Speaker 1: I'm Baritun Day Thurston and this is Spit and I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and me. This is
Speaker 1: the podcast that explores how DNA is changing our lives
Speaker 1: and the world around us. Today, we're exploring what does
Speaker 1: it mean to be family? Family's family? You can make
Speaker 1: family Famili's love. That's the bond we have and blood
Speaker 1: is a whole other story. I am joined by multiple
Speaker 1: Grammy Award winning rock star and activist Melissa Ethridge. Melissa
Speaker 1: is in between two types of DNA related stories. Looking backwards,
Speaker 1: she uncovered amazing and alarming facts about her ancestors. Looking forward,
Speaker 1: Melissa is the mother of four children conceived by two
Speaker 1: different sperm donors, neither of whom is named Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: by the way, but we'll get back to that. Also,
Speaker 1: we have documentary filmmaker Sarah Lamb now at age twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Sarah discovered that she was conceived by a sperm donor,
Speaker 1: and in her film Thank You for Coming, she goes
Speaker 1: looking for him. Her genealogical to active journey takes her
Speaker 1: from Hawaii to North Carolina, chasing non existing medical records
Speaker 1: and forging a bond with a possible sister. So Melissa,
Speaker 1: welcome and Sarah welcome. Thank you so much. Hi, it
Speaker 1: is really great to have you both in the studio.
Speaker 1: And I was standing Sarah earlier. I will say it
Speaker 1: for our listeners. We Sarah are in a recording session
Speaker 1: with Melissa. It's just the best looking ones I've had
Speaker 1: a long time. Both of you. You're just beautiful. So
Speaker 1: I have to get this out of the way, Sarah.
Speaker 1: Can I just say to both of you thank you
Speaker 1: for coming? And I know Melissa that you write amazing lyrics,
Speaker 1: but I have to get hand it to you on
Speaker 1: a sperm donor movie, Sarah. To call it thank you
Speaker 1: for coming is incredible, well played. So Melissa and Sarah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a bit about biological family. Melissa, you
Speaker 1: thought your ancestors were just average poor wife faulk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly exact, you know, migrant farmer poor. I mean
Speaker 1: they were, they were very, very poor. But you also
Speaker 1: have in this story through your genealogical detective saga, business success,
Speaker 1: a love affair, lavery right. There are all these elements
Speaker 1: that were not shared with you that we're so you
Speaker 1: were filling in a blank. You didn't know existed and
Speaker 1: over wrote that story. Can you share a bit about
Speaker 1: how you were able to integrate this new story of
Speaker 1: your family history into the story of yourself. I think
Speaker 1: the greatest thing that it did for me was to
Speaker 1: really loosen up that solid oh this is who I
Speaker 1: am and this is where I come from, that we
Speaker 1: are raised with and and then you start to realize, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's just a story that two people told me. You
Speaker 1: know that that that really that that wasn't uh brought
Speaker 1: down from the ages. I mean, I believe there are
Speaker 1: some families that are raised and with such history that
Speaker 1: you're not surprised when you like the royal family, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they they've got that down. But you know the is
Speaker 1: that we're just trying to stay alive. You know, they're there.
Speaker 1: And and then you you could you could see that
Speaker 1: there were marriages that weren't uh you know, the family
Speaker 1: didn't agree with. So you could see people didn't talk
Speaker 1: about I didn't know my family came from Catholic limbs.
Speaker 1: I mean that that blew my mind because you know,
Speaker 1: I just again just you know, white Protestant sort of
Speaker 1: what was what I was surrounded with. You know, so
Speaker 1: for a couple of generations. But boy, once you get
Speaker 1: back there, you start to realize. And I think it
Speaker 1: didn't mean that anything was any different about my childhood.
Speaker 1: It just meant that, oh, the stories that we tell
Speaker 1: are are limiting us, and that, my goodness, your story
Speaker 1: could be anything. So why limit yourself by a story?
Speaker 1: Why not create the story you want to create right now?
Speaker 1: And and on the subject of creating a new story,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stick with you because you have these children,
Speaker 1: and you have created them, you know, in a very
Speaker 1: technical sense, which you exercised even more choy uh in
Speaker 1: some ways than what the average parent is able to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you have two sets of children from two different
Speaker 1: sperm donors. And from what I heard on the internet,
Speaker 1: which always is al, I'm bringing it to the studio
Speaker 1: so you can lay it out for me and the
Speaker 1: people I heard you had a chance to have Brad,
Speaker 1: which seems to me followed me for the for my
Speaker 1: whole Because when that's the very first thing we're gonna
Speaker 1: google right now, you might tell us what the story
Speaker 1: is once. I think at first I joked about it
Speaker 1: someone because he was he was been, he was a
Speaker 1: friend of mine before he made them with Louise. He
Speaker 1: was just this this guy that hung out with a
Speaker 1: lot of us young Hollywood folks in the you know,
Speaker 1: late eighties, and we were all trying to make it
Speaker 1: and he was from the Midwest, and we got a long,
Speaker 1: real well and he liked my first album and it
Speaker 1: was fine. And I think I once his star went boom, people, well,
Speaker 1: who's Brad Pitt to you? I said, I don't know
Speaker 1: the father of my children. I thought that was funny.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a funny little laugh. And I think
Speaker 1: at one point we both worked out the same gym
Speaker 1: and I said, do you think I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think that'd be weird because he wanted children so bad,
Speaker 1: he really did that. I was looking for someone who
Speaker 1: would say, Okay, here's here's the missing piece that you need.
