\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>bove my grandma\u2019s bed hung a framed black\u2011and-white photograph of my dad. As a\u00a0small child I quietly admired it; his luminous eyes, dark hair and gentle smile. He embodied a tender yet spirited early adulthood, staring into the future. Handsome and seeking.<\/p>\n As I grew older, I would discover that it was not, in fact, a photograph of my dad but of a man called Elvis\u00a0Presley. Apparently he was very famous. My grandma had been a lifelong fan. My parents laughed \u2013 an adorable mistake \u2013 but I felt a hot pulse of humiliation.<\/p>\n Ten years later, over a family breakfast, it was mentioned in passing that the same grandmother was not blood-related to us. We shared her surname but not her genes. I was sipping orange juice when a swell of disorientation surged over me. It was another detail that the rest of the family apparently knew but had never told me; they thought \u201cI already knew\u201d.<\/p>\n The biology mattered less to me than the secret. Dad had been adopted, it turned out. A classic affliction of the 1950s, in which young, unmarried couples were forced to give away their newborn babies. We were not to talk about it with him. \u201cAs far as he\u2019s concerned his adoptive parents were his parents,\u201d Mum told me. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to upset them by going looking for anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n But I was always curious. I grew up, went to university and sustained a career in curiosity: making investigative documentaries for television, and moonlighting as a ghostwriter. The story of where my dad came from \u2013 and therefore where my siblings and I all came from \u2013 fascinated me.<\/p>\n double quotation markNo one else has ever known. It was just me, Dad and the hospital staff, Mum said, and they encouraged us not to tell anyone<\/p>\n Another decade passed, but my curiosity remained. When I saw an advert for a DNA website called 23andMe in December 2016, I signed up to its Christmas offer straight away. It was perfect \u2013 I could discreetly find out more without needing to ask\u00a0Dad. The transaction was simple: send off some saliva in the post and six weeks later the results would appear on my phone as a\u00a0full genetic ancestry and personal health profile.<\/p>\n One day I mentioned it to Mum in passing.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you sure you want to know?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n I had not told her that my purchase had been triggered by an interest in Dad\u2019s side of the family.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, why not?\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might find out something you wish you hadn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n I thought Mum was concerned about me finding a\u00a0faulty gene, perhaps a predisposition to Parkinson\u2019s or a certain cancer. It didn\u2019t cross my mind that she might be talking about anything else.<\/p>\n Six weeks later, the results came back. European ancestors: 95% from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Boring. I had no close DNA relatives on the site. I was slightly more prone to late-onset Alzheimer\u2019s. Oh well. I told my family at our next gathering and showed them the maps and pie charts on my phone.<\/p>\n \u201cCool,\u201d they said, and that was it.<\/p>\n Three years later, I logged on to the website again, clicked on a button, and everything changed.<\/p>\n Irony, in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of an expectation and an opposing reality. I had signed up to the DNA website to discover more about my dad\u2019s origins and our shared ancestry, but it revealed that he was not my biological father.<\/p>\n T<\/span>he new person had appeared right at the top of the page listing \u201cDNA relatives\u201d. Lucy. Half-sister. 27.9% DNA shared. I stared at the screen. It\u00a0made no sense. I didn\u2019t have a half-sister. It must be a\u00a0mistake. I Googled \u201cWrong DNA match\u201d. The answers? \u201cVery rare\u201d, \u201c99.9% accurate\u201d, \u201cPossible but unlikely\u201d.<\/p>\n I clicked on Lucy\u2019s profile.<\/p>\n \u201cBirth Year 1990. Location, England. As an IVF child (\u2018made\u2019 in Nottingham Queen\u2019s Medical Centre, UK) I\u00a0would love to find my biological dad.\u201d<\/p>\n We were born six months apart. I read the words again. I was even more confused.<\/p>\n I had known since I\u00a0was a teenager that my siblings and I were conceived by in vitro fertilisation. There are four of us in total: Tim, me, Joe and Ruth, in that order. The latter three of us being triplets born on the same day.<\/p>\n Perhaps my dad had donated some leftover sperm during the IVF process for another family to use? Or\u00a0maybe there had been a mix-up in the lab?<\/p>\n I went outside, into the February-chilled streets, and called Mum.<\/p>\n \u201cHello darling, what\u2019s up?\u201d she answered in her usual cheery tone.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, so something really weird has just happened,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know I did that DNA test a while ago?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019ve just logged on and clicked on something and it says I have a half-sister.