motherless daughters

She lost it again. She was in her daughter’s face, having a toddler-like temper tantrum. Except that she was thirty and a mother and should be able to control herself. And should be able to control her daughter’s behavior, at least a little bit. This was all she had left after about three hours of reasoning, begging, and sternly, but unpersuasively saying “Calm down. Now.” Three hours of threatening, pleading, and even hitting her. Twice.

The little girl was angry. Or scared. Or both.

“You’re not my mother. You stole me from my real parents. Admit the truth!”

Poor little Rapunzel. Seeing mother Gothel for who she is. At last.

***

Later, at night, her dead mother pays her a visit.

“You know,” she says, “You thought your father was sterile and we used a sperm donor to make you.”

“We did have a donor. We used donor eggs. I’m not your real mother.”

She’s smirking cruelly as she says that.

***

I don’t remember that cruel smirk from when she was alive.

I do realize this now makes three generations of motherless daughters. The sins of the mothers.

My narcissistic father IS my real biological father

I finally did a DNA test - my father is my father. I have no other fathers but him.

The family story my aunt told me must have taken a wrong turn somewhere - I'm sure they did use ART to conceive me and that the "donor" bit got attached to the rumor somehow. Perhaps they used IUI or IVF and then I was born, looking nothing like my father or his family. Could people have thought I wasn't his? Could it have occurred to him too? Some things are still just too bizarre to be explained in any other way.

I spent a year on an emotional rollercoaster for no good reason. I made an absolute idiot of myself.

But there was something good about it: the idea of a possibly sane father out there who might be like me and who might like me enabled me to feel. I gave myself permission to love this non-existent man and grieve for him. I had never grieved the father I couldn't have. I hadn't felt any real emotions towards my father (or mother) for decades. I had blocked all emotions.

Now they came back - for a person who doesn't exist. It proved how vulnerable and, really, pathetic I am. I longed for one man in particular to be my real father - because he was nice and enjoyed my company and liked me and shared my interests and gave me books of poetry and short stories. Which was much more than I ever had with my father.

It was so easy to let myself believe this. To have a tangible reason why he couldn't love me. Why he resented me. Why I had to be sooo grateful just for being allowed to exist (I'm sure they had to use IUI or IVF and I did cost them something - at least, the shame he had to endure in front of the doctors) and why "You look like your mother" was so often thrown at me (I guess that was my entire sin - I didn't have to be another man's offspring to be resented, only not be his carbon copy - I really look nothing at all like him or his family).

I made myself believe I could expect nothing from him or his family - they owed me nothing. This made me remember how cold they were towards me.

But they owed me love and support, no matter who I looked like. My father should have loved me. He owed me that.

I might take some time off to process all this. I'd spent a lot of time obsessing over something that wasn't even true. There are other, real things to focus on, and although right now I feel drained and exhausted and deflated, it can only get better from here if I focus on my daily life from now on. I hope.

It's not fair

Part of the reason why I'm so obsessed with discovering the whole truth about the circumstances of my conception and my biological paternity is that I feel the current situation gives my narcissistic social father an insane kind of power over me.

He is probably the only person alive who knows how I was conceived and - quite possibly - who my biological father is.

He knows something very important about me that I'm not allowed to know. I'm sure it's great fun for him to be able to treat me like a child in that way.

I have tried to give him a chance to tell me. I have asked him direct questions about their attempts at having a child and the circumstances of my conception.

His answers get more and more implausible and fantastical. Sometimes it seems like he's taunting me and flaunting it. The story changed from them trying for 12 years to only maybe not contracepting for a year or two, with variations in the meantime. The last time we spoke about it, he told a fairy tale of my conception that involved a romantic island in the middle of the Adriatic sea! When I asked him where my daughter got the red streaks in her hair, as none of his or my mother's ancestors had this, he flat out said, staring me in the eyes: "It must come from your husband's side of the family." I said no, I know even more generations of my husband's family, and reddish blondish hair has not appeared there. He repeated: "It must come from your husband's side of the family."

If my conjecture is true, I'll have connected the dots and found out all on my own. That would make so many things right on so many levels.