Speaker 1: And my first baby mama, my first my first wife,
Speaker 1: call it mark it up historic anyway, she was adopted,
Speaker 1: so she really wanted her children to know who their
Speaker 1: father was, who everybody was, and that that was important
Speaker 1: to her. So we needed to have a donor that
Speaker 1: that would at least say, yeah, that was me. But
Speaker 1: didn't really want to because I didn't want anyone else
Speaker 1: to raise them. It wasn't that I wanted another parent.
Speaker 1: So when David and Jan Crosby when they were in
Speaker 1: my life, we were we were in Hawaii visiting them
Speaker 1: and had just had their baby, and we were we
Speaker 1: were knew that we were looking for this, and and
Speaker 1: Chance said, well what about David and we kind of
Speaker 1: talked about it. That's perfect. He has so many children
Speaker 1: that he doesn't that he didn't know, but but it
Speaker 1: makes my my two oldest children, makes their lives there
Speaker 1: When people say, oh, tell me about your family, they're like, oh, really,
Speaker 1: you want to know this because it's a long story.
Speaker 1: But they do know. They do know who their fathers.
Speaker 1: And and then the other two with the second baby
Speaker 1: Mama that they um, she we didn't want another sort
Speaker 1: of parental It wasn't. And it's funny because you know,
Speaker 1: they're eleven year old twins and they don't think about
Speaker 1: dad at all. It is not. They are so clear that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a donor and he was you know, Swedish,
Speaker 1: blonde hair, blue eye. They just know that and it's fine.
Speaker 1: They're not looking for that. They've got so many parents,
Speaker 1: they've got two sets of parents and you know, and
Speaker 1: they're they're full with that, So it's it's I mean
Speaker 1: that might change later, but not now. Sarah. Hearing that,
Speaker 1: does it make you think about how the introduction of
Speaker 1: that information about your biological father being a donor, if
Speaker 1: that had been brought to you sooner, like say when
Speaker 1: you were eleven or six, how do you from if
Speaker 1: you're raised with that, then you're like, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1: There's there's an ingredient, there's a physical ingredient that needs
Speaker 1: to be there to create a life. And and then
Speaker 1: there's the man who raised you. Then there's the person
Speaker 1: who raises you. And I think if you've raised with that,
Speaker 1: it's not an issue. But man to pull that on you,
Speaker 1: you know, and and not to know you? Oh that
Speaker 1: that that must be hard. Yeah, I think you're right now, Sarah.
Speaker 1: When you were twenty nine, your father, the man who
Speaker 1: raised you, told you that he wasn't your biological father,
Speaker 1: that you didn't share DNA. And I remember this line
Speaker 1: from your film really clearly. You said, to have one
Speaker 1: story ripped from you and nothing put in its place
Speaker 1: is not a good feeling. Can you share with us
Speaker 1: more d tales of what that not good? Feeling entailed.
Speaker 1: Was it lost, anger, sadness, confusure, Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was some of all of that. I
Speaker 1: think um from the very outset. I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that I always knew is that anything could
Speaker 1: happen in the future. I never dreamed that anything could
Speaker 1: happen in the past time travel like editing of your past. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it was like it was a full turning upside down
Speaker 1: of what I thought I knew, and things that I
Speaker 1: thought were solid were no longer so solid. And because
Speaker 1: the people who were using sperm donors in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and there were a lot more of them than people realized,
Speaker 1: but all the doctors were telling them never to tell anyone,
Speaker 1: never to tell the offspring, and certainly never to tell
Speaker 1: their relatives. So my mother didn't tell her sisters, with
Speaker 1: whom she was very close, not like she told almost nobody.
Speaker 1: Was that a sense of shame or like a legal imposition.
Speaker 1: I think it was a combination of things. The main
Speaker 1: thing was that the doctors told them not to, and
Speaker 1: we do what and we do what doctors said, And
Speaker 1: so for me, it was like one of those moments
Speaker 1: the stereotype of like your knees go out and you
Speaker 1: have to sit down. That's what happened when my dad
Speaker 1: told me. And I even had this out of body
Speaker 1: moment where I thought, like, oh, I'm doing that thing
Speaker 1: that they do in movies where I have to go
Speaker 1: and sit down because I'm gonna, you know, fall over otherwise.
