Sammy and Emily never imagined that having a donor dad also meant a possibility of having donor siblings. When they finally get in touch with their sperm donor they learn about each other. And six months after that... they find out about Cara.
Sammy and Emily never imagined that having a donor dad also meant a possibility of having donor siblings. When they finally get in touch with their sperm donor they learn about each other. And six months after that... they find out about Cara.
This is the fourth 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 this episode onward, it is important to listen to them in order to get the full story. Before you listen to this one, listen to:
Sharon and Sammy
Emily, Cathy and Nancy
and
Cara, Susan and Carol Ann
Rashomon is produced and hosted by Hillary Rea
Thank you to Sammy Sass, Emily McGranachan, and Cara Swan.
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
Rashomon is an independent podcast. Become a supporting member of this podcast over on Patreon: https://patreon.com/rashomonpod
Check out our website: https://rashomonpodcast.com
Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram: @rashomonpod
Please share this podcast episode with a friend and/or subscribe to us, rate and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you for listening!
Hillary [00:00:09] You are listening to Rashomon, a podcast where one family tells every side of the same story, and I'm your host, Hillary Rea. And in this season, we have more than one family telling every side of more than one story. And to catch up on the series, make sure you go back, beginning with Sharon and Sammy. Now that you're caught up, this is Sammy, Emily and Cara.
Hillary [00:00:37] In the last episode, we left off with Kara and her moms, Susan and Carol Ann, finding out about her sperm donor and also finding out some other news.
Susan [00:00:46] And he said, would you like to meet your sisters?
Carol Ann [00:00:50] So I got a phone call from Kara. I, you know, just so happened, I answered the phone. She called the house and she said, guess what, mommy, I'm a big sister
Hillary [00:00:59] From his email. Kara learned that she had two sisters, Sammy and Emily. Although Kara was the oldest of the three, she was the third to find out about her donor, both Sammy and Emily got those calls from the clinic that same year on Christmas Day. And though it was unexpected for Emily, this was the perfect day to get this news.
Emily [00:01:24] I think in the end, really great that it was Christmas Day, because then we could talk about it with the grandparents and my aunts and uncles and like everybody kind of got to know all at once because we were just so excited. We were telling everybody who was coming over that day.
Hillary [00:01:36] The clinic gave Emily all of her donor's contact info and then it was up to her to reach out to him.
Emily [00:01:42] I had his address and had his name. And so in January, I wrote to him and then we exchanged letters for a while and then phone calls.
Hillary [00:01:49] Those letters and phone calls turned into emails. And for six months, both Sammy and Emily communicated back and forth with their donor.
Emily [00:01:56] It was really exciting and a wild experience.
Hillary [00:02:00] And this whole time, Emily hadn't thought once about the idea of having donor siblings.
Emily [00:02:05] I think I'd probably thought about him having his own children. But in my head, if he had his own biological children, like they wouldn't want to be in my life, then like then I would be this like, weird family secret that no one would talk about.
Hillary [00:02:16] And maybe it had to do with already having a brother and a sister. But Sammy hadn't thought much about it either
Sammy [00:02:22] in that bizarre. It had never I never thought about the fact that I would have other siblings.
Hillary [00:02:26] And in each of their exchanges with their donor, Sammy didn't learn about Emily and Emily didn't learn about Sammy. Until...
Emily [00:02:35] In June he let me know that someone else had contacted him. Someone else had turned 18 and he gave me her name. And I then immediately went to Facebook.
Sammy [00:02:46] And it was like a lazy, like rainy Sunday morning or something. I think we had a movie on in the background and we were eating breakfast. And then I checked Facebook and I said to my then girlfriend, I was like, Dude, you will not believe the message I just got.
Hillary [00:03:01] So then I looked at it together.
Sammy [00:03:03] I was mostly just like, flabbergasted. I don't even really know how to describe it. It was just wild.
Hillary [00:03:15] Emily said it took her over an hour to find Sammy on Facebook.
Emily [00:03:19] She didn't have her full name on Facebook. So I had to, like, search and guess and really do some Facebook stalking at the time and wrote a message to her when I finally thought, like maybe this was the person and I so I sent this very cryptic Facebook message and was like, Hi.
Sammy [00:03:34] Hey. Do you know a blah, blah, blah name of my sperm donor? And I write her back and I said, Yeah, are you his niece? Because I know he doesn't have any children, but he has a niece. And she said, no, I think we just found out the same information about him. So this is a Facebook message from Emily, and that was our first contact. And basically, I just looked at my computer and was like, holy shit, OK, let's do this thing. And so then Emily and I have this like very 18 year old, like, emoji filled exchange for months. I guess it was only at the end of July, but it felt like such a long time. And we finally make a plan to see each other and we meet for the first time, just the two of us with her moms, I think her grandma and her aunt and then my mom's, I was very excited and nervous and the whole thing.
