In search of donor 1058

Listen to Dave’s Commentary: In search of donor 1058

Wendy Kramer knew that her son didn’t get his talent from her.

“People would hear about him and his achievements or whatever and then they would look at me and say ‘Oh, so his father’s really smart.’

It turns out his father is really smart, but it took Wendy and her son awhile to find that out because Ryan’s biological dad was a sperm donor chosen on his vague resemblance to Wendy’s now ex-husband. All she had was his donor number.

“My son’s donor number is 1058.”

She and her son set up the Donor Sibling Registry. For about 11 years now the website has invited the offspring of sperm donor’s number so they could be linked to their half siblings, which is how Ryan found out about his other family.

“My son probably has 20 or 30 out there. He knows of six half sisters so far and he’s met three of those half sisters.”

The site can also help sperm donors meet their offspring if they chose and Ryan did indeed get to meet his biological father and discovered that number 1058 had a graduate degree in engineering.

And remember Wendy saying her son was quite an accomplished young man?

“He was very accelerated in school, he graduated as an aerospace engineer at 18, got his master’s at 19.

He now works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. So yes, prospective parents you can raise an accomplished child with lots of hugs and third grade soccer trophies no doubt, but you might also want to keep in mind the option of donor number 1058.