Speaker 1: And then it just became wait a minute. My dad
Speaker 1: has told me that he's not biologically related to me,
Speaker 1: but the system is saying that I don't have access
Speaker 1: to that information. And so it was like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you the story that I'm not your dad,
Speaker 1: but are not your biological father, but you have no
Speaker 1: way of knowing who is who. You can't fill in
Speaker 1: that blank right And for me, that did bring up
Speaker 1: some anger because I really felt and still feel, that
Speaker 1: my genetic information is mine and that that's information that
Speaker 1: I that every human being has a right to have,
Speaker 1: even when it's attached to another person, even when it's
Speaker 1: attached to another person. Fascinating eating as I've gone out
Speaker 1: and talk to people, there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: in my position, and especially people who are taking DNA
Speaker 1: tests now and getting big surprises, and it's like everything
Speaker 1: is a more posh moment, right, I mean, it's really,
Speaker 1: it's really happening a lot. And I'm on a lot
Speaker 1: of the Facebook groups for people who are donor conceived,
Speaker 1: and it's like every day somebody is showing up who's saying, like,
Speaker 1: I just got my results back and it turns out
Speaker 1: I've got fifteen half siblings And what do I do? Folks?
Speaker 1: How does this all work? So, you know, as I've
Speaker 1: been absorbing not just my own story but the story
Speaker 1: of other people, I really have started to feel strongly
Speaker 1: that it's so important to tell people, tell kids their
Speaker 1: authentic story as much as possible from the get go.
Speaker 1: And so is do you think the withholding of that,
Speaker 1: first of all, in your donor conceived circles and the
Speaker 1: parents of the donor conceived, is there a movement to
Speaker 1: share that earlier? Is there a trend in that direction
Speaker 1: or is there are parents feeling protective of their pride.
Speaker 1: I think it really depends. And in the lesbian community,
Speaker 1: it's very opens. There's no shame involved here, there's not
Speaker 1: the old this, And I think I think we're going
Speaker 1: through this on a worldwide thing, this sort of blood,
Speaker 1: the idea of blood and family and mine and my
Speaker 1: tribe and how that's being blown apart by stuff like this.
Speaker 1: So the truth is, you know, families, family you you
Speaker 1: you can make family, families love. That's the bond we have.
Speaker 1: And blood is a whole nother story. It's interesting, it's great,
Speaker 1: but it is it. It's a whole thing. And I
Speaker 1: think the LGBT community can absolutely relate to that because
Speaker 1: very often we've had to make our own families. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we've we were shunned from our families. So we we
Speaker 1: have that and we're fine with that, and I think
Speaker 1: it's hopefully it will it will reach out to other
Speaker 1: families who are having you know, fertilization troubles or whatever
Speaker 1: that might be, that it's okay that there's there's no
Speaker 1: shame in this. We're creating life and loving life. Now,
Speaker 1: is there any additional mystery from a practical perspective where
Speaker 1: you're just trying to explain, like your second two kids,
Speaker 1: they have certain behaviors and you can't blame it on
Speaker 1: Crosby exactly. That's funny. You have no idea thank you yet?
Speaker 1: Um you know, I having four children that I know
Speaker 1: of is is the It really taught me that human
Speaker 1: beings come into this world with their own thing. You know,
Speaker 1: I I My two sets are they're fully biologically related
Speaker 1: to each other, and they couldn't. The four of them
Speaker 1: are so different. And you know, you you, you just you,
Speaker 1: you be a parent to that child, you know in
Speaker 1: the moment, and and they're each of them are going
Speaker 1: to be very different. Thank you a beautiful moment there, Sarah.
Speaker 1: There's a pursuit in your film. There's a hunt uh
Speaker 1: right that the hunt for? Is this my sister? When
Speaker 1: you when you find out this woman je enough for
Speaker 1: who looks a bit like you, has a build similar
Speaker 1: to yours, like you're you are using your observational powers
Speaker 1: to kind of hope for a genetic connection with this
Speaker 1: other person. And with so many new tools for genetic discovery, databases,
Speaker 1: social media, Google, how has the search for family changed
Speaker 1: since the film? Has this film? I assume you made
Speaker 1: this over in a period of time and now we're
Speaker 1: in this moment in time. But what is what are people?
Speaker 1: Is there a protocol now? Is there a playlist? Is
Speaker 1: there a playbook? I think it's I think it's in
Speaker 1: motion right now. I think people are really developing it.
Speaker 1: Um one of the things that I get asked a
Speaker 1: lot as I take out the film and screen it
Speaker 1: is like, what kind of letter did you write to
Speaker 1: your bio dat to say like, hello, it's me. Um,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you construct something like that? Um?
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I frequently find myself
Speaker 1: saying is that Number one, you have to like front
Speaker 1: load it with all your best characterists. You have to
Speaker 1: was I own a really cute dog, and um, you
Speaker 1: have to make yourself seem really likable and that you're
Speaker 1: not looking for something. And then and and also it's
Speaker 1: a very kind of hands off, like I would like
Speaker 1: contact if you would like contact, and we can do
Speaker 1: that in whatever way feels mutually. UM, like that will work. Um.
