Hal, who he believed had broken far more than just his heart. Like that, Hal's strange new family had gotten even stranger on him. And Hal knew this was just the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg of staggering proportions, made up of secrets. All on the next episode of the A Modern Horror Story. Hal tries to talk Miles father off the ledge and out of threatening his medical license. Meanwhile, more of Hal's donor kids continue to sign on to 23andMe mostly concerned with their health. Like Miles and Hal, they have no idea that they're about to learn something they might rather not know. See you next time.
A Modern Horror Story is a Costard and Touchstone production.
The how not to Make a Movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason. Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative Dad's from the Crypt podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the Crypt Keeper would have called terrific crip content.
