SHELLEY DEACON
My name is Shelley Deacon (nee Kreutz) and I was conceived via donor insemination in 1980. My mother was a single woman who badly wanted to have a child of her own, and so she decided that donor insemination was a viable option for her.
As I grew up I knew that I was different from other kids, and when I was ten years old my mom explained to me that I had been conceived using artificial insemination. I wanted to know all about it and who my biological father was. She told me that I could never know because she had agreed to sign an anonymity contract with the doctor who had performed the procedure.
I was very curious to know more information about myself, and the donor, and so at around thirteen years of age I called the doctor's office and asked if I could have any information regarding my biological father, medical or otherwise. I was told that the only information on record was the donor's height, weight, eye color, hair color and blood type. I was also told that this information could be pulled out of the old records and mailed to me if I so desired. I received an envelope a short while later that contained a piece of paper with all of the non-identifying information above.
At the age of fifteen I had my first meeting with the doctor who had given me life. The doctor was not what I would refer to as a gentle person in our meeting. He told me in no uncertain terms that I should be happy I was in existence and that if I wasn't, perhaps my mother should not have been so selfish, and should not have had me. I left that meeting in tears and thought that I would never meet with this man again.
At the age of seventeen I met with the doctor one last time. It was as fruitless and unpleasant as our first meeting, with one exception: he told me that I had 5 half siblings from the same donor. I wondered how he could possibly know this information but left it at that.
I am currently twenty-nine years old, and had my first child nine months ago. As I went through the pregnancy, I wondered, and of course, worried, what would I unknowingly pass on to my child because of my lack of information. My son, Travis, now has to go through life not knowing anything about his biological grandfather (my donor) - it's a gap that I cannot fill. When I hold Travis in my arms and look into his loving little face, I think about his future and hope more than anything that he will live a happy, healthy life. I am excited, but also a little scared, about this new beginning in my life to whom I will owe so much, and yet, can give so little.