Speaker 1: That being said, though, I think I would love to
Speaker 1: take this moment to say, if there are any sperm
Speaker 1: donors out there or egg donors who are you know,
Speaker 1: approached by your offspring. Um, warmth and compassion goes a
Speaker 1: long way. Um. And I think it can be it
Speaker 1: can be really hard for offspring when they reach out
Speaker 1: and they get a wall. UM. And and I I
Speaker 1: have a friend who reached out and she just got
Speaker 1: a letter from the lawyer. Right, So you can imagine
Speaker 1: what that what might might feel like. And and that's
Speaker 1: sort of the both end of genetic genetic relationship and
Speaker 1: family relationship. As we can bring comback, we can bring
Speaker 1: our warmth and our compassion to all of those kinds
Speaker 1: of relationships to the degree that we can, I think, um,
Speaker 1: and that would be my encouragement for all the parties,
Speaker 1: and you know, for the parents, for the offspring, for
Speaker 1: the the bio parents. Yeah, there's a level of you
Speaker 1: want people to assume the best and to to resist
Speaker 1: the least, and and to be as compassionate as possible.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a it wasn't quite a genetic story,
Speaker 1: but I was reconnected with family that I had long
Speaker 1: been separated from through no choice of my own. And
Speaker 1: it was because of a message on social media. Someone
Speaker 1: popped up saying they were my cousin, and I was like, really,
Speaker 1: let's see, And then she had the receipts. They were photographs.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my goodness. And it took me a
Speaker 1: while to process it, and so I sat on it,
Speaker 1: you know, for months, because you're just living your life.
Speaker 1: You're like liking your friends baby pictures and you're playing
Speaker 1: some stupid game, and you're yelling at the news on
Speaker 1: your computer screen, and up pops some message saying you
Speaker 1: have a family you didn't know about that doesn't fit
Speaker 1: into the everyday flow of life. And so I just
Speaker 1: needed some time to sit with And I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to disrespect, but I need to create that space so
Speaker 1: that I could respond with compassion and not defensiveness. And
Speaker 1: we are able to get to a point where we
Speaker 1: have an open channel now and it's much more interesting
Speaker 1: and kind of lovely, but it's awkward on both sides. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I had a great friend who said to me,
Speaker 1: as I was sort of embarking on this journey and
Speaker 1: had made contact with some biorelatives, she said, you know,
Speaker 1: you get to decide. There's no prescribed way that this
Speaker 1: has to look, and you get to decide, in concert
Speaker 1: with the other people, how is this going to go?
Speaker 1: And you're right, some some people need more time than others,
Speaker 1: and you have I think you have to be respectful
Speaker 1: of that, especially if you want the relationship to eventually develop. Right,
Speaker 1: do you find yourself in those in this community who
Speaker 1: have some gaps in their knowledge of the family tree?
Speaker 1: Just sizing up everybody trying to get spit from everybody. No,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Yeah. I mean I have seen like films
Speaker 1: where people there's one donor conceived coumentary um where the
Speaker 1: girls like looking around going like is that my bio dad?
Speaker 1: Is that my biodat? I had it limited to all
Speaker 1: the um the medical students at the University of North
Speaker 1: Carolina for from like a little window. So I had
Speaker 1: I literally printed out all their class the yearbook photos.
Speaker 1: And I actually the very first thing I did after
Speaker 1: I found out that I was donor conceived, as I
Speaker 1: had a party and I put them all up on
Speaker 1: the wall. I blew up all the pictures I had
Speaker 1: red yarn connecting them. Well. Well, I had my friends
Speaker 1: come over and guess who it was. I put up
Speaker 1: a picture of me, a picture of myself as a baby,
Speaker 1: and I had them, you know, nominate who was the
Speaker 1: bio dad? Right? No one was writing new friends, all right,
Speaker 1: but you can find some new friends with your DNA
Speaker 1: relative search. And I think about my other experience in
Speaker 1: this topic of family definitions. It only occurred to me,
Speaker 1: in thinking about talking to the two of you, that
Speaker 1: I share a different part of this story, and that
Speaker 1: the woman who was my sister is technically my half sister,
Speaker 1: but I never called her that growing up. You know,
Speaker 1: I knew we had different dads. That wasn't withheld from us.
Speaker 1: But she was my sister and she's always has been
Speaker 1: and always will be my sister. But scientifically we share
Speaker 1: like D n A and so that that language and
Speaker 1: how we define based on blood, as you talked about
Speaker 1: Melissa versus love is a spectrum. And in in the
Speaker 1: film Sarah, you confronted in in a way your own father,
Speaker 1: the one the man who raised you, and asked him
Speaker 1: to take a paternity test two just rule out for
Speaker 1: the final measure maybe you're my bio dad. And how
Speaker 1: how did he respond to that and how did you
Speaker 1: know you You seemed torn about it in the film.
Speaker 1: I assume you really were, and tell us more about
Speaker 1: what it's like to approach someone who is family based
Speaker 1: on love and experience, but you're also doing this side
Speaker 1: scientific inquir to technically define family and you kind of
Speaker 1: need them to go through a process. Well, I say
Speaker 1: in the film, and it's still the word that comes
Speaker 1: to mind. It just feels really rude. I mean, like
Speaker 1: what a thing to ask your parents to take up tests.