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d she said, surprised.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. I don\u2019t really understand. It says she\u2019s on the paternal side.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a long pause from both of us.<\/p>\n <\/span>Rebecca Coxon\u2019s mother with Rebecca\u2019s brother Tim.<\/span> Photograph: courtesy of Rebecca Coxon<\/p>\n \u201cAre you there?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s just that you\u2019ve dropped a bit of a bombshell on me and I\u2019m not sure what to say.\u201d<\/p>\n I could feel her shock thrumming through the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you sure it\u2019s a half-sister?\u201d Mum asked. \u201cShe might be an aunt or cousin from Dad\u2019s side of the family that we don\u2019t know about, because he was adopted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, maybe. I\u2019ll do some more research and find\u00a0out.\u201d<\/p>\n We said goodbye, hung up, and I got straight back on to the internet. I discovered that, on average, full siblings share around 50% of their DNA and half-siblings around 25%. Other relations that share a quarter of your DNA include a grandparent, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew. But Lucy was only six months older than me. One possibility, the internet said, was that we were double first cousins, meaning our fathers were brothers and our mothers were sisters. It seemed wildly unlikely.<\/p>\n I decided to message Lucy on the website.<\/p>\n Hi Lucy, hope you\u2019re well. This DNA result comes as a bit of a surprise! I think it\u2019s possible we could also be 1st cousins or aunt\/niece, so it would be good to swap more information. Can I ask what you know about your biological dad?<\/em><\/p>\n Lucy replied swiftly.<\/p>\n Hello! My dad was a sperm donor<\/em>. As far as I know they tried to match my dad (the man who raised me) to the donor so apparently he was a young medical student, 6 foot 3 with green eyes. Not sure how true that is but my twin sister (not identical) and I are both green grey eyes and 5 foot 8ish. Amazing to have a new blood relative! Was your dad a sperm donor? I\u2019d love to hear more. Thank you for getting in touch \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n I took a screenshot of the message and sent it to Mum.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is so confusing. So now I\u2019m worried that the young medical student\u2019s sperm got mixed up with Dad\u2019s. Or \u2026 am I not related to Dad?\u201d<\/p>\n Two blue ticks. Mum had read the messages. Four minutes passed.<\/p>\n \u201cLol you OK? You there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDad and I need time to digest the info and work out all the implications \u2013 so can we talk it over at the\u00a0weekend?\u201d<\/p>\n Her tone felt serious now. My heart raced.<\/p>\n T<\/span>hree days later, I boarded a train to my parents\u2019 house in Nottinghamshire. Mum picked me up from the station and, after some mundane chat about the journey, I couldn\u2019t wait any longer. \u201cSo are we going to talk about it?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not going to discuss it now,\u201d she replied, curtly.<\/p>\n It was late when we arrived home so I went straight to bed, feeling disturbed by her abruptness; fearing what was coming.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t sleep well and in the morning I made cups of tea and coaxed Mum and Dad into the living room. Mum closed the door behind us and locked it. Dread stirred in my gut.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you just tell me what\u2019s going on?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n Dad perched his elbow on the armrest, hiding his face with his hand. Mum sighed into the thickening air.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we went for fertility treatment for my blocked fallopian tubes,\u201d she began, \u201cthey also discovered that Dad\u2019s sperm wasn\u2019t viable.\u201d<\/p>\n She stared blankly ahead. I could tell how hard it was for her to say these words aloud.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a double whammy of bad news,\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd so the clinic offered us a sperm donor.\u201d<\/p>\n My heart sank. I had my answer, finally.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one else has ever known. It was just me, Dad and the hospital staff,\u201d Mum said, \u201cand they encouraged us not to tell anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n I fixated on the ornaments above the fireplace \u2013 two golden brass dogs, one on either side, stoutly perched there since before we were born. I didn\u2019t know what to say, so I just nodded. It was a relief to be sitting in the truth, dank and disappointing though it was.<\/p>\n Mum motioned her eyes over to Dad who was sobbing underneath his cloistered hand. I stood up and moved towards him, arching my body over his convulsing frame. I\u2019d only seen him cry like this once before in my life, when his mum had died 20 years earlier.<\/p>\n <\/span>Rebecca Coxon and her siblings, Tim, Ruth and Joe, with their paternal grandmother \u2026<\/span><\/span>\u2026 and with their father. Photographs: courtesy of Rebecca Coxon<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s OK, Dad,\u201d I muffled into his shoulder, gripping his arm.