As if I'd killed your father

Whenever my narcissistic father said or did something that shocked and angered me when I was growing up, and, of course, not being allowed to actually say anything, I just looked at him in dismay, he'd say:

"Why are you looking at me as if I'd killed your father?"

What a bizarre thing to say, right? I knew what this was supposed to mean: "I, your father, am the most valuable thing in your life, and killing me would be the most heinous thing anyone could ever do to you, so whatever I might have done to you is tiny in comparison and you'd better remember how precious I am to you right now."

But it has an eery double meaning. In a way, he did "kill" my father when he made sure I'll never know who my real father is. I wonder if he realized that when he said it.

I was just a pawn in his power games

Wow. Just realized this.

When I was born, the daughter of my mother and an unknown donor, a fact no one was supposed to know, my 'father' usurped me. My mother wasn't allowed to nurse me, feed me, bathe me, clothe me, spend time with me. He was the only competent one.

Nurture was all he had, and he wanted to show her that, although I was biologically her child, and she got what she wanted after so many years of begging for it, she could never really have me. I would be 'his' child where it counted - I would be taught to worship him alone. I knew at a very early age I wasn't supposed to love my mother if I wanted to please him - and she never once supported me in any tentative moves I made towards her at moments when it was clearer than usual that he was not a stable individual.

Everyone knew he was the most loving, caring, doting father. This proved he was my real father, and then some. But it also proved to her that she lost the battle he created.

I was his. Not hers. He won. Neener neener.

Then she died.

And it was then I ceased to exist for him, except as a target for abuse. I'd tried to explain this in different ways, like getting married - but this was much later and actually the consequence of his escalating verbal abuse - I wanted to get out as soon as possible.

I was no longer useful as a pawn. He'd definitely won, so he didn't need the pawn any more.

That didn't stop him from telling people everywhere how concerned he was about me, having lost my mother and all. It didn't stop him from making heart-rending statements like "I am now both a mother and a father to her" (he was neither). It didn't stop him from still presenting a sentimental, doting, loving facade to the world.

But he stopped presenting it to me.

Facing ALL the Black Holes

There's a reason why being donor conceived matters practically in my journey.

Finding out about NPD has opened many healing pathways for me. I have felt angry and relieved and happy and alive since I found out.

But only since I found out I was donor conceived have I allowed myself to feel sad. And to grieve. Because I know I've always somehow known that I couldn't really expect my father to love me. I've always known that. I've always known at some level that he owed me nothing. And I couldn't bring myself to grieve the father he couldn't be because of his personality disorder. All I could feel was the sheer relief of not having to think of him as the perfect father any longer.

But there was still a black hole I was unable to face because I didn't know it was there.

When I allowed myself to believe there was a father out there I'll probably never know, I started grieving. And feeling sad at times.

And being more alive than ever.

And finally really, truly, totally, madly loving my children.

It's the strangest thing. It just happened. It's like something snapped inside me. Like something burst inside me, releasing liquid joy, allowing me to really love my kids.

A voice inside me said: "They're mine. They're deliciously, wonderfully, tangibly mine. They smell mine and taste mine when I kiss them. There's a bodily joy in the fact that they're mine and no one can take that away from me."

This changed everything. Everything. I wasn't a bad mom before. I did stuff right. I felt a tender love for them before.

But the difference is indescribable. I love them like a mother loves her children. Like an animal loves her cubs. This is real and physical and intense.

There was a block there. And the block was a little voice inside my head saying "Parents can't really love children," which I apparently learned from my childhood. This script didn't fully go away once I reinterpreted it as "NARCISSISTIC parents can't really love children." Part of the script always included also "NARCISSISTIC parents can't really love OTHER FATHERS' children." That was the full script I had learned. And only when it all came out was I capable of unlearning it. Because my children are mine.

Does that make any sense at all? I know it sounds crazy. But it's true.

I've never felt more alive or more joyful. I'm actually on good terms with my social father at the moment and pray for him. My heart aches for my real father, whom I'll never meet. And I'm the happiest I've ever been.

