Ever since she was little, Emily daydreamed about meeting her donor dad. He was a prince living in a far away land, a celebrity who had sent her a necklace, and possibly even George Bush. (The latter being more of a nightmare than a daydream.) When Emily was thirteen, she found other kids who had family structures like hers. They also wondered and dreamed about the day when they might be able to meet the sperm donor who helped their moms have a child. But what really united this group of young people was being together in Provincetown, Mass. for Family Week -- the largest annual gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified families in the world.
Ever since she was little, Emily daydreamed about meeting her donor dad. He was a prince living in a far away land, a celebrity who had sent her a necklace, and possibly even George Bush. (The latter being more of a nightmare than a daydream.)
When Emily was thirteen, she found other kids who had family structures like hers. They also wondered and dreamed about the day when they might be able to meet the sperm donor who helped their moms have a child. But what really united this group of young people was being together in Provincetown, Mass. for Family Week -- the largest annual gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified families in the world.
This is the second chapter of a big story that takes up most of Rashomon Season 2. You will hear multiple families telling every side of multiple stories, all having to do with the early days of sperm banks and how it effected the lives of the families that used them. From Season 2, Episode 2 onward, it is important to listen to them in order to get the full story -- so go and listen to Sharon and Sammy first.
Rashomon is produced and hosted by Hillary Rea
Thank you to Emily McGranachan, Cathy McGrananchan, and Nancy Smith.
Music in this episode is by Ben Chace and Paul Defiglia
Podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner
Theme music is by Ryan Culinane courtesy of the Free Music Archive
This episode of Rashomon is sponsored by StoryWorth. For $20 off your StoryWorth subscription visit https://storyworth.com/rashomon.
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Hillary [00:00:00] You are listening to Rashomon, a podcast where one family tells every side of the same story.Or in this season, it's more than one family telling every side of more than one story. And I'm your host, Hillary Rea. And this is Kathy, Nancy and Emily.
Hillary [00:00:33] Before you jump in and listen to this episode, make sure that you go and listen to the last episode, Sharon and Sammy. This is a series of stories, one huge story broken down into smaller stories. And those smaller stories are broken down into multiple perspectives of each. How did I come to these stories and why am I sharing them in this way?
Hillary [00:00:59] For this season of Rashomon, I was super curious about the definition of family and how it can mean different things to different people. And so I put out a call for families and I heard back from Emily McGranahan. Emily is also a podcaster. She is the host of Outspoken Voices, a podcast by and for LGBTQ parents, people with LGBTQ parents and grandparents and everyone else who is part of their family journeys. Emily was interested in sharing her family's story, so I went to her home in Salem, Massachusetts, to interview her.
Emily [00:01:41] Yeah, so I grew up in Massachusetts with lesbian moms, I had two moms, Cathy and Grace.
Hillary [00:01:48] Kathy and Grace were together until Emily was four, and then...
Emily [00:01:52] They separated. And there was about a year when it was just Cathy and I and I would see Grace, you know, once a week, every other weekend, like very traditional, you know, what you would expect from a divorced family.
Hillary [00:02:01] And then Kathy started dating Nancy.
Emily [00:02:03] I met Nancy then a little bit while after they had been dating.
Hillary [00:02:05] They got a house. They all moved in together.
Emily [00:02:08] And then Nancy second-parent adopted me legally when I was 11.
Nancy [00:02:12] In 1994, I was recently single and I met Emily's gestational mom, Cathy, and just was blown away by her. The fact that, like, she wanted to have a kid and she just went right out and did it. We began dating and that eventually led to my becoming a co-parent to Emily when she was about six years old and then legally adopting her when she was 11, which for me is just the greatest joy and privilege of my life.
Hillary [00:02:37] Nancy and Cathy didn't stay together, but Nancy remains Emily's adoptive parent. And looking back, Nancy never pictured herself as one.
Nancy [00:02:46] You know, I was coming out in the 1970s. And I loved children, but I just did not see myself becoming a parent. I thought bringing a kid into all the prejudice and such that we faced at that time just wouldn't be the right thing to do. The children would probably hate us. So it just didn't seem like something that was going to happen in my life.
Hillary [00:03:03] When Emily's other mom, Cathy, was growing up, she had a much different vision for her future.