Speaker 1: You know that I I felt I mean and rude.
Speaker 1: Probably if I dug underneath that there would be other words,
Speaker 1: you know, like um, fear. You know, there would be
Speaker 1: other things there um And And for his part, I
Speaker 1: think he was incredibly generous to agree to do it.
Speaker 1: And I find myself reflecting on that as a real
Speaker 1: moment of parenting. You know, where he was really willing
Speaker 1: to go with me on that journey, even if it
Speaker 1: wasn't a journey that he would necessarily have you chosen,
Speaker 1: but because he felt like I needed it, he was
Speaker 1: willing to go there, which is a very fatherly thing,
Speaker 1: Which is a very fatherly thing to do right, And
Speaker 1: I think, um, what's very interesting to me about this
Speaker 1: whole process is that we are closer now than we
Speaker 1: were before we started. That's great to hear because that
Speaker 1: I think people listening wouldn't assume that you know, here
Speaker 1: you are looking for your bio dad, and how does
Speaker 1: that make your actual dad you feel like and it's
Speaker 1: called a rift or something. So the fact that this
Speaker 1: wasn't a split, it was actually that's what happens when
Speaker 1: you show up open hearted and honest and meet someone
Speaker 1: else's being open hearted and honest. Right, you've you've come
Speaker 1: closer together. Yes, absolutely, I feel like we're gonna get
Speaker 1: so many good songs out of this. We've already touched
Speaker 1: on one of the main themes. I think it's actually
Speaker 1: not a segment of the interview with underlies the whole
Speaker 1: premise of this gathering, which is, you know, the definition
Speaker 1: of family and the definition of a relative. Now, Melissa,
Speaker 1: you've created this family, which in so many ways is
Speaker 1: a modern model of family. Right, you were raising two
Speaker 1: sets of children. You are in your second marriage, right,
Speaker 1: third marriage? Okay, the first one, it's hard to say
Speaker 1: because they didn't allow us to get married into. Actually
Speaker 1: that's my first marriage, third long term relationship. The first
Speaker 1: two head children, so it's very common. Right, So, so
Speaker 1: you're in this You've created this family that is very
Speaker 1: different from the way we had been defining it. But
Speaker 1: I have the same problems that exactly. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about your family problems. Too much internet? You know, oh
Speaker 1: my god, where's the WiFi? So so what when you
Speaker 1: are processing this idea of the genetic relationships and the
Speaker 1: genealogy and the love and the choices and the experiences,
Speaker 1: how do you define family. You know what, Again, it
Speaker 1: comes down to story. I find that you give your
Speaker 1: children the story to which to frame their life. And
Speaker 1: if you give them a story that's loving, that yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I'm obviously not a guy, so I don't have
Speaker 1: that you know ingredient to create you. But there was one,
Speaker 1: and that's that's fine. And now we're getting on with life. Now,
Speaker 1: this is my life, this is what I did. This
Speaker 1: is my story, This is my father's story, this is
Speaker 1: and this is your you know other mother's story, and
Speaker 1: this and these are the stories that surround you, and
Speaker 1: these are this is how you got here. This is
Speaker 1: what I hope you do in life. You keep putting
Speaker 1: them down. And the funniest thing is, if you were
Speaker 1: to look at all four of my children, you would
Speaker 1: swear I'm I'm blood related to them. Because when you
Speaker 1: raise a baby and you sit that baby in your
Speaker 1: lap day after day, year after year, and you smile
Speaker 1: at them, and what they learned to smile your smile,
Speaker 1: they learned to see. And I tell people that all
Speaker 1: the time, my children have my smile, they have my laugh.
Speaker 1: I am in them, even though it's not of the blood,
Speaker 1: it is because of that that closeness, the stories that
Speaker 1: they we have the same sort of sense of humor.
Speaker 1: So there's no I I rarely ever think about, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not blood related to me at all. That that's
Speaker 1: not They are so much children. They mean the way
Speaker 1: my children. Yeah, there's this incredible book that I just
Speaker 1: read by Carl Zimmer, who's a science writer. She has
Speaker 1: her mother's laugh. It is a beautiful title, um and
Speaker 1: it is a thick tone. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that he says is that we have to expand our
Speaker 1: notion of what heredity is, and that yes, it includes genes,
Speaker 1: and it includes culture, it includes technology, it includes the microbiome.
Speaker 1: And then I would add it includes the inner generational
Speaker 1: stories of trauma and resilience that we carry from our
Speaker 1: from our families, and from our culture. And I think
Speaker 1: that that, to me is really when we talk about inheritance.
Speaker 1: That's sort of where I'm finding myself thinking more and
Speaker 1: more these days. Do you, Sarah, I think that it
Speaker 1: is appropriate or even essential to invite your DNA cousins
Speaker 1: to the family reunion. There are too many of them.