Sammy [00:04:23] But what I remember most, actually, was that my little sister was away at summer camp and she didn't know that I was going up to see this new sister. So we called my sister on the way up to the North Shore because it was mealtime, a camp. And we could get through on the phone line. And my mom said, don't tell her where we're going. And I hated that idea. And so I told her where we were going on the phone. And again, now with my 29 year old brain, I can understand why my moms were hesitant to say that to my sister out of the blue, in the middle of meal time when she wasn't with her family. But like, she had to know that from me.
Sammy [00:05:10] And then we get there and Emily's Aunt is peering through the curtain of the house, and I remember seeing her face in the window and then going inside you just this, like, kind of raucous excitement. But also, we didn't know each other, you know, like we have no shared people, never done anything together. It's like meeting a total stranger that I just know I'm related to. But like, what does that even mean? Is that important? Like, why does that matter? You know, but it did. We had all this excitement, but no shared anything. So it was this kind of bizarre, like social experiment of meeting somebody under those circumstances. We just couldn't stop talking and looking at each other and seeing how much we looked alike and the moms were like, oh my God, you look like my kid and you look like my kid.
Hillary [00:05:59] And Sammy remembers the feeling of that day as enormous excitement. Everyone took lots of photos together and then they all went out to eat, to spend more time with each other.
Sammy [00:06:09] And we shut down the restaurant because we just can't stop talking.
Hillary [00:06:14] Emily and Sammy stayed in touch, and later that summer, Emily started her first year of college. Sammy was at of college right down the road, and there was even a bus that ran back and forth between them. At school, Emily was meeting all of these new people and...
Emily [00:06:28] I would talk about like my sister, who we're four months apart and like is at a school right there. But I'm also I was raised like, but I'm an only child. It was very confusing to start school. And I think people must think I've got the most bizarre family. And it's I mean, it's not untrue.
Hillary [00:06:44] During that semester, Emily and Sam had a lot of sleepovers.
Sammy [00:06:47] She came over to the like the hippie co-op where I was living. And I remember one day I invited her over for dinner, like dinner was like bread and hummus. She was like, um, is there anything else to eat? But I was like, so had my co-op goggles on. I was like, this is the best place ever. So, you know, we, like, kind of got to know each other.
Emily [00:07:07] It was such a gift then to have a friend who I had a connection to who was going into her second year. So when I would struggle with roommate issues or college is hard, I could go and talk to somebody who was a sophomore. It was such a help. It was an unexpected gift.
Sammy [00:07:23] It was like so exciting. It was like a major, major part of my life for years.
Hillary [00:07:31] So Emily and Sammy are spending a lot of time together that first semester, and when second semester rolls around, they got a joint email from their donor with the subject line:
Sammy [00:07:41] New sibling.
Emily [00:07:43] And so he sent us an email and he said, OK, somebody else has contacted me.
Sammy [00:07:46] But then the the inside of the email said, But I can't give you any information yet until she gives me permission.
Hillary [00:07:54] And meanwhile, Kara is getting an email from him about her sisters.
Kara [00:07:58] Or maybe it was a letter I don't really remember. But either way, he told me about Emily and Sammy.
Hillary [00:08:02] Emily and Sammy went back and forth with their donor and finally he revealed a bit more information about their sister.
Emily [00:08:09] You know, her name is Kara Swan and she goes to this college.
Sammy [00:08:12] But then like two days later or something, we got her contact info. And immediately Emily looked her up on Facebook and Emily and Kara actually went to senior prom with the same boy.
Hillary [00:08:24] Yep. Emily and Cara went to prom with the same guy. Because I spoke to Sammy first. I learned about this first from her, and then I met with Cara and she told me the story and then Emily told me the story. And then all five moms told me the story and everyone's version pretty much lined up with the others. The only perspective I didn't hear was from the prom date himself. But I'm jumping ahead a bit. Let's go back to Emily and Sammy and Facebook. They are both searching around for any signs of Kara on the site.
Emily [00:09:03] I think Sammy might have seen it before me because I remember being in my dorm room and Sammy calling me and she's like, you need to go and check your email right now.
Hillary [00:09:10] Emily remembers getting an email with a link to Kara's Facebook profile. She looks through it and sees that Kara looks more like her than anyone else in her family.
Emily [00:09:19] It's like, oh, my gosh, I actually look like somebody.
Hillary [00:09:21] In addition to the Facebook profile. Emily remembers a photo attached to the email.
Emily [00:09:26] She sent me a photo of Kara at her senior prom. Look, Kara, this person I was just finding out existed went to senior prom with the same guy that I did.
Kara [00:09:37] Yeah. So I had taken Mike to prom my senior year.
Hillary [00:09:42] Kara was dating somebody else at the time, so her and Mike went to the prom as friends.
Kara [00:09:46] He was an amazing prom date. You want to dance the whole time he went with me, you know, to an after party. And the next year they met at a theater competition that was held at my high school. And then they dated for a few months and went to Emily's senior prom together. So, yes, we had the same senior prom date a year apart.
Emily [00:10:09] I had my senior year of high school. I had met a guy from this other town.
Hillary [00:10:13] They met at a theater competition. So Emily's parents were there.