Cathy [00:03:09] I think I knew all my life that I desperately wanted children. And when I was 10, my mom had my sister and I thought my mother had her for me because she just knew how desperate I was to have a baby.
Hillary [00:03:20] And as Cathy grew older...
Cathy [00:03:22] I got to a point in my life when I realized, oh, my God, this is just not going to happen. I got to find a way to do this or I'm going to miss out on this big, important part of my life. And it was like the fear, like, oh, my God, what am I going to do? I may not ever have kids. I have to take something here. And it was just this clenching in my stomach. You know, I just I have to find some way to do this. So in the beginning, it was really hard. I had no idea where to look. Who to ask. You know, I was trying to see if I knew any friends that had brothers or somebody who would donate sperm. And it was you know, it was just it was really too complicated for everybody to get involved. It was very emotional.
Hillary [00:04:00] There wasn't a lot of information about how to go about getting pregnant as a single gay person. And Cathy felt really in the dark. Plus, she was out in her personal life, but not in her professional life as a teacher.
Cathy [00:04:15] Because at work, I mean, teachers would say really negative things about gay people. Parents who loved me, who requested me to be the multiple children's teacher, would say things like when the Ellen Show and when she made that comment and and their school, they were like, oh, my God, I can't let my children watch TV anymore. They said the word lesbian and went on and on. And I was like, I'm sitting there like, you know, makes you feel like crap, you know, because, you know, these people respect you and like you. But, you know, the minute they feel that the whole view of you is going to be so different and so, like, you have to protect yourself.
Hillary [00:04:48] In addition to keeping her private life private at school, Cathy knew that once she really looked into having a kid, keeping her role as a special ed teacher was going to be difficult. She had longer hours than most teachers,
Cathy [00:05:01] And I knew I would need a more regular schedule, you know, with daycare and things. So I was trying to see if I could get into regular ed. I also asked them, could they fire me if I'm a single woman and I'm pregnant? And they said, he told me no.
Hillary [00:05:15] Cathy started doing more research and found Fenway Health Center in Boston. They're still around. And on their current website, their mission statement says that they're here to enhance the well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and all people in our neighborhoods and beyond through access to the highest quality health care, education, research and advocacy. Now, Cathy finds Fenway Health in the late 1980s and she calls them up to get more information on her options for having a child.
Cathy [00:05:46] I remember being kind of horrified at this statement someone said on the phone.
Hillary [00:05:50] Cathy said it sounded like the person on the other end of the phone had put the receiver down and was shouting to someone else in the office.
Cathy [00:05:58] "This lady is looking for cheap sperm." Or something like that. I was like, what? You know, I mean, I felt really terrible about this. Like when I heard that from there, it's like, whoa, they're supposed to be like a very sympathetic to me organization that should have been out to support me. That was a little horrifying.
Hillary [00:06:16] Eventually, Kathy found a clinic in Cambridge that would do donor insemination and she was told that it would be with an anonymous donor. She liked the idea that she wouldn't know who he was because it would keep her safe and protected from someone taking her child away. But there was still a lot of stress and nerves around this big decision. She was concerned about her family and her relatives and how they were going to take it and then there was the anxiety of being a single woman and her hidden personal life as a teacher and the stress of planning out and timing the insemination process.
Cathy [00:06:51] I would have to predict a month ahead what day I was going to ovulate. The next month it so, you know, hit or miss so.
Emily [00:06:57] When the timing was right, she would drive to Cambridge and go to the clinic. But once she arrived in the clinic, she was worried about how things were being run there. She would hear the midwife running back and forth between rooms convinced that the sperm was being split up for more than one insemination.
Cathy [00:07:15] It was tough. And then you lay there and there was a poster across the entire wall of like thousands of beautiful babies. One of those posters, you know, with all these cute little babies sitting together. And I'd be like, oh, please.
Hillary [00:07:25] After each visit, Cathy would then have to wait a month to see if she was pregnant. And when she wasn't pregnant, she would go in again. She doesn't remember ever seeing the doctor at the clinic, just the midwife, the woman that Cathy remembers being in charge of everything.
Cathy [00:07:42] My understanding was she was sort of the one who kind of managed this whole insemination process. She would, you know, organize the dates and getting stuff delivered. And I remember one thing someone saying about holding something close to your body to keep it warm, the sperm or something. And I don't know what kind of container it was. I, I don't know. I just kind of blocked all that. I just wanted to have a child and I didn't really wanna know how thewhole that was happening. So it was a lot of highs and lows, hopes and disappointments. It took me about a year and a half, I think, finally to get pregnant. I couldn't believe it when I finally got pregnant and and it was like a perfect pregnancy. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. Very easy.