Speaker 1: It would cost too much money. Do I have to
Speaker 1: write all these people too? No? I think you know,
Speaker 1: and actually I have a I have a good friend
Speaker 1: who is a donor conceived person who has you know,
Speaker 1: I think I already mentioned him. He has twenty half siblings.
Speaker 1: They it started out there was there was one and
Speaker 1: he had him over for brunch, and then there was
Speaker 1: two and they went out, you know, and then there's three.
Speaker 1: Now there's twenty. And I can tell that it's like
Speaker 1: it's starting to feel now it's kind of like throw
Speaker 1: up a Facebook page. Everybody can just say hi to
Speaker 1: each other. You know, how are you supposed to relate
Speaker 1: to all of these folks who all of a sudden
Speaker 1: have that half sibling relationship that you were just talking about,
Speaker 1: but in your case it means something totally different. Um,
Speaker 1: then when you find out that there are twenty of them,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is interesting when when we
Speaker 1: use the sperm donor to to get you know, and
Speaker 1: it's all anonymous, and they don't they don't know whoever
Speaker 1: they had. Only I think, I think I really have
Speaker 1: lost I don't remember, but they have like four half
Speaker 1: siblings that we don't know anything about yet. They gave
Speaker 1: me the opportunity then to buy the rest of him out.
Speaker 1: So I was financially able to do that so that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have thirty half siblings. You know, so I
Speaker 1: actually bought the whole thing, and so he's he's bought it.
Speaker 1: He's off the market now, and he's so there's no
Speaker 1: more half siblings. Isn't that interesting that they actually give
Speaker 1: you that option and you wanted to I did, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did. Just that's interesting. Just yea. To me, it
Speaker 1: was a protection. See, we take this fearful sort of
Speaker 1: sort of stance. They're gonna want something from it, and
Speaker 1: it's a weird Americans sort of you know, the other
Speaker 1: person who wants to rights. There is a there is
Speaker 1: a kind of boundary dance that has to be in
Speaker 1: place too. I mean, that's the that's the complex part
Speaker 1: of that fascinating because we're taking physicality and love and
Speaker 1: science and business and law and we're putting it all
Speaker 1: to a blender and religion that's spirituality, and in that
Speaker 1: mix is family. And so you were able to make
Speaker 1: a choice that defined a boundary around your future family. Right,
Speaker 1: You're not going to have any surprises popping up in
Speaker 1: a database or your kids, won't you know, twenty years
Speaker 1: and oh hey, I'm your cousin. Yeah, you're not, my mama,
Speaker 1: I have the receipt, Yo. How do you both think
Speaker 1: about the balancing and the ethics associated with whose choices
Speaker 1: or whose desires have some sort of priority or how
Speaker 1: they interact with each other. This is so it's revolutionary
Speaker 1: what's happening because this pushes all the boundaries all at once,
Speaker 1: and it comes down to individual rights and what are
Speaker 1: each human being's individual rights? And it redefines those and
Speaker 1: we will be forced to in this and that that's
Speaker 1: a good thing because it it goes beyond nationality, It
Speaker 1: goes beyond you know, the the tribalism that I was
Speaker 1: talking about. You know, it now moves us into every
Speaker 1: human being on this earth has certain inalienable rights, you know,
Speaker 1: certain rights, and how are we going to define that
Speaker 1: when it comes to everything else? And when does that start?
Speaker 1: Does that started in the egg? It's the age old
Speaker 1: thing and we are forced to come to these conclusions
Speaker 1: and figure that out. And that's I think it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, isn't it. And it's fascinating. I had I
Speaker 1: had a friend say to me the other day, you
Speaker 1: know there are donor conceived people who say, I absolutely
Speaker 1: have the right to know my biological heritage, and I
Speaker 1: think I would probably count myself. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: definitely count myself as one of those people. And he
Speaker 1: said to me, what, you know, it's not like everybody
Speaker 1: else conceive the old fashioned way it gets to have
Speaker 1: much of a say and how they're conceived, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know so, And that sort of blew my thinking
Speaker 1: open to start to think about, Okay, well, how how
Speaker 1: do each one of us come into this world and
Speaker 1: what right to information do we really have about whether
Speaker 1: it was in the doctor's office or behind the bleachers,
Speaker 1: you know wherever, right, I mean, but like we'll have
Speaker 1: GPS records in the future, right, we'll literally know where
Speaker 1: can the child is entitled to? And yet I wanted it.
Speaker 1: I wanted it so badly and I'm so happy that
Speaker 1: I have the information that I have. It changed, it
Speaker 1: really changed my sense of self. So I have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge it for me that that's true. Yeah, I find
Speaker 1: that I don't have answers either. I'm here mostly to ask.
Speaker 1: But I think there are different models of rights and
Speaker 1: ownership around this sort of genetic material, and so in
Speaker 1: some cultures, I can imagine a much more communal stance, right.
Speaker 1: It was like, that's actually not yours decision to make.
Speaker 1: We all make it together as a tribe or as
Speaker 1: a family, or as a village or as a city.