<\/p>\n He placed his hand on top of mine but said nothing.<\/p>\n I was appalled that my stupid curiosity had done this.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said, my belly knotting around this unfamiliar territory. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Dad was still bent over and shaking. Mum still stared vacantly ahead. I had trodden on a landmine that I\u00a0didn\u2019t know was there.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, did you pick him out of a catalogue or something?\u201d I asked, not able to bear the silence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just let the hospital choose,\u201d Mum replied.<\/p>\n \u201cLucy, the half-sister, said he was a young medical student, 6ft with green eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither of them said anything.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never thought you\u2019d find out,\u201d Mum said. \u201cHow\u00a0were we to know that DNA websites would exist one day?\u201d<\/p>\n I nodded slowly.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have to tell everyone now,\u201d Dad murmured, eventually.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, wait,\u201d I interjected. I looked at the floor. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we should.\u201d<\/p>\n Dad lifted his head.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I hadn\u2019t found out,\u201d I said, hoping it would comfort him, though I still meant it. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to tell them.\u201d<\/p>\n The thought of breaking three more hearts was too much to bear.<\/p>\n A few moments passed. I had so many questions but didn\u2019t know how to ask them without upsetting Dad even more. I was still my mother\u2019s biological daughter; they had fixed her fertility problem but not his. An invisible line had been drawn between us, and I hated it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we won\u2019t tell them, then?\u201d Dad confirmed.<\/p>\n I nodded.<\/p>\n I<\/span> continued messaging my half-sister Lucy and she told me more about her twin sister, Libby. One Sunday the three of us met for a roast dinner at a pub in east London. I was nervous walking in, but Lucy and Libby were friendly, funny and easy to talk to. We noticed we all had the same colour hair and were about the same height; Lucy just slightly taller. I was amazed to discover that Libby lived in Dalston, just down the road from my flat. We were born in Nottingham but had somehow ended up living less than two miles apart.<\/p>\n We took photographs, and drank cocktails into the evening. When the time came to pay the bill, each of us put down the same debit card, and I took a picture of our three purple cards lined up together in the little dish.<\/p>\n Nine months later, in early 2020, I was at work when I received a flurry of messages from them both.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s happened! We found him!\u201d<\/p>\n The sperm donor had signed up to the same DNA website and we were matched. I couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n Lucy messaged him and he replied straight away. She sent us a screenshot:<\/p>\n Hi Lucy, from the results I have received today it appears that I am your biological father and also your twin sister Libby. I studied for my PhD at the University of Nottingham. Here is my email. I hope you have had an interesting life.<\/em><\/p>\n Two hours later, Lucy forwarded some photos the donor had sent of himself when he was younger. They had scraped a few more facts from his profile, including his birth year, revealing that he had been in his early 20s when he donated, and Lucy had also asked him some questions. He had a 20-year-old daughter of his own, he said. His mother studied psychology, \u201cjust like one of\u00a0the twins in St Petersburg\u201d. Twins? Russia? Apparently we had international half-siblings, too. It\u00a0was a lot to take in.<\/p>\n Libby sent a picture of the profile photo attached to his email address. He looked a bit like my dad when he was younger. Libby and Lucy said he didn\u2019t look anything like their dad.<\/p>\n Soon, Libby and Lucy had an email chain with him and were asking lots of questions. Everything from \u201cWhat\u2019s your favourite cocktail?\u201d to \u201cIs your second toe longer than your big toe?\u201d I was still in shock. It felt like a step too far to contact him myself.<\/p>\n W<\/span>ithin a few months the Covid pandemic shut down the world. Almost overnight I lost my job, broke up with my boyfriend, and moved back in with my parents. It wasn\u2019t quite what I\u00a0had envisioned for my 28-year-old self.<\/p>\n For more than a year the family secret had been mentally tugging at me and to quieten it down I had decided to donate my own eggs to a stranger. I weighed up the pros and cons and decided it would be worth it to help someone else, as well as a fitting form of closure for me.<\/p>\n In an ideal world I would have waited until I\u2019d had my own children before donating, but I\u00a0didn\u2019t want to risk being too old, as egg donors must be under the age of 35. Ultimately, I figured if I was just washing my eggs down the toilet every month, someone else might as well be using them.