Hillary [00:08:21] Once she got pregnant a lot, if not all of Cathy's worries went away and she felt like her pregnancy was textbook, perfectly timed out.
Cathy [00:08:30] I felt healthy and wonderful the whole time, so and people were great. I was just so thrilled. My parents, my aunts and uncles, they were like everybody was just no one was negative about it to me. People at school, I don't know if they thought I was married or not. Once I was pregnant, I didn't care. That was it. This is what I wanted my whole life. Now I was having it and I knew that I would be protected legally for my work. And I could see my parents and family be thrilled for me. And accepting I mean, it was much, much better than I thought it was going to be.
Hillary [00:09:07] Even knowing that the donor was going to be anonymous, Cathy remembers asking the midwife for a little bit of information.
Cathy [00:09:15] At one point, somehow, I asked her something about the donor. My memory is that she said he was German, he was a runner. And I think she said he was tall. And I think she said brown eyes. I mean, those are my memories of what she told me. And I think those are what I told Emily. Like, I wanted her to know anything I knew.
Hillary [00:09:33] After getting that little nugget of information, Cathy doesn't remember ever dwelling on all of the possibilities of who this donor could be.
Cathy [00:09:41] Did I wonder a lot about them? I mean, probably occasionally health-wise or, you know, whatever, but I kind of felt like he was screened and that was it. I just didn't want to think about that. You know,
Hillary [00:09:56] Once Cathy was pregnant, she went elsewhere for her prenatal care. And during her prenatal visits, she doesn't remember anyone asking where she got pregnant or how that place kept track of everything. She doesn't even ever remember telling the midwife at the clinic that she got pregnant.
Cathy [00:10:13] That's also weird to me. Like, I think I saw the woman once.
Hillary [00:10:16] The midwife.
Cathy [00:10:17] A couple of years later at a grocery store. And I said something, you know, I had a beautiful little girl. And I think she should have known that, you know, maybe they should have been keeping track. So I don't really know. Maybe we did. And I just blocked that. I don't know how that piece of it.
Hillary [00:10:35] Cathy may have blocked some of it out, but growing up, Emily remembers stories of her mom going to the clinic and how things operated over there.
Emily [00:10:43] I don't know if I placed that in my head or someone else placed this in my head, but that he would, like, donate at home, like into a cup and then, like, put it in a taxi and like, taxi the sperm to the place, which, of course, is impossible. But I really thought that was the case for way too long, that I would be like in my head, like "Gosh that poor taxi driver must have been so weirded out."
Hillary [00:11:06] The other stories were around her donor's appearance and whether the midwife had shared any other information with her mom.
Emily [00:11:13] What I remember of her telling me was that he was athletic, he was a runner. He had blond hair and blue eyes. And I knew that I didn't have a dad growing up like that was very obvious to me.
Hillary [00:11:28] But what was less obvious was why she didn't know her donor.
Emily [00:11:31] Why couldn't I know him?
Hillary [00:11:33] Cathy explained it was to keep Emily safe so he couldn't get custody of her,
Emily [00:11:37] Which then really made it seem kind of scary, like the reason is to keep me safe because he's going to try to take me away? Like that was upsetting to think about as a small child.
Hillary [00:11:46] With adult perspective, Emily knows that Cathy explained the situation in an honest way. The scariness of it all was in Emily's imagination and was part of the story she was creating for herself.
Emily [00:11:57] I, you know, would dream up stories in my head because I was a creative kid and I had a whole lot of adults who loved me and I was an only child. So I got a lot of adult attention. So, you know, I wanted to create drama, I think, in my head and in my life and would dream you know, he you know, he was wanted to pass letters to me, but he can't you know, he's a prince somewhere, always like incredibly wealthy in my dreams. He was famous. He was a prince. You know, something like that was, of course, going to be the case.
Hillary [00:12:25] Nancy recalls meeting Emily when she was five and hearing these fairy tales.
Nancy [00:12:30] She always wanted to meet her dad and she had a back story for it, that she had kind of fantasized that her dad just might be a prince. He always had a very special necklace for her. She's definitely not into, like tons of jewelry now. But when she was five years old, she just loved that back story.
