Hi Jennifer. My post was really not to argue about this case, but to discuss in a humorous way what I often face as a member of a mixed race family.

That said, I get that you would be furious about the gross negligence on the part of the agency, and would want to put them out of business and/or make sure that this never happened to another family. But here’s the thing. You cannot even begin fathom the daily messages that people of color receive about not being good enough. My children are 4 and 5 and are starting to become aware of how the world sees skin color and what it means. They will only know more as they get older.

One day this little girl is going to realize what it means that her parents don’t look like her (I don’t even care about the fact that they are two women). She will also know (I hope) that they love her to pieces even though she is brown.

Now here’s the catch. A lawsuit says “I was wronged.” Suing says what made my daughter was a mistake for which I was compelled to seek legal indemnification — money– for my suffering. It says “I did not want a black child (but I’m okay with her now).”

That’s pretty heavy stuff for anyone to deal with, especially a child of color from her white parents.

When you are a parent, and you love your kid, you think about how your every action, no matter how subtle, might affect your child now, in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years and into adulthood. Some things that might benefit you, you just don’t get to do. They’re simply off the table. This should be one of them, if only for that. This is not a contractor messing up a backsplash. This is a human being with feelings who will someday know and understand the painful legacy and intricate subtleties of race in America.

And I will say it all day long, with the subjects of race, sex, lesbians, sperm banks, biracial babies and the law they could bring that sperm bank to its knees without a lawsuit.

I thank you for sharing your opinion, as well as your comment.

-Keesha

I have no idea what it like to have biracial children. I don’t know that spotlight, the good or the bad of it. I do, however, know what it is like to desperately long for a baby and consider sperm donation. I do know what it is like to research all of the different agencies. I do know what it is like to browse through the catalog of potential donors. I do know the expense of requesting the background information on the four to five you finally select. I do know the feeling of gripping those papers in your hand until they wrinkle. I do know what it feels like to pray over them and to hope for the very best one that will produce a child that is the perfect fit for your family. I do know what it is like to finally make a selection.

Sperm donation did not work for us, and we eventually got pregnant the old-fashioned way, but I thank God that after everything we went through, including therapy sessions to ensure it was the right thing to do, that we did not get sperm we didn’t select. I don’t think anyone who has not gone through that can understand the emotional toll it takes on you, sadness, frustration, anger, fear, concern, and, most of all, hope. All kinds of hope.

I really hope the sensational headlines and media blow out of this story is not a reflection of what is really in the hearts of these two mothers. I hope they love their little girl as much as I love my two. But if I were in their situation, I would sue too. And it would have zero to do with the fact that the sperm was from a black man or the love I had for my child, and everything to do with what came before that.