Speaker 1: In some you know, massive cases, and in some societies,
Speaker 1: like children have no rights at all, Right, Like your
Speaker 1: parents don't want you to know. You don't know. A
Speaker 1: good college friend of mine, you know, still wasn't able
Speaker 1: to find out information about his mother because his mother's
Speaker 1: relatives are like, you're I know, you think you're grown
Speaker 1: forty year old, but you're still the child, and we
Speaker 1: just don't it's not our business to tell So we're
Speaker 1: not going to tell you. Wow. Uh. And so it's
Speaker 1: a different line in that community, in that block, in
Speaker 1: that area of Brooklyn in this case. So I am
Speaker 1: as well fascinated, but I don't think there's a clean
Speaker 1: Well you're remind you're reminding me. I'm sorry, you're reminding
Speaker 1: me of a woman who just came up to me
Speaker 1: the other day. I was at a genealogical conference. They're
Speaker 1: all these genealogy conferences all over America. They're amazing, and
Speaker 1: a woman came up to me and said, my brother
Speaker 1: donated sperm. I have all of these offspring, but they're
Speaker 1: contacting me and my brother doesn't want me to be
Speaker 1: in contact with them. So here' she is the aunts,
Speaker 1: he's the you know, he's the biological father. But like,
Speaker 1: how does all of that parts? Right? Like that's fascinating
Speaker 1: And she was quite anguish because she felt like she
Speaker 1: wanted to And then you hear about the grandparents who
Speaker 1: don't know that they're uh sons, sons or daughters have donated,
Speaker 1: and then they feel this loss that they've been left
Speaker 1: out of this grandchildren knowledge, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just pushing the bounds of everything. We're all
Speaker 1: going to get awkward Facebook messages. Is whatever it's gonna happen. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. It's sort of normalizing that these
Speaker 1: questions are coming up and that this is part of
Speaker 1: our lives. Is it gonna and is it going to
Speaker 1: stop donations? I mean, are people going to go I
Speaker 1: don't want this to I doubt it will stop it
Speaker 1: because I think there is there's a need and there's
Speaker 1: a possibility, right, and there's money. There's a need, there's
Speaker 1: an ability, and there's money that's gonna happen, but it
Speaker 1: should shade the rules and the norms. You know, what
Speaker 1: is acceptable. How do we engage What amount of genetic
Speaker 1: stuff do we share? As you think about your own
Speaker 1: families in the case of in your own life or
Speaker 1: how you're raising your children, both of you, the genetic
Speaker 1: information they've inherited and the health concerns that go along
Speaker 1: with both of those, how does that layer come into
Speaker 1: the family definition and rights to know and what you
Speaker 1: think should be passed them on. Well, I know that
Speaker 1: the company that we went through for the donation was
Speaker 1: really thorough and and he had to fill out major
Speaker 1: stuff and show major stuff and show health show, give
Speaker 1: lots and lots of information. It was comforting to know, Okay,
Speaker 1: all this information is here if I need this, and
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was there. So we were
Speaker 1: able to feel comfortable that if anything in the future
Speaker 1: comes up, you know, we will have access to the information.
Speaker 1: And what do you see in Sarah, what are you thinking?
Speaker 1: In my case, my donor was I don't think was
Speaker 1: hardly vetted at all. He was he was hand picked
Speaker 1: by the doctor in charge and he he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you kind of look like the family father,
Speaker 1: and I was lucky that he was incredibly handsome. I
Speaker 1: have a picture of him as a as a young man,
Speaker 1: and he was very handsome. I think he was quite
Speaker 1: dashing in his own way, and that attracted that the
Speaker 1: eye of the doctor in charge. Um, and to my understanding,
Speaker 1: that was all the vetting that was that was done well.
Speaker 1: And that's the history of sperm donation is that it
Speaker 1: was that. I think the earliest was in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and it was the most handsome. One of
Speaker 1: the medical students was sort of nominated. They knocked the
Speaker 1: woman out. They never told her. The doctor in charge
Speaker 1: did it without the permission of the couple. Oh, I write.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting when you think about history and how
Speaker 1: these things just come from horrible play. If you go
Speaker 1: back far enough, everything's terrible. It's right, hard, but is important, Right,
Speaker 1: it's important to how the information and the DNA testing
Speaker 1: is hopefully helping that more and more. Yeah, when I
Speaker 1: realized I was going to have children that I wasn't
Speaker 1: biologically related to, it was very simple just to say, well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter. And when you crossed that line, you realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I've just expanded my idea of what family as and
Speaker 1: that changes me, and that changes everyone around me. And
Speaker 1: I would just like to put up there if there's
Speaker 1: anyone out there who is thinking of having children, who
Speaker 1: who can't have children, who are are at this uh,
Speaker 1: this threshold of okay, I need to move forward into
Speaker 1: adoption or or surrogacy or or whatever donation, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Two don't give a moment to being to thinking over
Speaker 1: they're They're not biologically related to me. It has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with being a parent, It really doesn't. And
Speaker 1: I would really want to say that that my life
Speaker 1: is just as full as can be, has been for
Speaker 1: the last twenty one years, and uh never once have
Speaker 1: I ever ever regretted it. If these mics weren't so
Speaker 1: vigorously attached to the arms, I would say you should
Speaker 1: drop it. It's physically impossible to drop the mica, like
Speaker 1: you have to rip it out of the table and
Speaker 1: jump up in down um, and I would take too
Speaker 1: much time. Right, So what do you all think of
Speaker 1: the now possible extended family reunion now that we have
Speaker 1: more genetic family members than we ever knew about. Well, well,
Speaker 1: actually I come from a place my own personal experience
Speaker 1: is you know, my My father had seven brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: you know, my mother had a couple, and so I
Speaker 1: had a deep sense of family through them, and I
Speaker 1: knew my immediate you know there there brothers, the cousins.