Hillary [00:12:50] Fantasy story aside, young Emily sort of understood what a sperm donor was.
Emily [00:12:55] I had a sense of how babies were made pretty young, in part because once I hit school, I was getting asked by the other kids, you know, where's your dad? What's your dad do? I don't have a dad. You have to have a dad. Everybody has to have a dad.
Cathy [00:13:08] I don't know what it was, but she was very young. We would be like in one of those little clothing toy stores or whatever at two, and kids would walk right up to her and say, Where's your daddy? I'd be like, what? I mean, everybody's here with their mothers in the clothing store. Why are they asking her, you know? You know, I had to kind of really talk to her right away that she didn't have a daddy. She had a diddy. That's the name she called her other mom, my partner at the time.
Hillary [00:13:32] When these bizarre moments were happening at such a young age, Kathy and her partner at the time, Grace, told Emily about the sperm donation. They said she was born in a special way and that she had a donor because they needed sperm for their eggs and so on.
Cathy [00:13:48] I can't remember exactly how we talked about it, but she you know, she was very comfortable with it. And she would tell everybody and she was she would out me more than anybody, I mean, when she was a little kid. But but that was, we thought, really important. We had to make her be comfortable with it so that she couldn't be teased because where they teased him about she's really comfortable with it. So she was more of an advocate than I was so. She was great.
Emily [00:14:10] Around third grade, second, third grade. I knew enough at that point that when kids would ask me, I had been trained, kind of coached at home, that I could answer like, nope, don't have a dad. You have to have a dad. I don't have a dad. I have a sperm donor. So I knew the word and that's what I told kids. And when they would look at me with wide eyes and say, what's a sperm donor? I was not allowed to elaborate. My parents had made that very clear. And I had to say, you have to ask your parents. I'm not allowed to tell you. Big mystery around me. Like, I can't tell you. It's a secret. No. I would just say they have to tell your parents and kids would. And that would kind of be it. And that was it for the most part. And I must have been telling it pretty far and wide because I have also memories of being in fourth grade, around 10 years old, and some kids trying to tease me like, "Ew Emily, do you ever think about, like, how you were made?" And I was like "Yeah my mom went to the doctor. Uh do you think about how you were made?" And that ended that because I win my mom went to the doctor. Done.
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Hillary [00:16:48] From the time Emily was aware of having a sperm donor, she remembers learning about the contract that her mom had signed at the clinic, saying that the donor could not be contacted and that he would remain anonymous.
Emily [00:17:00] And that was just that was the document that they had all signed. And when I was around eight or so, eight or nine, the clinic just contacted us and said that things had changed.
Cathy [00:17:11] We were not supposed to ever know. And so then I got a letter from the clinic saying several moms had gotten together and were asking, was there any way there could be information about who the donors were?
Hillary [00:17:23] Cathy remembers the letter saying that the children of the other moms were asking questions. They were concerned and wanted more information.
Cathy [00:17:31] So there was going to be something where we could all give money. It would go to some lawyer who would then get the information from any donor that was willing to share it or whatever. He would hold on to it until the children were 18 and they could then request themselves for the information if the donor agreed to it, too.
Hillary [00:17:48] Cathy knew it would be important to Emily,
Cathy [00:17:51] So I thought, definitely. I'm in.
Hillary [00:17:51] But then Cathy got another letter saying that it all fell through.
Cathy [00:17:55] But then I think I don't know if it was a call from the clinic or a letter saying that the donor or the donor's, our son, have agreed and were willing to share information. And I guess they were going to hold it without a lawyer. I don't know if someone was going to keep that information, but we no longer had to pay for it. I don't know how that happened. And I said, oh, even better.
Hillary [00:18:20] And as Emily got older, she knew that she wanted to contact her donor.
Emily [00:18:25] I was also very fortunate because both my mom, Cathy and then Nancy, let me decide. They they didn't make it feel like I was hurting them by wanting to. You know, it's such an understandable fear of if your child wants to contact their donor. Is that a reflection on my parenting? Is that a reflection on, you know, what society tells everybody that a two parent household of different genders is the way to do it? And if you don't do it that way, you're doing it wrong.
Hillary [00:18:56] Now, Emily's in middle school, and she knew she still had years to go before she could actually reach out to her donor, and until that day, she fantasized that he would secretly send her clues about who he was.