On Being Wanted: Existential Debt and Existential Fear

Children from narcissistic families often grow up feeling their purpose in life was to please their parents.

Having been created with this purpose and having your very existence predicated upon it takes this to a whole new level.

I didn't know I was donor conceived when I was growing up. But when my aunt told me this only six months ago, I wasn't really surprised. It felt like the missing piece of the puzzle.

I'd always been told indirectly, you see, that I had to be especially grateful and happy about having been so very wanted. They got me, after all, after 12 years of marriage, 20 years of dating, when they were 39 and 40 (why I never enquired into this miraculous birth can be explained only by the deep knowledge that I wasn't supposed to). Which meant they were better parents who loved me more than anyone else out there.

And which meant I owed them much more than normal kids owe their parents.

I hated hearing this even when I was younger and didn't know what I know now.

Now I realize the depth of my existential debt. Created after 12 years of marriage. To a profoundly narcissistic social father. As a last resort, at the latest possible moment (fertility treatment is still not readily available to women over 40 in my country). Amid what must have been a great deal of ambivalence. I should be grateful - he let me exist, after all. That's actually how I do feel - only now it's out in the open and clear to me why I've always felt this way and tried so hard to please him and tried even harder not to displease him.

Even now, I keep feeling like if I do anything to anger him, he'll somehow take my very existence away. This is something I hadn't come across on other blogs by adult children of narcissists - this absolute, gripping, existential fear. I knew there was something else, something dark there, but couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I rationalized this fear: he'll try to take my kids away (although he's shown very little interest in them), he'll get me fired (he doesn't even really know where I work), he'll throw my family out of our home (he could legally do that, but he's renting out my apartment for money, so it would make no sense at all for him to do that - but I've spent many a sleepless night obsessing over this danger).

But it boils down to this: he allowed me, grudgingly, to come into existence. He created me and owns me. I'd better not displease him, or he'll undo it.

Narcissism and Having Children

This is a fascinating issue that is so commonly swept under the rug. What is the role of narcissism in the process of people having children? It's a simple enough question. But it's something no one really wants to ponder.

If you believe - like I do - that narcissism is a spectrum thing and that most people have certain relatively sane levels of narcissism that don't impede their functioning as human beings - then you'll concur that most parents out there are somewhat narcissistic, though they don't have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder prevents people from being able to actually relate to any human being in any real way. It prevents real parenting, period, whether the child is genetically related or not.

Now, sane levels of narcissism we can all relate to, right? I sure can. Thinking that something is cool about the color of your eyes. Or your aptitude for literary creation and interpretation. Or your musical talents. But that those engineers are just not quite as fun as your kind of people - no offense, right? Can we all relate to this? Or am I really very narcissistic for sometimes feeling this way?


Sane narcissism seems to conspire with genetic heritage in order to help kids get the unconditional love they need from their parents. You love who you are and you love your partner so together you get kids who resemble yourself and your partner. You're likely to favor these kids over other humans out there and invest in them. Thus the species survives. It makes sense.


Now, completely non-narcissistic people who truly love all humans in the world non-discriminately and have absolutely NO preferences at all for, say, their musical penchant over someone else's tone-deaf hatred of all music, will likely make quite suitable parents for other people's children - through adoption or unknown gamete donors (though this will not necessarily answer all the issues these children may face in not knowing their genetic parents). These rare godlike perfectly altruistic people will make perfect parents for anyone.


The rest of us imperfect parents have to concede that we we enjoy seeing our traits, penchants, temperaments - and those of our beloved partner, and our ancestors, and his ancestors - in our children. It's really sweet. It's delightful. Can't help it.


It's a form of sane narcissism. The sort of sane narcissism that has quite possibly allowed the human race to survive.

This is the stuff that compels many people to want to have kids.

That makes people go through all sorts of unpleasant infertility treatments before considering donor conception or adoption.


That makes many people who eventually do turn to donor conception or adoption as last resorts have, well, issues. Natural issues. Issues that shouldn't be suppressed. Issues their (")children(") are likely to have, too, because they will likely want to think of their traits / ethnicity / heritage as good, and valuable, and important. These issues cannot be wished away.


