Satisfaction Guarantee

In 2019, influencer and model Allyn Rose was preparing to welcome her first child into the world. She’d chosen to undergo IVF treatment and pursue embryonic genetic testing in an effort to reduce her child’s risk of inheriting a predisposition to breast cancer.

When it came time to announce that she was trying to conceive via IVF, Rose shared an emotional story via Instagram about the loss of her mother to metastatic breast cancer. She laments that her mother is not alive to help Rose through the process of becoming a mom herself, and admits that she is scared to do it alone. Then, something strange happens. Rose writes, “I am overwhelmed with joy to announce that I am starting my IVF journey with @shadygrovefertility. In the beginning, I was scared/overwhelmed thinking about the entire process. But the team at Shady Grove Fertility, in their best Mom Voice, told me that ‘it was going to be okay’”

It becomes clear, more than halfway through the post, that the whole thing was an advertisement. Throughout her pregnancy, Allyn Rose continued to post about Shady Grove Fertility, careful to tag them in every post. Even when Rose delivered her daughter, the announcement included the ever-present @shadygrovefertility.

The company withdrew their support when Rose published a lengthy Instagram post in which she lamented that her baby was a girl, instead of the little boy she had always dreamed of. There are fertility clinics which offer sex selection as a service. SGF is not one of them.

Suppose that the announcement of your conception, your growth, and your birth, each came with product placement. Imagine if you were not simply a person, but A Person™ brought to the world in partnership with a corporation. Imagine that you are the use case, the product demo, the promotional material, used to sell a service. What does that do? What does it change? You would still be yourself, leading the life you lead. Materially, nothing would change. Think about it for a moment, seriously sit and think about it. How does it feel?

I am not Allyn Rose’s child, and I was not used for product placement. I am, however, a bit of a spokesperson for the fertility industry, whether I like it or not. The first child ever born from IVF was Louise Joy Brown in 1978. Five years later, the first ever donor conceived child was reported in Australia. At the time, donor conception was done in secrecy. It was a fact kept from both the outside world and the child in question. This first generation of donor conceived children are few in number, and even fewer of them are open about their status. Many learned that they were donor conceived later in life, causing immense disruption in personal identity, and in some cases this discovery is regarded as deeply traumatizing.

To me, it feels like this first generation of donor conceived people barely exist, they are a whisper, a trial run, guinea pigs. So now, here I am, an early entrant into the second generation of this strange, sci-fi category of person, and perhaps among the eldest who are willing to discuss it openly. There’s just one teeny problem: a fertility company pays my tuition.

***

In 2020, a private equity firm partnered with SGF, to form US Fertility. In the five years since, US Fertility has grown like a weed, acquiring five unique fertility brands, and expanding its reach to nearly every corner of the United States. In a short five years, US Fertility has become the largest physician-lead fertility company in the country.

Among the team of physicians, managers, and marketers working tirelessly to grow USF, is my mom. Officially, she works in Practice Development, which is about as descriptive as someone saying that they make their living being employed. In reality, she leads a team of direct-to-physician field marketers. Their goal is to get USF referrals from general practitioners. In other words, my mother is in sales for the fertility industry. She is my family’s sole source of income.

In the summers of 2024 and 2025, my mom introduced me to the fine folks of USF’s marketing team, and asked if I might intern with them. I spent the first two summers of my college career making Instagram carousels about semen analysis, and organizing physicians’ contact information into spreadsheets.

It was a team of mostly young mothers, a few of which had IVF babies of their own. While we worked together, I could never quite escape the feeling that I was being watched. Young moms with their own donor babies scanned me for deficiencies, mentally trying to decide if I seemed ok. Am I pleasantly chatty, or a bit annoying? Do I seem well adjusted? They look at me and see a preview of their future.

They look at me for insight, and for reassurance. Not only was I tasked with creating promotional material for the fertility industry, I felt the pressure of living up to the marketing I was making.

If a person were to save your life, you’d feel insurmountably indebted to them. I grew up with the legend of two people who wanted a baby to love, but needed help. My nightly bedtime story was the near-tragedy of how I almost didn’t exist.

The heroes were the nice doctors who saved my life before it even started.

US Fertility doesn’t explicitly promise a happy, healthy family. They can’t guarantee that IVF babies won’t be annoying, or bratty, or weirdly into animated media. But, as I scrolled through the collection of stock photos, past rows of smiling babies, happy couples, and dreamy maternity photos, I couldn’t help but notice that we, the marketers, were implicitly connecting the two.

It’s the same principle as Ozempic commercials using footage of a rugged adventurer climbing mountains.

When someone saves your life, you’ll give them whatever they want to show your gratitude. They wanted a good reputation. So, I performed; big bright smile, helpful attitude; no bubbling conflicting emotions; not a twinge of cognitive dissonance.

On my last day, my boss admitted that I’d given her hope that her own son would turn out ok. I remember the huge swell of pride in my chest. I’d done it. I’d been a perfect product demo and repaid my debt to the industrial complex that had saved me.

Look, look at me! Look at this ideal outcome. I’m happy, I’m healthy. No, no, you can’t take me home. Haha, sorry, I’m just the display model. But if you enter our raffle, you have a chance to win a free consultation. Awe, that’s sweet of you to say. Regrets? Nah! No, I’ve never tried to find them, never even thought about it. We’re just like normal babies, I promise.

When I was thirteen, I asked to see the papers. So, on a cloudy Sunday morning, my parents took a dusty old binder off the shelf, and presented it to me with a strange solemnity. I think they were nervous.