Emily [00:19:11] And even in thinking that it wasn't like I painted them, my parents as people keeping us apart, it was just for the drama of it. I was a dramatic little kid. And I loved this idea.
Hillary [00:19:20] Emily remembers one of her moms giving her a necklace.
Emily [00:19:24] Like a blue stone pendant necklace. So in my head then, that was actually a necklace he had sent her to give to me. And so I used to pretend that it was a necklace that he had then sent to me.
Hillary [00:19:36] As a preteen, Emily's donor daydreams turned from princes and faraway lands to celebrities, and she would have conversations with her friends about all of these new theories.
Emily [00:19:47] You know, this famous person or what if he's this famous person and then the opposite, you know, and this is, again, middle school 2003 ish. You know, they're like, oh, Emily, what if he's George Bush? And I was like, oh, I don't know.
Hillary [00:19:58] Emily also remembers watching VH1 Behind the Music.
Emily [00:20:02] And then seeing one that was about an artist whose father they didn't really know growing up. He had, like, left her mother and was distant. And then they reformed a relationship when she was an adult. And I was like, oh, well, that's kind of like me. And so I was like, oh, OK. Like, I see myself a little bit reflected in that.
Hillary [00:20:21] And then she would see or read stories about people contacting their birth families after they had been adopted and think...
Emily [00:20:29] OK, that's kind of like me. And so I would just sometimes describe myself as like half adopted, all of which is not true. I just didn't have any real models or people to talk with about it.
Hillary [00:20:39] Growing up, none of Emily's parents' friends had kids and all of her peers had parents who were married when they were conceived. She had nobody else to compare her family's situation to. but that was about to change.
Emily [00:20:52] And it really wasn't until I was 13 and I went to Family Week in Provincetown for the first time.
Hillary [00:20:58] Family Week is the largest gathering of LGBTQ families in the world.
Emily [00:21:03] And I had no idea what to expect going into it. And all of a sudden I went from never having met a single other person who had gay parents to being completely surrounded by them in Provincetown, Mass. And it was amazing.
Cathy [00:21:16] Yeah, I think it was Nancy that found Family Week online and said, you know, we should do this, we should bring her down. We went the first year and it was like, what have we been missing? What has she been missing? It was really for her.
Hillary [00:21:31] Nancy also felt that going to Family Week was mostly for Emily to have a special experience.
Nancy [00:21:37] You know, when I came out and I went to Gay Pride and I saw these thousands of people in the street that were like me, it was such an empowering feeling. It just made things come together for you. You didn't feel so all alone. And I wanted you to experience that.
Hillary [00:21:50] Nancy had watched a program on PBS about Family Week in Provincetown. They interviewed kids who had felt awkward with having friends over because they didn't want to explain their family structure.
Nancy [00:22:01] And then coming back from Family Week and flat out telling everybody your parents were gay and being proud of it. So I really wanted Emily to have that experience.
Hillary [00:22:16] So Cathy, Nancy and Emily head to Family Week. Emily even got to bring a friend from school, an SPK. SPK was a term coined at Family Week that stood for straight parented kid.
Nancy [00:22:31] We remember when we finally got there, we went downtown, it was sign up day, really nothing is going on. You go to town hall and there are just people like this selling some merchandise and you sign up and you get your little sticker that says you're part of Family B. And we walked in and wasn't really that crowded, we were early. And Emily just looked around at all of the posters and the shirts and she's like, oh my God, we're coming here every year.
Emily [00:22:57] So I first want a family week at 13. And I hadn't met anybody else who had gay parents before then.
Cathy [00:23:03] It was nice for the parents too, because the parents got together. You felt like you were part of this whole group. You are not so different. Your families were the same. It was just such a comfortable free, you know, no walls, just relaxed kind of a feeling. And the kids were having a blast and, you know, makes the mom happy when their children are just so excited and so happy. So she was making friends and getting to go out at night. I just felt really safe there.
Emily [00:23:28] One of the first events that used to kick off the week was a parade through town. So I went from not knowing another soul and being like the kid in town who had gay parents to marching through the main street of Provincetown and just getting to the top of a little bit of a hill. And as far as we could see in front of us and as far as we could see behind us was just other queer families.
