The Anonymous Us Project

"My 4 Children of Egg Donation I'll Never See": Speaking to her offspring, an egg donor laments her lack of contact with them, and insists that they are hers.

"My Reasons for Donating": A sperm donor expresses his wish to meet his biological children, but is raising a son as a single parent and is strained physically and financially.

"Reading Between the Lines": A donor-conceived child analyzes correspondence from her or his terse donor to gain hope for further and more intimate contact in the future.

"I Found Him": After discovering her or his donor through online research, a donor child worries about rejection, and is immersed in guilt and anxiety.

"Tell Your 'Kid(s)'. Don’t Wait.": A donor-conceived child advises parents to inform their children of the reality of their conception, illustrating her or his own unpleasant experience as a warning against waiting until the child is twenty-one or older.

"Wanting to be a Parent": After years of awaiting the romantic and sexual urges that never came, a prospective parent considers raising children without a partner, though retains the knowledge of its potential effects on the child.

"Change of Heart": A formerly prospective parent mourns her potential child as she chose to cancel the embryo transfer that would have granted her motherhood.

"My Husband Wants to be a Sperm Donor": After uncovering her husband's hidden communication with future sperm recipients, a woman is deeply wounded by his lack of concern for his biological children, as well as his already-established family.

"3 Dads": A donor-conceived individual relates a frustration that she/he is being denied a legitimacy to the emotional attachment they have developed to their long-deceased social father.

"Lost and Longing": Experiencing severely conflicting emotions, an egg donor under the impression of anonymity, is contacted by her biological daughter.

"To Lost and Longing": In response to a fellow author, a donor expresses a shared anxiety at potential contact with offspring ruining already established marital and familial relationships.

"That's Not My Name": A donor-conceived child elaborates on the difficulties of bearing a name belonging to a social family that proved unwelcoming.

"Broken Record": Experiencing a duality of emotions, a donor child expostulates the lack of connection afforded biological offspring and parents, and the passivity with which many people approach this lack of connection.

"What is a Parent?": A prospective parent sympathizes with donor-conceived plights, but also stresses the importance of raising children with a *true* family rather than valuing biological paradigms as the pinnacle of family dynamics.

"Regrets About Being an Egg Donor": An egg donor laments her decision of donation due to a prevalence of intended parents' rejection of their donors' identities in relation to their children.

"You Are the Hero in Our Epic Tale": An intended parent expresses gratitude for her or his egg donor's contribution, and insists that the donor holds no shameful connotation in their lives.

"The Backwards Cinderella Story": Being raised by a social father, a donor child relates her findings that family, as well as fatherhood, is able to circumvent genetics altogether.

"The Price of Motherhood": A donor-conceived child narrates the story of her conception, and her mother's tenacious and unconventional determination that brought her to life.

"Feeling Cheated and Used": An egg donor relates feeling betrayed after her friend agreed to inform the children they created together of their true maternity, seemingly only to achieve securing her eggs.

"The Law of the Jungle?": An observer remarks on the similarities when a scene from Kipling's 'The Jungle Book' are used as an allegory for donor anonymity.

"I Have a Sister": A donor-conceived child presents a paradigm of family not solely as one that is chosen, but also one that is comprised of blood relations as genuine kin.

You Are You": An adoptee reflects on the experience of reuniting with her/his birth family, the value of understanding the life one could have led, and the love and support already offered by an adoptive family.

"Or Is It Me Being Selfish": Contrasting with other donor-conceived narratives, a donor child mourns the loss of her/his paternal figure as a position, not a specific man that manifests as a donor.