Zave Fors, a California boy, is 24 years old and should be happy to fall in love at a young age, but Zave is afraid to fall in love easily because he is always worried that the girl he likes may be his half-sister or sister ……
Statistically speaking, in a sea of people who happen to fall in love with half-sisters, the chances of falling in love or even incest is quite small, almost unlikely to happen, but Zave feels that this very small probability event is likely to happen to him, it all starts with his Life ……
Zave is a child born using donor sperm.
Zave’s mother had always wanted to have children, but unfortunately never found a compatible partner. Seeing that she was getting older, she wanted to have a child as soon as possible before she was too old, so she approached the East Bay Reproductive Medicine Group, a fertility clinic in California, and chose an anonymous donor’s sperm from an alternative list to do IVF.
Through nine cycles of trying, Mom successfully conceived and after 10 months of pregnancy gave birth to Zave, whom she raised as a single mother and never hid his true heritage, telling him from an early age that he was a child born through donor sperm.
Growing up, Zave moved to Portland, Oregon, for college and became increasingly interested in the question of “who the biological father was,” but his mother said the original sperm donor was completely anonymous, and she thought the chances of her son finding his biological father were low.
But Zave thought he could use technology to help, and in 2018 he underwent DNA testing in hopes of genetically finding his biological father or close relatives.
At first, nothing came of it, but when Zave went back to the testing station a few months later, he got a result that made him excited and apprehensive –
Another client’s DNA was a high match for his, a half-brother.
That client, Daron McClennan-Colon, had gone for a DNA test because he was curious about his Family and lineage, and was surprised to find a close relative.
Zave was the first to learn of the results. He searched Daron’s Instagram account and immediately noticed that the two looked very much alike. Zave contacted him and told him that they were related and asked if Daron was also a child born through sperm donation.
Daron was confused and at first thought the test results were wrong.
Zave and his half-brother, Daron, met in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and were both stunned at how much they looked alike, more so than in photos.
What’s even more amazing is that the brothers, who live just a few miles from each other, went to the same private high school, where they were seniors and juniors, and they didn’t know each other at school, they just looked familiar to each other, and Zave remembers meeting his junior Daron in the auditorium, where Daron played drums at an event.
Zave had a knot in his stomach, he always wanted to know the identity of his biological father, so he went to a DNA testing facility again to look for clues and succeeded in finding another relative, A.
After contacting him, he found out that A is a psychologist who specializes in helping people adjust to the absence of childhood. A agreed to help Zave by providing him with the name and email address of his biological father.
The moment he got his biological father’s information, Zave was both nervous and emotional, “I spent 22 years trying to figure out who this person was, never knowing his name or what he looked like.”
“Now that I finally know the name, I found his wife’s Facebook page and saw his picture there.”
“It’s so hard to write down, I really don’t know how to write an email to him.”
But after looking for so long to finally find clues, Zave certainly can not easily give up, he finally gathered the courage to send an email to the biological father, and really received a reply, but the two exchange process, Zave’s mood is as complex as a roller coaster ride.
The good news first, Zave’s biological father’s identity was basically confirmed, he sent Zave a photo, plus his avatar photo on social media sites, and Zave’s mother saw the donor information at the clinic basically match, also with the DNA clinic provided a photo of the biological father high school is very similar, that is, Zave finally found the biological father.
There is also bad news, Zave’s idea of identifying with his biological father basically fizzled out, he originally had a glimmer of hope, but when he found his biological father, he found that the other party was very cold, “Probably your father is me, is there something wrong?”
Zave was most disappointed when he asked his father why he was a frequent sperm donor, expecting a warm answer, such as “to help create a new life for someone else.”
However, Zave was disappointed by his father’s answer, saying that he was just making money in the way he was good at and contributing to the sperm bank.
Zave understood that his father was only donating sperm to make money, “I’m like a commodity that my father uses to make money.”
Finally, Zave was shocked to learn that his father said he had donated sperm about 500 times and had about a 10 percent chance of being accepted, which meant that he had about 50 children and Zave had about 50 half-siblings.
In the following two years, Zave is still searching for his relatives and has found more half-siblings, and has found eight so far.
Eight of them have been found, including a girl, older than Daron, who is his older sister, and whose homes are just 20 minutes apart.
Because of Zave’s persistent search, he now has eight half-siblings who have met and all look alike, “I feel like I’m talking to my other self,” Zave said. They’ve made a connection with each other and have group videos from Time to time to talk about what’s going on with each other, and they’re getting along very well.
That said, 8 siblings have been found, but there are still about 40 more to be found, who may live around Zave’s house or at the far end of the world.
This problem bothered Zave immensely, and even affected his search for a girlfriend, which brings us back to the question at the beginning of the article.
Zave was so worried about finding a girlfriend that the girl he met was his blood sister whom he had never met that he was afraid to either make a girlfriend in real life or make friends on the dating App Tinder, fearing that the girl he matched with happened to be a half-sister.
“When I use dating apps, I’m not really sure who’s related to me,” Zave says, “It’s like there’s always a ‘ghost’ hovering around me.”
“I could never be 100% sure if any of them were my sisters unless I had all the girls recommended by the match get DNA tests.”
It was for these reasons that Zave was afraid to find a random girl friend at an age when he should have been enjoying a relationship, leaving him somewhat helpless.
After corresponding with his biological father Zave felt depressed, he died this time and never contacted his biological father again, and so far the other eight siblings have not contacted their biological father.
However, Zave still didn’t give up on exploring his origins, hoping to find more case information from the clinic where he did IVF for his mother, but the clinic had closed down about 20 years ago, and the case records were reportedly destroyed during the clinic’s closure, so it wasn’t easy for Zave to find more clues.
After this incident, Zave has a new view on the matter of “sperm donation”, he thinks that sperm donation clinics should be closed, if the couple can not have children, do not go to sperm donation clinics, it is better to find a friend who knows sperm donor.
This way, the child can easily know who the biological father is, but also easy to understand the family medical history, do not have to spend so much effort like Zave to identify relatives, in love and also worry about falling in love with half-sisters ……
Recent Comments