Cathy [00:23:53] It was just so freeing. And then when they had the parade. Just walking up that street and turning around, looking at like hundreds and hundreds of parents and children all like thrilled and waving banners and banging drums, and it was just it was just so freeing and so accepting. And so you felt like normal, not like, you know, you know, which was just really, really nice. And I could see how much it meant to her and how much it meant to us. I mean, I think all of us just turned around and started crying. You know, it was just it was such an emotional experience. I think that's what it was. It was so emotional.
Emily [00:24:34] And so the three of us were like, step to the side on the sidewalk and just, like, cried together for a little while because it was very overwhelming and then got back into the parade and finished the little parade route there.
Hillary [00:24:46] From that summer onward, Emily and her moms attended family week and in between, Emily stayed in touch with all of her new friends.
Cathy [00:24:54] They had countdown's as each family was driving from D.C. or Philadelphia or wherever they were all phoning each other. Here's where I am. We're almost there. You could just see how much it meant to them. It was like you could never deny her that after that. After she had that.
Emily [00:25:10] I had been proud and out about my family in my little town. My friends knew, our neighbors knew, like teachers knew, everybody knew. And I was happy to talk about it with anybody, but at the same time, like, I felt alone in it. And so all of a sudden I was around other people. I was having conversations that I wasn't able to have with anybody else about the challenges so that, well, I wasn't, you know, ever harassed about it at school. It was weird, you know, something weird about me or it was an interesting fact about me. And you know at Family Week having two moms and, you know, another like really three moms was like I was the least exciting person there, you know? I mean, I got a friend, Avi, who's got, you know, I think four lesbian moms, like four gay dads. And I'm like, well, jeez, I can't compete with that. Like, we're all jealous. Like, Avi's got gay dads and lesbian moms? Like,oh, what a lucky kid.
Hillary [00:26:04] When Emily returned from that First Family week, she was much more comfortable speaking up for herself and for her family.
Emily [00:26:10] Even though I had been loud about it before, I just got louder. And my first year that I went there was 2003. And by 2004, after my second year at Family Week is around the time that in Massachusetts, marriage equality was decided by the courts.
Hillary [00:26:25] And then shortly after marriage equality was challenged by Massachusetts state legislator, they wanted to make a ballot referendum that people could vote for about whether or not to keep it.
Emily [00:26:37] My family was being debated constantly. That's all I heard. It was in the news. It was on the radio. My peers are finally talking about gay people in very ignorant ways, for the most part, other than like my friends who, you know, stood up for my family. I had the tools then to be more vocal. So I talked to my local representative and I told her that I appreciated her, you know, vote for my family and was able to do that.
Hillary [00:27:01] And Emily felt like she was able to do that because of Family Week and the community that she had found there.
Emily [00:27:07] Like that was my introduction to this whole world of building confidence and feeling pride in my identity.
Nancy [00:27:12] One of the things they sell in Provincetown at Family Week Collage is T-shirts that say "Queer Spawn", which Emily just relates to that term so much. She loves it.
Emily [00:27:21] And it was the first time that I heard the term Queer Spawn.
Hillary [00:27:24] Emily learned that this term Queer Spawn was coined by one of the founders of Family Week.
Emily [00:27:30] To have a term of our own for people with LGBTQ parents. And I loved it. I got a T-shirt that said Queer Spawn on it. I remember wearing it to a school dance.
Nancy [00:27:40] So she went to her first junior high dance with a Queer Spawn T-shirt on. And people actually liked it. They wanted to know where she got it.
Emily [00:27:48] And the other kids being like, that's cool. Like, I want a shirt like that. And I was like, you can't have one. It means I have gay parents like that. They all thought it was like a cool band, you know, and I thought I was just awesome.
Hillary [00:27:57] Emily had a term and she had a space within the LGBTQ community.
Emily [00:28:01] I wasn't like just a child of I wasn't I wasn't an ally because this was my family. This was my life. This was the culture I grew up in.
Nancy [00:28:09] You know she found that coming out that empowered her enough to not just be out and hope that nobody's going to give her a hard time. She was just in your face with it. It really it caught on.
Hillary [00:28:28] As Emily's 18th birthday got closer and closer, one of the other really valuable things that she got out of Family Week was finally getting to talk to other teens who had a sperm donor and connecting over what they were thinking about and expecting from a possible relationship with their donor.
