My mom, my half-brother, and my “dad.”

When I was 13 my parents were fighting a lot because they’re married. One night, my mom went out and my dad just emotionally diarrhoea’d all over the place. He confessed to me and my brother about his secret ex-wife, his testicular cancer, and the fact that he isn’t our biological father. He said that because of having cancer he was infertile, and as a result they chose to conceive us through an anonymous sperm donation. He was so fragile and vulnerable–it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.

When my mom came home that night, she had no idea this complete shit storm had happened. It was fucked. I just started bombarding her with questions from the time she walked in the door to this very day. “Am I white? Will I get Alzheimer’s? What is sperm?” Even though she was bummed about not being there for the reveal, she just puts on a smile and tries to answer as much as possible. Of course, there’s not much she can fully answer. The most she can talk about is the procedure really, but I’ll take what I can get.

The following is an interview with Beverly, the woman behind the cup of semen, on wanting babies, keeping secrets, and buying jizz.

Vice: How did you first hear about artificial insemination?
Beverly: When I found out that your father was sterile, my first reaction was “shit.” I thought, “I can’t go through life without kids.” That was my main thing. I had to have a child. I wanted to experience the whole thing. I didn’t know what to do. So I started looking into it, talking to the doctor and that kind of thing. And I found out about insemination. And they were talking about mixing the sperm–Dad’s with the donor’s–to heighten the sperm count. That way you wouldn’t know whose child it was. But in our case there was just no hope for that.

Did any of this interfere with your relationship with Dad?
No, not at all, we had dated for two and a half years, and then we decided, “OK, time to start a family now.” Right after the wedding I started taking my temperature every morning and I would go to the doctor twice a month. They took all of Dad’s characteristics: six feet tall, blue eyes, blonde hair, his weight, his nationality, and then they matched up a donor. And we were told that we would be able to have the same donor [for siblings]. It was kind of devastating that it didn’t happen that way.

Right, in the 80s the process was different. I was conceived from an ice cube, but my brother was fresh. Fressshhh. Someone was jerking off in the room beside you. So, do you prefer it hot or cold?
It didn’t make any difference to me! I didn’t see the person, I didn’t see what was in the straws.
Were you ever paranoid about it, or were you just excited?
I dreamed about it. I definitely thought about it a lot, because you don’t know what’s on the other end. But I wanted a child. I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to feel a baby growing in my belly. I wanted to feel it kicking.

Don’t you think that’s selfish?
Yeah.

Good answer. Now women are selecting sperm in the hopes of perfection in things like attractiveness and intelligence.
Kind of like Nazis. These women have to remember that they’re human too. Is there really a perfect person? Plus, there are a lot of dumbasses who go to university and come out with degrees.

Touché, Mom. Did you have the option of choosing an anonymous or non-anonymous donor?
No, they picked it out for us, we weren’t supposed to know. Did I want to know who it was? I didn’t care. I would’ve liked to have seen a picture, but it was never an option. I think about how a lot of people just want to have children to carry on their bloodline. But think about this, when you donate blood you’re helping someone to live. When someone is donating sperm, they’re helping someone with a dream. That’s all it is. It’s helping somebody fulfill a need.

Did you ever feel like it was an interference with nature?
When I had your brother and he turned out to have cerebral palsy, my gut reaction was that it was nature’s way of saying, “Don’t mess with mother nature.” Did I feel guilty afterward? And selfish? Yeah, I did. I felt like your brother’s disability was all my fault because it was my choice. When you came along I was terrified to bring you home from the hospital. But you know, eventually I got it, I knew it wasn’t mistake.
How much do you think you spent?
Oh, it wasn’t that much. I think for you brother it might have been three hundred dollars. You cost me a thousand bucks.

Inflation?
Well, it was just different because they now had to fly down and pick it up and order it. And because of AIDS and everything they had to go through, they didn’t have a lot of sperm donor clinics here in Canada where they froze it.

Once when my mom was drunk I asked her to make a hypothetical rendering of my biological father.

Do you have any advice for women going through with this procedure? Or couples?
Just if you want a family, look at all your options and keep an open mind. I remember Aunt Barb was with me because–I don’t know why–Dad couldn’t for some reason, so Aunt Barb came with me. And afterward, she made me sit in the back seat of the car with my legs open. I said “I’m not doing this!” she said, “Yes, you have to lay in the back seat. Put your legs up in the air.” And I was like “whatever,” so I lay down in the back seat and let her drive. We went to… I don’t even remember these people’s names, but we stopped off at their place on the way back and they had a cow farm. And Aunt Barb starts going on and on saying WHERE we’ve been and everything and I’m thinking, “shut up.” And the lady’s going “Oh yeah, that’s just like what we do with the cows, we just” [shooting motion]. So… that was humiliating

Did the hospital try to prepare you for telling us how we were conceived?
They asked us “will you tell your children?” “will your children know?” It was our choice. They said that they had some people who said that they would never tell their children. Everyone has their own opinion, their own way of dealing with things. I had always said that our children will know. Just because I felt that too many other people knew. And eventually you would know, somebody would slip up or whatever.

My friends who are adopted have always known because their parents have always told them.
How do you tell a small child “I was artificially inseminated for you.” You don’t tell a small child that. My plan was, when you started to learn about sex education in school, to sit you down and say, “Listen, babies are conceived in a lot of different ways. Sometimes people need help.” As you grew and started to asked questions, they would have been answered. However your father decided that he didn’t want you to know. “It would kill them,” he used to say. He thought it would just devastate you to find out that he wasn’t your biological father. I said “YOU are their father. However you want to see it, YOU are their father.” The way it came out was just totally wrong. I was really pissed. He had no right to do that.

That’s what secrets do though. Have any advice about that?
Yeah, don’t keep any. I tried not to hide anything. I wanted the questions to be asked. I wanted to be able to say things to you.

You told me you bought a book explaining it all. Was it like a children’s book?
Yes! Well no, it wasn’t a children’s book. And I always left it out, in the bookshelf, for you to see. It was just about different ways of conception. I purposely left it out in your books. It was always on the shelf. Second shelf from the bottom, that’s where it was. The right side.

Too late, Mom. Toooo late.

KARA CRABB