And where does that leave the true narcissist, the parent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder? He will never be a true father to any child, biological or not. But a non-biological child he has to pretend he has fathered so he could present himself as fertile will never ever even theoretically be able to please him.

New blog

I started a new blog on being donor conceived. If that part of my story doesn't bore or bother you, feel free to visit.

http://strangeconceptions.blogspot.com/

On Being Donor Conceived

Maybe I should start a new blog on being donor conceived. I might after I know for sure. In that regard, it's frustration after frustration.

The relative who might know something didn't know anything. Not even ever seeing my (")father(") (?) lately makes it hard to collect a DNA sample. And today I thought I was on the verge of a discovery, one way or another, when I found hard proof of blood types for my entire family - only to be told by the Internet that in the case of my parents (A+ and B+) a donor of any blood type would produce plausible offspring. And I'm plausible. As would any donor's child have been. Back to square one.

Here is an interesting article on being fathered by an anonymous donor, all of which I relate to:

"Some evidence indicates some donor-conceived offspring are not necessarily surprised by the revelation that “Dad” was not their biological father. Some could sense a family secret, while others reported feelings of “not fit[ting] in” with their families. The author David Plotz, who was contacted by many donor offspring, writes that those who learn the truth about their DI origins “are rarely surprised; they always felt something wasn’t right.”

Moreover, many donor-conceived people who eventually learned the truth were angry at having been lied to for years about such a fundamental matter of their being. The reason why many DI offspring “felt something wasn’t right” is because many fathers, try as they might, cannot follow the doctor’s orders to “forget about it themselves.” Husbands often find it extremely difficult to treat donor-conceived children as if they were their own biological children, and such repression is likely to place a strain on family relationships. As Plotz writes:

While good studies on DI families don’t seem to exist, anecdotes about them suggest that there is frequently a gap between fathers and their putative children. [Fathers] are drained by having to pretend that children are theirs when they aren’t; it takes a good actor and an extraordinary man to overlook the fact that his wife has picked another man to father his child. It’s no wonder that the paternal bond can be hard to maintain. When a couple adopts a child, both parents share a genetic distance from the kid. But in DI families, the relationships tend to be asymmetric: the genetically connected mothers are close to their kids; the unconnected fathers are distanced."

Put a narcissist in the mix. Good actors, sure. Extraordinary in the sense implied here? No, quite the opposite, really. See why it matters to me? It would explain so much of our family dynamic and paint it in even darker colors. I started this journey still pretty much wearing my rosy-colored glasses (he loved me, but in a narcissistic way; he was proud of my achievements and just wanted to own and control me; he felt abandoned by me; he was a great dad, although he did it all to be worshiped). This is where I am now: he resented me for existing and being me but had to fake it and even overfake it.

To some out there, genes don't matter. For those who chose donor conception and then lied about it, they clearly matter. Why not opt for adoption and tell everyone? Even if it didn't matter to me (and it does, I'm not going to apologize for that: I look in the mirror and see my mother and someone else, NOT my father, and I wonder who it might be and what he's like and what he likes and what his ethnicity is and whether he shares some of the talents I share with neither parent) it matters that it mattered to them.

Sorry. That's just the way I feel.

Edit: So I did apologize. For my feelings. Just realized that. ACoN to the core ;)

Public Pride and Secret Shame

I was his public pride. My existence was proof of his fertility, my achievements were proof of his natural talents, and his public protestations of fatherly devotion were proof of his love for his offspring.

On the other hand, my very existence was a daily reminder for him of his secret shame, his infertility. I must have been like a slap in the face, just by being me, so different from him and his family of origin.

(I've just spent an hour going through his old photos - incidentally, I'm the one keeping them, he's not really interested in anything involving his narcissistic family of origin, all dead now - photos of him as a baby, toddler, young man, of his sister, father, mother, grandparents, great-uncles and others. I look nothing like any of them. As do my children, who noticeably take after myself, my mother's family, and my husband and his ancestors.)

