A Donor Conceived Adult
Tiffany Gardner, an adult DCP
Tag: grief
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Phone Calls that Don’t Come
The call no one wants is also the call many donor conceived people never get. Nobody wants the call—the one you get when someone is seriously ill or has died. But for donor-conceived people who can’t find their close genetic relatives or are rejected by them when they do, the dreaded yet important phone calls
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Unhappy Donor Conceived People Can Still Be Happy People
Sometimes people get the idea that donor conceived people who talk about the realities of anonymous donation and secrecy are just a bunch of bitter curmudgeons bereft of any joy in their lives. That’s not true. I have a wonderful life. I’m married to the man I fell in love with in high school when
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The Sting of Rejection
Rejection from genetic family feels like being the kid nobody wants on the team. Do you remember the dread in PE when you were about to play a team sport and the students, not the teachers, would pick teams? I sure do. I remember the stress of standing on one side of the imaginary line
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(Donor Conceived) Baby’s First Christmas
Something about the ornaments from my first Christmas hits differently now that I know I am donor conceived. I have no independent memories of the ornaments. Instead I found them while moving my grandmother and mom out of their houses, respectively. I think about what these ornaments must have meant to them as they hung
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This Ride is Exhausting
I was riding high for a couple of weeks. The Atlantic article came out, and in its wake I had doors open for more writing opportunities, podcast interviews, potential collaborations, and more. I was feeling good. Empowered. At peace. I told my therapist I felt as if the grief over my biological father was in
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We Need Support During the Search
Even if I decide to search, I still want you to be my home. Fear can be brutal, especially as a parent. You love your child and would do anything to protect them. And what could hurt more than losing your child? After my biological father ended our relationship, and after my dad died, my
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Intergenerational Trauma
My oldest son turned 8 yesterday. This time with my children is flying by, just as everyone said that it would. He is insightful, sensitive, artistic, curious, kind, and funny. He loves Minecraft, Harry Potter, LEGOs, Star Wars, creating art, reading with me, and playing video games. Out of all three of my sons, he
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Anonymity is a Roadblock to Closure
For late-discovery donor conceived people, it seems recipient parents often want to minimize our feelings by focusing on the deception. “If I just tell the truth from the beginning, my kids won’t end up [insert negative adjective of choice here].” But telling the truth doesn’t always tell the whole story. What upsets me the most
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The Pain of Rejection
Share your joys and sorrows with your family. a fortune cookie Some days I just cannot fathom how I will spend the rest of my life cut off by my biological father and his family. Worth nothing more to them than a stranger on the street when I want so badly to have some small
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The Final Chapter
When my biological father stopped communicating with me, I thought perhaps God was taking him out of my life in exchange for my father who raised me. That maybe my dad would survive the cancer. I was wrong. It’s been exactly two years since I woke up to find an email titled “Final Chapter” and
A Donor Conceived Adult 