As we swelter toward July 4th and traditional family gatherings, I find myself contemplating the meaning of the very new, and very non-traditional, type of extended family that has dropped into my life.
Last month I posted eight words to the Donor Sibling Registry, a Web site that helps form connections among the children conceived by sperm, egg or embryo donations. Girl born October 2008. Boy born May 2010. I was required to enter one other key piece of information: the name of the sperm bank and ID number of the donor that we used to conceive our children. The match popped up instantly from my simple query, like a book in an online library catalog.
Two messages awaited me when I logged onto the Web site the following morning. Janedog in Canada has one child and wants to make a connection. Tripk6 has two children. They live on the West Coast. The three children are all born from the same donor that we used. “Doesn’t he make beautiful babies?” asked Tripk6 rhetorically.