He must have had a deep ambiguity towards me from the very start and I must have internalized it. On the one hand, he overdid the "devoted father" thing. He probably felt it was necessary to keep others from suspecting anything - but most people I know just found it weird and over the top. On the other hand, I've always felt a dark undercurrent of danger emanating from him, telling me not only "you should be as I want you to be" but also "you shouldn't be."

I can't begin to imagine what raising a donor-conceived child does to a narcissist. And to that child. There's a whole chapter on cloning as the most suitable reproduction of mini-mes that narcissistic parents so desire in Clone being: exploring the psychological and social dimensions by Stephen E. Levick. My father was the golden child because he looked more like his mother and was the more "handsome" of the two, according to her. My aunt was scapegoated for looking like her father and thus not being as beautiful as her mother.


Then, on the other hand, if it is indeed true (and I'm almost positive it is), then I sort of feel for him. And somehow feel that, given the situation, he did relatively well. He could have been much worse.


Why did they never tell me? My mother was once going to tell me something "when I turn 18" but then claimed she didn't remember what it was when I asked her about it on my 18th birthday.


Did he want to protect me from knowing I'm not his, poor me? Or protect himself from people knowing about his infertility? Or a mixture of all that?

Matters of biology and whether biology matters

My mother's stepfather was the person closest and dearest to me when I was growing up. He was also the only non-narcissist and non-enabler in my immediate family. So, when sane, normal people are concerned, genes don't generally play a decisive role - these people treat children decently, whether they're related to them or not.

Narcissists, on the other hand, will mistreat any children in their care, whether they're their biological parents or not. So, why does it even matter whether my NF is my biological father or not?

Well, just imagine your run-of-the-mill malignant narcissist in his situation and things begin to make sense. First, our narcissist discovers he is infertile, which is a difficult thing for any man - or woman - to reconcile with, but it is crushing for a narcissist - infertility is one of the most devastating narcissistic injuries conceivable. Add to this injury the insult of his wife's great desire to have a child - if necessary, with another man's sperm. The narcissist grants her this wish, but she is supposed to take the blame for those previous 12 years of infertility. The newly-created child is already proof of his fertility in front of others, but a constant reminder of his lack of manhood (or whatever he might have in his narcissistic mind) to himself.

Can you really claim this situation is not somehow just a bit more complex than the narcissist getting his own child, a potential mini-me?

The malignant narcissist's wife gives birth to a child that looks quite a bit like her and seems to be happy, getting what she wanted and what he might have wanted too, but couldn't have. As a man who has been known to repeatedly do things just to spite others and rain on their parade and ruin it for them, he:

a) becomes the perfect, ideal, most dedicated father ever, bottle-feeding the infant, taking the child out for long walks, helping the mother to such an extent that she barely notices she has a child, for which she and the child are eternally grateful, or

b) out of envy, sabotages the nursing relationship and takes the baby away from the mother to prove that though she may be the biological parent, he can still usurp the child and control her and force her to love him more. The mother consents to this, out of gratitude and guilt, and doesn't complain because, after all, he's spending time with a child not biologically his, and this is so sweet of him. She lets other things go because of this too.

I'd go with b).

What do you think?

I know. I just know.

I had a dream a few nights ago where I was descending steep and dangerous steps to get to the edge of a deep and dangerous river where I could meet a fisherman who'd sell me a fish. Halfway down the steps, wondering whether I'd break my neck or drown, I realized I already had a fish in my hands. And it was a stinky, disgusting fish I didn't know what to do with. Nothing I'd like to prepare for my family or eat. I just looked at it.

The moment I woke up, I understood that this meant I already know my father is not my biological father. I don't need to do a DNA test - risking him discovering I know this and paying money for it - in order to find out. I already know. And I don't really know what to do with it.

My aunt recently remembered another tidbit from a long time ago (she digs stuff up from her memory, just like all of us do, in no particular order, as it all comes back to her): my mother told her, before I was conceived, about their fertility issues.