Emily [00:10:17] So I was like, oh, yeah, those are my mom's just going to get that out there right away before we even started dating, you know, just meeting this person. And he had said like, oh, yeah, like I took the girl in town with two moms to prom last year. And I was like, oh, yeah, like what if we're related. And it turns out he had taken my sister to prom the year before me. He was a year behind her in school and they had been like theater friends. So they went and then we had we were dating and he went to my senior prom. And Kara and I are wearing like similar dresses, similar colors, like it is the weirdest photo. He's probably still wearing the same oversize rented suit. You know, it was just it was just wild. We kind of joke like, oh, he's got a type. And he never made the connection either, which likely you look at the photos and you're like, come on.
Sammy [00:11:05] That dude definitely has a type. They look the same. They have lesbian moms and they're like they're like have a lot of things in common.
Emily [00:11:12] So then of course one of Sammy's friends went and photoshopped him on her senior prom photo for her date. So we all had him as a date for senior prom. We all got the photos now.
Sammy [00:11:19] Yeah. Yeah. So then within an hour, my friend had set up like Emily's picture with the boy, Kara's picture with the boy, and then my picture with that boy's face superimposed on my date's face.
Kara [00:11:32] Sammy really loves that story. And she probably told you that she put her face over someone else's. So there are three pictures, one for each of us taking Mike to prom one of them is fake. Two of them are real.
Hillary [00:11:49] It turned out that Emily and Kara lived 15 minutes away from each other and had on occasion been in the same room.
Emily [00:11:56] We both went to, like the YMCA or the YWCA, like Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, you know, like something like that. So we had gone to some different things and like been in the same room together and had no idea.
Hillary [00:12:18] So Emily and Sammy find Kara on Facebook and learn about the prom and finally connect with her once they get her full contact info from their donor.
Emily [00:12:27] We got her name and we found her information. We contacted her then immediately because we have no chill and we were just too excited.
Hillary [00:12:33] And this all happened right around everyone's spring break.
Kara [00:12:36] It happened that I was going out to visit a friend of mine at UMass Amherst,
Hillary [00:12:41] And both Emily and Sammy's schools were nearby.
Kara [00:12:44] So we went to dinner.
Emily [00:12:46] So I picked up Sammy. We drove to a Bertucci's and we met Kara for dinner at the time. Again, just like placing this right in time.
Hillary [00:12:54] This was before cell phones could film things. So Emily had a flip camera.
Emily [00:12:58] We were taking photos of ourselves going and were like, We're going to go meet Kara Swan like we'll meet Kara Swan, like we're really making up songs. We were just like beside ourselves. So poor Kara had no idea what she was getting into. So we just kind of came like barreling in and we're like, so excited. And yeah, I mean, there's photos of us all like laughing. And it's just wild to see the photos because we look so much alike.
Hillary [00:13:18] Emily and Kara looked the most alike, and Emily's mom, Nancy, even told me that Facebook facial recognition often gets them confused and photos. But before they even knew about Kara, Sammy noticed that there were striking ways that she was similar to Emily,
Sammy [00:13:37] Like the way that she would hold her chin with her hands and the way that she would, like, fold her hands when she was talking. And it's like I've never seen anybody else do that before. And it was like seeing things about myself that I hadn't even really articulated were true about myself. But then I was watching somebody else do it so I could see it about myself for the first time too.
Hillary [00:14:01] Sammy and Emily meet Kara at Bertucci's, and they spend all night there talking.
Emily [00:14:06] We were taking forever than to so we felt bad for a waitress and the waitress kept being like, do you guys want more. And we were like no just more water. Because we're just, like, never going to leave. You just were talking so much. And then eventually we explained we're like, we're so sorry. We're actually half sisters and we're meeting for the first time. And she was like, this never happens to me. It's like Oprah! Take all the time you want. Do you need more water, like, what do you need? So the waitress was then totally on our side because she was totally fine with it.
Hillary [00:14:33] And after the first meeting with the three of them, Emily remembers that it didn't take long for her family and Sammy's family to meet Kara and her moms.
Kara [00:14:41] When you have siblings that you grow up with. I mean, I don't know what that experience was like. And I know that was very different from the experience that I've had. But I do you know, since we've become adults, having siblings has been probably the greatest gift that I could have.
Hillary [00:15:03] And so Emily, Sammy and Kara's family stay in touch. And about a year and a half later, Emily gets a call from her donor saying that...
Emily [00:15:10] Somebody else had contacted him. They were twins.
Hillary [00:15:19] And who are these twins? You'll find out in the next episode.
[00:15:39] Rashomon is produced by me, Hilary Rea. Music in this episode is by Ben Chase and Paul Defiglia. Theme music is by Ryan Cullinane, courtesy of the Free Music Archive. Podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner. We have a few more episodes for you this season and the best way to support the show is by joining our Patreon. When you join, you'll get a monthly newsletter and then depending on your level of support, you'll get bonus audio and more if you are enjoying the season. Please share it with a friend or give us a five star rating on the Apple podcast app and make sure you subscribe, follow, get notifications for the show on whatever podcast platform you're using. This is the best way to find out when the next episode comes out. All right, that's it. Thanks for listening and see you in two weeks.