<\/p>\n I found an egg donation agency online and sent them an email. A nice lady called me back the next day and we had a long chat over the phone. She said that of all the donors she had spoken to over the years, it sounded like I had the most in-depth understanding and empathy for the recipients because of my own story. The next step, she said, was to send me an at-home blood test kit to check my AMH level (anti-M\u00fcllerian hormone) as it is a good indicator of how many eggs you have left.<\/p>\n By this point, I had already been diagnosed with endometriosis, like my mum, and was approaching 30, so I also saw donating as a chance to get a fertility MOT.<\/p>\n Since all my TV work had fallen through due to the pandemic and I was relying on a couple of small ghostwriting jobs for the foreseeable, it was a bonus that I would get paid \u00a3750 in expenses to donate.<\/p>\n A couple of weeks after I\u2019d posted back the sample, the woman from the egg donor agency called again. She\u00a0told me my AMH level was on the low side but enough to donate. Next I would have to fill out an online profile \u2013 to give them a sense of \u201cmy personality and character\u201d \u2013 and upload two photographs, a recent one and another from when I was a small child. Only the agency would see the current photo, to help them match me appearance-wise, while the picture of me as a child would be seen by my recipient family.<\/p>\n Within a few weeks, I was matched. The recipient was informed about my endometriosis diagnosis and decided to continue with the match. Because of the laws around anonymity, they couldn\u2019t tell me anything other than that the recipient was a single woman in her 40s.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a lot in common,\u201d the woman said. \u201cIf\u00a0you knew each other I have no doubt you\u2019d be friends.\u201d<\/p>\n When I signed up to become an egg donor, I was asked for a detailed family medical history on both sides, including grandparents. I realised I would need to ask the donor some questions, but I felt conflicted about contacting him.<\/p>\n I believed I had a right to know about my health history, yet the act of extracting that information felt like a betrayal of my dad. I wanted Mum\u2019s opinion, but she didn\u2019t know I was donating my eggs, or that the donor had joined the website. I cornered her one day while she was doing chores.<\/p>\n double quotation markRodney\u2019s genetic proximity to me feels like a betrayal of my parents, a fissure in my identity<\/p>\n \u201cYou know \u2026 the whole sperm donor thing,\u201d I said. She stopped, briefly, and looked at me, before removing a\u00a0pillowcase.<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n I paused, my heart pattering. \u201cI thought you should know that he recently signed up to the DNA website \u2026 so I\u00a0know who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n I showed her the photographs and she didn\u2019t say much. There were two pictures of him in his 20s, neither of which was particularly clear. One was from a side angle and I could see he had quite a prominent chin, like me, but other than that he just looked like a generic white man with brown hair in a white T-shirt, drinking beer with his friends. He didn\u2019t look particularly similar to me or my siblings. His recent photo was more pixelated. A generic middle-aged man with a mildly receding hairline.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you know when he started donating?\u201d Mum asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d I replied. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s just that I don\u2019t know if they used the same donor for Tim or not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d I said, stunned. \u201cThey didn\u2019t tell you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, we just let them get on with it.\u201d<\/p>\n I held back from commenting on how crazy I thought it was not to ask something so important.<\/p>\n \u201cI could ask him,\u201d I said. \u201cI have his email. But I didn\u2019t want to contact him without checking with you first.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to stop you from doing anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cOK, thank you. I know it\u2019s a bit tricky with Dad. I\u00a0don\u2019t want to bring it up again if it\u2019s difficult for him. But I\u2019ve also decided \u2026 \u201d I hesitated. \u201cWell, it\u2019s just a\u00a0bit more complicated because \u2026 \u201d I was more nervous about this\u00a0part of the conversation; I didn\u2019t want her to react badly.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve decided to donate my own eggs,\u201d I continued. \u201cAnd they won\u2019t let me do it unless I have a full health history from both sets of parents and grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n Mum\u2019s eyes widened and her shoulders dropped forward. She sat down on the unmade bed.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t told you until now because I didn\u2019t know if they\u2019d want my eggs and also because I didn\u2019t want anyone to try and change my mind,\u201d I breathed.<\/p>\n \u2018Right,\u201d Mum said. Everything about her softened: her body, her voice. \u201cAs I said, I\u2019m not going to stop you from doing anything you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt an ache of empathy. It was another hit of unexpected news. First, that the biological father of her children was no longer anonymous, and then that I was donating her first biological grandchild to a stranger.