Apparently, instead of doing it the normal way - males go first, because it's much less invasive - my mother first underwent extensive fertility testing which revealed there was nothing wrong with her before my father agreed to be tested and, whaddya know - the test revealed "half his sperm was dead, and the rest of it was lazy," my mother told my aunt in the strictest confidence.

My mother told me as much when I was 18.

Short of a divine miracle, the only way in which my mother could have conceived in 1981 was via donor sperm.

I look nothing like my father or his sister or parents, and neither do my kids. Not a single little insignificant trait. A short glance at my kids next to their parents or anyone in my husband's family quickly and easily reveals those little familial similarities.

What difference does it make? Not much, really. But there are implications of this on my mind that I'll just have to share.

He's back

It's weird. I have little energy for describing my encounter with him. I found I was acting somewhat narcissistic around him which may or may not have been related to his being more defensive and polite. It's all weird.

His girlfriend was here and she found it appropriate to use us as audience or protection to discuss her issues with him. Bizarre verbal abuse and pathological jealousy stuff. I said in front of him that the only way to counter his irrational behavior might be to stop taking it seriously. He said nothing and grinned in a forced, eery way. I might now be "audience" to him, which is good. He's on his best behavior in front of us.

I find, though, that I have a hard time being in the same room with him. For no particular reason. He's just a presence I feel uncomfortable around. I didn't feel like this before.

When I look at him, there's just one thing I see. Know those cartoons where a starving person sees a roast when looking at anyone or anything? Well, I look at him and I see DNA samples. I see stuff that might help me determine if he is indeed my biological father or not. And not much else.

All Apologies

Kiki made me remember. There was one time I expected my father to apologize. He'd slapped me in the face repeatedly for making a silly childish comment that one day I'll be stronger than him. I told him this memory bugged me a few months later, and that I wanted to truly make up because I loved him and forgave him. What I got what Kiki's Non-Apology, Version 5: A Denial. He supposedly didn't remember. "See, it was such a non-event that I forgot. But I forgive you, too." It was apparent he was lying. I knew it at 8 years old.

I never expected an apology or any sort of closure from him again. Heck, I never really expected to have a relationship involving emotions with him again.

I don't think he noticed this. But he demanded apologies from me, all right.

When I was 13, a cousin of his was having heart surgery in our city and was staying with my father's narcissistic mother. I'd never met the man, but was told I was expected to go to grandma's and see him before the surgery. I fully intended to, although I didn't really get it, but then one of my best friends was hospitalized for a concussion the same day, and I kept her company through it.

I didn't feel guilty. I felt fully justified in my decision. But my father was angry and gave me the silent treatment. Fine. I ignored him, too. It went on for days, weeks.

And then my mother asked me to apologize. Because, she said, he was hell bent on keeping this up forever if I didn't.

So I did. To be the only sane person in the family. It was an obviously fake apology. But he grandiosely accepted it and gave me a cold, but grandiose, fake hug. I felt nauseous. But, as far as he was concerned, everything was just wonderful again!

With them, there's just "on" and "off." Because both are fake. He's neither angry when he's "angry," nor does he love me when he "loves" me.

He won, and he knew it was a close one, so he didn't have to win by much.

Like recently, after being so very upset and "worried" after I forgot to let him know I've successfully relocated, I received a profusion of fake sentiment the moment I sent a short, official message informing him of my next relocation. He knew he'd just barely won, so he took it. A narcissist secure in his position of control and manipulation would have demanded contrition and groveling and amends.

It's all about power and control. There's nothing else.

I don't want an apology for anything. I have absolutely no interest in that. There's never going to be a relationship that can be redeemed by such closure. That's laughable. There never was one.

But this information about the things he's done... including, possibly, being infertile and me being donor conceived and lying about it to me and everyone else... now, this information could give me some power and control. In case he ever attacks my family in any way, I have ammunition for defense. I'm not above saying: "Wanna evict us? Tell lies to my friends, family, neighbors, employers? Fine. There are truths about you you wouldn't want shared with everyone you know. So leave us alone."