Emily [00:28:45] And then really talking about it with other people and we're like, no, I mean, this was a contract. And two adults who knew what they were going into and he couldn't contact me for legal reasons. And so the more I talked about, I was like, oh, that's very true. Like, this is somebody who was doing a kind of thing for someone who wanted to have a child and was just missing that one biological piece that he could provide. And it helped me temper some of my expectations or my hopes for what it could be. So it's not a prince who's just desperately trying to reach me. And instead it was somebody who had done a a really kind thing, a really generous thing to, you know, help people form a family.
Cathy [00:29:22] The best thing I ever did in my life was take the risk of being, you know, ostracized or whatever and having her and going against my, you know, Roman Catholic. I went to parochial school. I went to a Catholic Jesuit College. And to say I can't this is more important than that. And then it turned out so well. I mean, I just feel so lucky, you know.
Hillary [00:29:56] Flash forward and Emily is just about to turn 18 and she could go ahead with contacting her donor.
Emily [00:30:02] The ball was always in my court, which I really appreciated. And also it's not often depicted in films and movies that show donor contacting.
Hillary [00:30:13] Spoiler alert, we'll talk more about the movies that have depicted this type of family structure in a future episode. Emily got all of the paperwork together before her 18th birthday. She wrote a letter, got it notarized and sent it away on her birthday without too many expectations of what might come back.
Emily [00:30:31] My biggest hope is just like, can I know some medical information about you? Like, that's really what I wanted baseline and anything else was just cherry on top like that be great.
Hillary [00:30:41] Of course, Nancy supported Emily's decision, but she really didn't know what to expect.
Nancy [00:30:45] We didn't know if this was going to be just a letter with some medical information and maybe he didn't want to meet directly. Or maybe it's just one quick meeting. But you could tell Emily wanted to be a little more than that. She wanted to get to know this person and have this person maybe not take over her life by any stretch, but it's like to be a part of her life. So it was a lot of anxieties when we were heading towards that.
Hillary [00:31:09] At this point, Nancy had been co parenting Emily for about 13 years.
Nancy [00:31:13] You love your kid and you don't want to see them disappointed. So for her, I'm sure she's going through the same thing, wondering about all of these things. And for me, I'm just hoping that this is a great guy that will actually take some time to get to know Emily and kind to her. It's just not a letter and nothing beyond that.
Hillary [00:31:35] And then a bunch of time passed.
Nancy [00:31:37] It's Christmas Day, and that day the phone rings and it's the doctor from the clinic and he asked to speak to Emily and he read uh the most beautiful letter.
Emily [00:31:50] Yeah, it was so unexpected to find out and get the confirmation that my donor was willing to be contacted and to get that on Christmas Day out of the blue, you know, we got a phone call and of course, we're like, oh, it's Aunt So-and-so. They're late. You know, they're maybe they're running late to come over. Just had no expectation. And when my mom passed me the phone...
Hillary [00:32:08] It was the doctor...
Emily [00:32:09] Just saying that they finally got the confirmation from the donor and he was willing to be contacted.
Hillary [00:32:16] Nancy and Cathy were thrilled for Emily.
Nancy [00:32:20] I get teary thinking about it, it was just like, you know, you don't want to see your kid hurt. It's like it was just beautiful.
Cathy [00:32:27] It was like the best Christmas present she could get.
Hillary [00:32:46] This episode of Rashomon was produced and hosted by me, Hillary Rea. Music in this episode is by Ben Chase and Paul DeFiglia. Theme music is by Ryan Culinane, courtesy of the Free Music Archive. Podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner. A huge thanks to Emily McGranahan for reaching out to this podcast to tell her story and for helping me set up all of the interviews for this series of episodes. I also want to mention that Emily's podcast, Outspoken Voices, is put out by the Family Equality Council. This is the same organization that puts on Family Week every summer. And Emily is also their director of family engagement and works on Family Week as part of her job. You can listen to OutspokenVoices the same way you listen to Rashomon. And speaking of subscribe to us on Apple podcasts or follow us on Spotify or add us to your favorite radio public playlist. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend. I do this with my favorite podcast episodes just by sending the link to it in a text. It's that easy. You can also follow Rashomon on Twitter and Instagram and please consider becoming a member of our Patreon. Depending on your level of membership, you'll get a monthly newsletter, bonus audio and more. All right, that's it. See you in two weeks for the next episode.