<\/p>\n I<\/span>n my first email to Rodney (his choice of pseudonym, taken from the lyrics of a 1979 song called\u00a0Duchess by the Stranglers), I asked when he started donating, to try to decipher if he had also been the donor for my older brother.<\/p>\n He replied that my brother would have a different biological father because his donations began some time after Tim was born. \u201cMost of the donors would have been medical students,\u201d Rodney said. \u201cA few years later a group of us from the chemistry department started donating, too. In the month Tim was born, I had just started at the University of Nottingham.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt sad reading his email. It turned out that Tim was a half-sibling, too.<\/p>\n Rodney agreed to speak to me on a video call. My\u00a0first question was why. Why does a young man choose to donate his sperm to strangers?<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that helping others and getting paid for it was pretty cool,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He\u2019d heard about sperm donation through a friend. Rodney became part of a group of regular donors who called themselves Frank\u2019s Wank Bank, while others were what he called \u201cloner donors\u201d. I cringed.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you remember how much you got paid?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a tenner, which was a lot then. If I went to the right bar, I could get 20 pints for that.\u201d<\/p>\n While TS Eliot measured out his life with coffee spoons, it appears that mine was measured out with lager pints.<\/p>\n \u201cHow often did you donate?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo to three times a week for around four or five\u00a0years,\u201d he replied. \u201cSo that\u2019s at least a few litres of sperm.\u201d<\/p>\n I cringed again, wishing I hadn\u2019t asked. He explained that they could produce the sample on site in a\u00a0designated room or at home, but they needed to get it to the lab within an hour. He said he would usually do it at home and get a taxi or bus.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the bus broke down we\u2019d have to leg it.\u201d There was more jeopardy to my conception than I had imagined.<\/p>\n At the time Rodney donated, sperm donors had no other option but to be anonymous. Official record-keeping only began with the establishment of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in August 1991, two months after I was born.<\/p>\n In 2005 the UK law changed \u2013 anyone conceived from a\u00a0donation made after April 2005 now has a right to identifiable information about their donor when they turn 18. But as only a\u00a0small number of pre-2005 donors have registered as identifiable with the HFEA, it\u2019s a rare thing to be directly connected with your donor. If\u00a0Rodney had not voluntarily signed up to 23andMe\u00a0or\u00a0the HFEA database, it\u2019s likely I would never have known who he was.<\/p>\n Since the day he connected with us online, Rodney has been generous with his time and answered any questions my half-siblings and I have had. He has shown an interest in our lives and emails to wish us Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas. I am grateful for his openness. But at the same time I find myself noticeably agitated when his messages arrive in my inbox. I am glad to know his identity and also quietly furious that he exists. I feel like my life has been trespassed on. One day, out of the blue, a middle-aged man knocked on my door and put a\u00a0stake in the ground that read \u201cfather\u201d. But that\u2019s not what he is. I already have a father, I don\u2019t need another one.<\/p>\n Of the six half-siblings I am aware of, several are estranged from or bereaved by their dads, so Rodney\u2019s presence in their lives might feel different. Two of them have even met him for a pint, but I know that will never\u00a0be me.<\/p>\n During our early emails, Rodney mentioned how \u201cproud\u201d he was and how he could see a little of himself in all of us. It was a nice sentiment, but it made my stomach turn. He has not been responsible for anything that any of us have achieved in our lives and yet here he was, revelling in pride at the well\u2011rounded adults we had become.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s what was agreed, I remind myself. It\u2019s\u00a0what everyone wanted. It\u2019s not Rodney\u2019s fault. He did a kind and generous thing. But Rodney\u2019s genetic proximity to me feels like a betrayal of my parents, a fissure in my identity. I begrudge all this while also feeling grateful for the opportunity to exist. I know my parents must be grateful, too, even if they don\u2019t know how to show it.<\/p>\n Rodney donated because he wanted to help people. Yes, he got paid to do it, but so did I when I donated my eggs. The money was for the inconvenience, but it doesn\u2019t replace the altruism. His donation \u2013 and mine in turn, directly inspired by his \u2013 has allowed some families to have hope and, for the lucky ones, to wake up each morning and watch their children grow.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gift of life is the ultimate thing that you can give,\u201d Rodney told me, and I agree.