Infertility as narcissistic injury

Googling a bit today. Interested in how narcissistic fathers react to being infertile and having kids by donors. Was appalled to read in a book on infertility counseling some advice on how to deal with patients with narcissistic personality disorder while they're undergoing fertility treatment, which is especially hard for them because infertility is a narcissistic injury.

So, they're knowingly helping narcissists become parents? Have they maybe thought that these people are infertile for a reason?

Something is rotten

The official stories of my family of origin are so ludicrous that, now that I think about them, more and more of them seem certain to me to be covering up lies.

Take the story of my conception. My mother told me once, in a whispering tone of voice, that nothing was wrong with her and that they'd been trying to have a child for 12 years because my father had a low sperm count. You can only find out you have a low count by being tested. My father recently told me they'd only been trying for 2 years and there were no real problems. It makes no sense. But his official story has changed.

My aunt told me the official story as it was told back then. My mother conceived a few months after my aunt, her stepsister, 13 years her junior, gave birth to her son. This was after 12 years of marriage. What a coincidence, right? Amazing! Only, not really. Because he felt the need to explain it, authoritatively, in such a sappy, insane fashion, that it has "FAKE" written all over it:

Allegedly, my mother held her newborn nephew and this finally got her hormones going, so she conceived!

Yes. That was the story. That's his official explanation. If you think it's ridiculous, you're not the only one.

My reconstruction of events: they've been trying for 11 years without success; they've been tested and he has low sperm count; perhaps they've already tried to use his sperm, but it's failed; he's refusing to use a donor's sperm, which makes her unhappy, but she's hopeful and won't press the issue; then, unexpectedly, her baby sister, 13 years younger, has a baby, and my mother is pushing 40; suddenly, she grows desperate and manages to persuade her husband to allow her to have a baby too; he agrees, but no one is ever to find out that he was the infertile one. She goes along with that. And much more.

Shaping Narratives

Kiki has a great post about what her novels had been trying to tell her all the time, even before she Saw her mother for what she was.

When I was 16, I wrote a Gnostic play in which the most vividly depicted character was the false god, the petty, evil, tyrannical, jealous, vengeful Demiurge who demanded worhip.

There was also the Unknown Real Father who actually fathered Adam's soul, because the Demiurge is, of course, sterile - he cannot create life. Only appropriate it and imprison it. So the Demiurge takes Adam over and lies to him that he is actually the one who fathered him.

The play ends with the Demiurge brainwashing Adam into worshipping him, the only real Daddy.

I promised myself I wouldn't let myself get carried away with the rumor of being the child of a donor, but this struck such a deep chord within me, something I've felt in my bones all my life. Something I seem to have written about long ago.

I might even settle for the whole "child by an unknown donor" story as a symbolic truth for my life. Not necessarily literally true, but more than so. Literarily true. If I were to write an autobiographical novel now, the main character would be the child of a donor. Even if this did not actually happen in my life.

Where do babies come from?

My mother's stepfather answered my question "Where do babies come from" with "A doctor puts them in the mommy's belly" when I was little. When I told my father about it, he seemed too upset and irritated over this, and said "From now on, ask me about everything you want to know".

The reaction seemed excessive for "I don't like it when others lie to my kids about the facts of life", which I thought was all there was to it.

He's NOT my real father?!

My aunt told me something quite interesting at our daughter's birthday.

Her mother (my mother's stepmother) told her that my mother had used with a donor's sperm conceive because my father was infertile. Now, my aunt says her mother was not the most trustworthy person in the world, but there's still a possibility that my mother's husband is not my biological father.

There are details that would corroborate this. I was conceived during their holidays, when they were both almost 40. My mother told me about my father's fertility issues once - low count (that doesn't suddenly get better with age, does it?). They named me after her aunt that allegedly helped with the procedure.

It would explain some other stuff as well. Like how come he resented me so much and wanted to appropriate me so badly at the same time. And how she would feel guilty and thankful about him accepting another man's offspring enough not to make waves about his fathering.

I have no way of knowing except taking his DNA sample without him knowing. I can't just ask a pathological liar, can I? My husband thinks nothing good can come out of taking someone's DNA sample behind his back. I don't know.

I only know I've started having fantasies about my REAL father.