Family Vacation

He was retired from the program at 35, after the cryo-bank said he had provided all the sperm it needed from him. But he took the unusual step of giving cryobank officials a letter in which he expressed interest in meeting any of his children. The letter obligated the cryobank to do nothing, he knew. The cryobank refused to contact donors on behalf of any biological children not yet 18. But back in Massachusetts, Raechel McGhee was pondering ways to circumvent the cryobank's policy and, for the sake of her children, track down Donor 929.

McGhee didn't match Rubino's image of the donor-inseminated mother. She was neither married nor involved with a man experiencing a fertility problem, but rather was a 300-pound single woman who had decided in 1997, at age 36, to have a family on her own, finding a sperm donor through the cryobank.

The cryobank's clientele had undergone a dramatic change since the early 1980s, when the vast majority of clients had been married women and their infertile husbands. McGhee was representative of a new wave -- a highly educated, unmarried professional able to afford donor sperm and related insemination costs that would

ultimately cost her about $6,000 for her two children. Single women and lesbian couples, most of whom bought the sperm online and had it shipped to them or to their doctors' offices, were on their way to becoming 60 percent of California Cryobank's sperm-buying clients.

Having been disappointed for years that no slim, attractive men wanted to date her, McGhee could, for the first time in her life, she says, choose from an abundance of fit, intelligent men. "Selecting a donor was empowering," she remembers. "Suddenly I had my pick of these incredible male specimens. I was the one with the power to accept or reject. I loved looking at those donor profiles; I mean, I could have any of these guys."

Eventually, she received the audiotape of Donor 929, whose written profile interested her. She scoured the personal details on his pages: Artist. Blood-type: O-positive. Heavy eyelids. A fondness for classical music, but eclectic enough to enjoy Billie Holiday and Roy Orbison. No interest in sports.

McGhee listened to his tape. Donor 929 referred to the fertility problems that he and his wife had experienced and the disappointment they had weathered together, noting that the accomplishment he was proudest of was his marriage. He sounded so kind and giving. "I'll probably never have a child of my own," McGhee heard him saying. "I feel privileged to help someone do that."

"That was when I began crying," McGhee remembers. "I told myself, 'He's the one.'"

On March 1, 1998, she gave birth to Aaron in New York, where she was a social worker counseling at a group home for children. "Some women in my position wanted nothing to do with a man," McGhee remembers. "That was never me. After I had Aaron, I thought it would be important for a child to develop an important relationship with a male. More than ever, I wanted to meet [the donor]. I just didn't know how I was going to do it, and I had other things on my mind."

Her weight had become a serious medical problem, soaring to 330 pounds during her pregnancy with Leah. Sometimes she had difficulty breathing, leaving her to wonder how she'd possibly be able to handle two young children.

In 2002, a year after Leah was born, McGhee underwent a gastric-bypass operation that would help cut her heft roughly in half. She turned into a workout junkie whose entire life had undergone a makeover. Before the operation, she had become a licensed psychotherapist in Somerset, Mass., building up a practice successful enough for her to buy a house and pay for day care. "I'd become so grateful for everything I had, particularly my family, and I wanted to express my gratitude to the man who'd helped me to do it," she remembers.

McGhee regularly reminded her children about their donor-father, recalling personal characteristics of Donor 929 as if he were an absent loved one. "Do you know your donor lives in California?" she would ask them when a television program mentioned something about the state. She would hold up a drawing and say brightly, "Hey, this is one of your donor's favorite colors: red."