<\/p>\n I<\/span> woke up on Christmas morning 2022 and started crying. It was like a geyser had suddenly erupted in my head. A\u00a0few months earlier I had made the decision to tell my siblings the truth, and the perfect opportunity had presented itself. We had all arranged to meet at my brother Tim\u2019s house a few days after Christmas. Our parents wouldn\u2019t be there, which was important; I didn\u2019t want anyone to have to worry about Mum and Dad\u2019s feelings on top of their own.<\/p>\n After 1,401 days of keeping the secret, it was time.<\/p>\n Tim and his wife, Gina, had booked a meal at a local pub. \u201cBefore we go out,\u201d I said, after we had gathered in their living room, \u201cI\u2019ve got something I want to talk to everyone about.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh God,\u201d my brother Joe mumbled. The room fell silent. Everyone looked at me.<\/p>\n I told them the whole story, paused and waited for the outpouring. The screams, the gasps, the tears. But none came. Just a few murmurs of surprise. Everyone was still looking at me and listening intently. \u201cAnd I\u00a0know that\u2019s very unexpected to hear,\u201d I continued, \u201cand obviously it doesn\u2019t change anything. Dad is Dad. And Mum and Dad really, really, really wanted us.\u201d There were whispers of agreement. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve had such a\u00a0great, happy family and childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Rebecca (second right) with Tim (left), Ruth (on phone screen) and Joe (right) in 2024 with their half-siblings, Lucy and Libby.<\/span> Photograph: courtesy of Rebecca Coxon<\/p>\n \u201cThanks for telling us, Bex, you\u2019ve been sitting on that,\u201d my sister Ruth said, eventually. \u201cIt must have been such a burden.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a lot for one person to carry,\u201d added Gina. \u201cIt\u2019s a massive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo did they use the same sperm donor for everyone?\u201d Tim asked, and my heart dropped. I knew this would be one of the first questions.<\/p>\n \u201cOK, so I\u2019ve obviously only done the DNA test myself, but, as far as I\u2019m aware, I think us three have the same donor and Tim has a different donor.\u201d<\/p>\n Tim looked down. I hated the thought of othering him, as if us being triplets wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n I told them about Lucy getting in contact and meeting Libby, too. I told them about the donor joining the DNA website a year later. They asked questions and I did my best to answer them. Nobody seemed traumatised. I\u00a0felt relieved, and uneasy. Perhaps it would be a slow burn and the emotion would ignite later.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, I\u2019ve got something for everyone,\u201d I suddenly remembered. \u201cI\u00a0made coasters with photos of the four of us and you can each choose one to keep.\u201d<\/p>\n Tim, Ruth and Joe gathered around and looked at the coasters on the table. Four different photos of us as children, together. One in front of Stonehenge, one at Land\u2019s End, one in our kitchen and another re-enacting The Lion King on \u201cpride rock\u201d at Cheddar Gorge.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is just to remind us that we\u2019re all in it together, OK?\u201d I said, as we hugged. \u201cWe always have each other.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we should tell Mum and Dad that we know,\u201d said Tim, and Ruth and Joe nodded. \u201cIt\u2019s best not to have any more secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n T<\/span>hree years after donating my eggs, I realised I could apply to find out if any child had been born from my donation. I emailed the HFEA in 2024 but their backlog was long and a year later I was still waiting for a reply, so I decided to contact the clinic directly. The next day they emailed back. In 2022 my recipient had given birth to a baby girl.<\/p>\n Somewhere out there is a toddler, biologically related to me, but not mine. A little girl who was so wanted and will be so loved. I am delighted, though there is another emotion swirling in there, too. I\u2019m not sure I\u00a0can name it \u2013 it\u2019s something between bittersweet and bereft. It is a\u00a0feeling of things coming full circle and of the swooning, cyclical nature of life. I wonder at what age she might have the conversation with her family. I\u00a0wonder if she will ever contact me.<\/p>\n This is an edited extract from Inconceivable by Rebecca Coxon (4th Estate, \u00a320). To order a copy for \u00a318 go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Above my grandma\u2019s bed hung a framed black\u2011and-white photograph of my dad. As a\u00a0small child I quietly admired it; his luminous eyes, dark hair and gentle smile. He embodied a tender yet spirited early adulthood, staring into the future. Handsome and seeking. As I grew older, I would discover that it was not, in fact,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[229,1442,17421,734,2906,337,76,9464,23431],"class_list":{"0":"post-45545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-button","9":"tag-changed","10":"tag-clicked","11":"tag-dna","12":"tag-family","13":"tag-life","14":"tag-test","15":"tag-turned","16":"tag-upsidedown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}