In 2023, Dutch researchers interviewed 13 couples who conceived children through sperm donations. The study evaluates what it means to “do kinship,” and assesses how the presence or lack of genetic relationships impacts a parent’s attitudes and actions in relation to raising a child.

As the study explains, “The majority of parents, both men and women, expressed that the fact that the father was not genetically related to the children made no difference for them in terms of experiencing parenthood…as soon as the child was born, it had felt like their own child.”

However, there was still fear in one area, “Most men who had difficulties with non-genetic fatherhood had also struggled with their infertility. They feared rejection from their child if the child came to know that their father was not their genetic parent.”

As I flipped through the aged pages of the binder, I sensed my parents’ fear. I didn’t need a Dutch study to tell me what they were afraid of.

Strange as it sounds, I remember two very different versions of that moment, although I’m sure they happened simultaneously.

The first memory is quiet…

The first memory is quiet. I flipped to the sperm donor’s section of the binder, and read the questionnaire he’d filled out. His handwriting was loopy, scribbly, and half-cursive. It looked a lot like mine. He wrote that his favorite food was chocolate milk. I’ve been known to drink a gallon of the stuff in less than two days.

He explained that he was a writer, with a love of art. When asked where he wanted to be in ten years he wrote, “eating good food, making new friends, having crushes and having fun.” When I read this, something clicked.

For thirteen years, I’d been raised by driven, perfectionist parents. They were engineers, then well-regarded business people. They ran their lives in spreadsheets and checklists. Every moment was optimized, every outcome tightly controlled. I’d spent thirteen years confused, even a little weary.

Sure, I understood where they were coming from, but I could never really relate. On the other hand, the sperm donor, he seemed to have things figured out…“eating good food, making new friends, having crushes and having fun.” That’s what I wanted. That’s all I ever wanted, and I’d never believed that a spreadsheet would get me there.

The second memory, running concurrently, and yet recalled separately, is a brief and simple wince. I clamped my lips shut, and rolled my shoulders in an ambivalent shrug. I didn’t want my parents to see the revelation I’d had.

Genetics weren’t supposed to matter, after all. They had “done kinship” correctly, they’d raised me and loved me and given me everything. I needed to reward them, to perform their ideal outcome. So, I tried not to let on the impact of what I had seen.

Huh? Yeah I mean it’s cool, I guess. No, no, I don’t think I’ll go looking for them. I’ve got plenty right here. Yeah, she does have my nose. Geez, that smile is identical… His baby photo looks just like mine.

What? No, don’t joke about that. I would never. Haha, seriously, I’m not going anywhere. I mean it. I’m still your baby. I promise.

***

When asked what he might say to any child conceived with his sperm, donor 5737 hesitated. It had clearly been unexpected. After a two, almost three-second pause, he said simply, “good luck with your future.”

When asked his reason for donation, he admitted it was largely financial. When egg donor TTS was asked why she was undergoing the process of retrieval, she explained that she was so overwhelmed with love for her kids, that her heart breaks at the thought of another woman unable to have her own. She left no message for any resulting children.

Neither of them wanted anything to do with me, and that’s fine.

That has to be fine. I have two parents who love me, why should I care about the two who don’t?

Oh god, she’s got my smile. Oh god, he writes just like I do.

When I was nineteen I took one of those commercial DNA tests. It gave me the name of my maternal grandmother. From there I found my egg donor. I found a long line of uncles and cousins named Dusty.

I found out that she doesn’t think trans women are real women. She’s a proud military mama. She dyes her hair blonde. She posts screenshots of Matt Walsh tweets on Facebook.

For a moment I managed to cling to the old mantra: DNA doesn’t matter, love does. The woman didn’t love me. Even if she knew me, she would never love me. Fine. She didn’t matter, anyway.

I remember closing my computer, silently chiding myself for getting so worked up over nothing. Then I cried.

I cried, shivery, shaky, sobbing. To this day I can’t explain why I’d been reduced to such a state. There was a wheezy, whimpering word half formed on each ragged breath: “mama.”

I was small, and I was sad, and I was scared, and oh god I just wanted my mom.

It took me five minutes to remember: I could just call her. The moment I heard her voice on the other end of the line, I felt monumentally stupid.

She’d raised me my whole life, and who the hell was I crying over? Some bleach-blonde stranger in Ramona, California.

Even dumber, was that after a few minutes on the phone, I felt totally fine. Maybe a little embarrassed, but mom shooed that feeling away just as quickly as it had come.

Birdie, you’re allowed. That’s allowed too. Look for them all you want! I’ll fly down and talk to her myself if I have to. No, don’t be sorry. Don’t say sorry, it’s ok! I promise I’m not mad. I really, really promise. You’re my baby. I promise.

***

I don’t know how to tell this story, not succinctly anyway. How am I supposed to explain all this to the passersby and potential clients who ask me if I’m happy with being a donor kid?

I want to tell them that it’s hard. To explain the strange sinking loneliness that creeps down my arms when I look at photos of my egg donor.

I want to tell them that no matter how long I look, my sperm donor just doesn’t want to be found, and that I grieve the loss of two strangers who are still alive. I want to be honest.

But to them, at that moment, I don’t think they’re really asking about my experience, they’re asking for a product review.

They want their own baby to love, their own flesh and blood, but they can’t have that. So they look at me, the second best thing, and ask the same question in a million different ways: do your parents regret having you? Were you worth the medical bills?

Are you loveable?

I am. I am! I really really am! I am loveable. I promise.