Speaker 1: That's sort of that was right there. Once I got famous.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's amazing how much family I had. So
Speaker 1: so I I've already gone through this sort of sense
Speaker 1: of Okay, where do I end with If there's family
Speaker 1: that I've never met but that that yeah, maybe they're
Speaker 1: the second maybe they're related to the second cousin on
Speaker 1: the side of the you know, very possibly, that could
Speaker 1: be very possible. But I don't feel connected. I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, and they are blood to me, yet I
Speaker 1: don't feel like like I have to go connect with them.
Speaker 1: So I can imagine that even if you do find
Speaker 1: out your blood related to strangers, I don't think there
Speaker 1: is an obligation, you know, in oneself to do that.
Speaker 1: So I definitely cut it off. My father came from St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and I remember I had a meet and Greek before
Speaker 1: the show. There's like sixty people that were Okay, this
Speaker 1: is this is a little difficult. Let's let's let's change yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll add on to that. That is what it sounds like,
Speaker 1: is that family is becoming even more of a choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing there's a that's a beautiful if we understand.
Speaker 1: I mean its corny as it sounds that there's this energy,
Speaker 1: there's this love that creates connection family. I mean we
Speaker 1: can go biologically, we can scientifically go that every time
Speaker 1: you touch someone, there that DNA is actually those the
Speaker 1: atoms are with you forever, and those atoms that vibrate
Speaker 1: even if you're a hundred miles away, they still vibrate
Speaker 1: on that person. So I'm related to about three billion people, okay,
Speaker 1: because I've you know, shaking hands with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So family, what is family? It's that's our story, it's
Speaker 1: your definition. That's that's awesome. And we are technically nine
Speaker 1: point five you know, every human and shares that amount
Speaker 1: of DNA with every other human. So the parts of
Speaker 1: difference that we're focusing on, our zero point five percent,
Speaker 1: that's where choice comes in. And you can say that
Speaker 1: to any situation in the world right now. Seriously, we
Speaker 1: are we gotta start seeing how much we are are related,
Speaker 1: that we are together and you're I'm just being reminded
Speaker 1: that we did the that you shared your twenty three
Speaker 1: and me genome with me earlier today. What were the
Speaker 1: results you didn't see? Okay, So my main takeaway is
Speaker 1: that I have more neander tall German. It sounds more refined.
Speaker 1: I have more Neandertal than you. But that was interesting too,
Speaker 1: And I pause and I just thought, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: that's so interesting. There are these like Neandertals that were
Speaker 1: in northern Europe and the I mean, I all of
Speaker 1: a sudden got they go back to that far on
Speaker 1: the Yeah, and you can look at and a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting stuff those genes and what they make, and
Speaker 1: you have to go back into history. And this is
Speaker 1: going to change history when you start realizing that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm getting all geeky because I get all, you know,
Speaker 1: alternative archaeology and stuff. But the um, the the Neanderthal
Speaker 1: and the Homo sapien and how that divided off and
Speaker 1: how did that happen because we slaughtered them. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of our history. It's the way we do things
Speaker 1: that we're all that, we really are all. I would
Speaker 1: like to thank my guests. Melissa Average. You can find
Speaker 1: her currently on tour. She's doing the Yes I Am
Speaker 1: twenty five and Averse tour and in ten she's got
Speaker 1: a cruise comes seven days of music and talk. That's right.
Speaker 1: If everyone do that, we'll see how much we're related.
Speaker 1: That everybody spit and then get on the boat. Come on,
Speaker 1: you might be on the boat with your family. And
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank Sarah Lamb who has offered us
Speaker 1: uh and offered you a very special extended clip of
Speaker 1: her film Thank You for Coming. You can find that
Speaker 1: at thank You for Coming movie dot com. Slash spit,
Speaker 1: I want to dig in more on today's topics and guests.
Speaker 1: Check our show notes and if you enjoyed the episode,
Speaker 1: share it with a friend, all your friends, and be
Speaker 1: sure to leave a review. If you want to hear
Speaker 1: more surprising stories about how we're all related, search and
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Speaker 1: with twenty three and me. I'm Baritone Day Thurston. You
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