{"id":323195,"date":"2024-12-17T14:50:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=323195"},"modified":"2024-12-16T21:35:51","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T03:35:51","slug":"woman-learns-donor-conceived-shamed-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/woman-learns-donor-conceived-shamed-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman shamed for asking questions after learning she was donor-conceived"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After learning she \u2014 and her triplet brother and sister \u2014 were conceived using an egg donor, Natalie Albaran’s world abruptly changed. But eventually, when she began to ask questions of the mother who had raised her, she was kicked out of her home.<\/p>\n

In a personal essay<\/a> for Cosmopolitan, Albaran defends the practice of IVF and egg donation, arguing that biology doesn’t make a family. Yet, she admits that the situation “tore our family apart.” Just after graduating high school, she learned her parents had used an egg donor after their first child was born with a “life-threatening disability” that any other children they had could also inherit. She also learned that her mother’s best friend<\/em> was actually her biological mother<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“My life felt like a soap opera”<\/strong><\/p>\n

“In an instant, our older sister became our half sister. My mother’s best friend, a woman I’d considered an aunt, was now my biological mum and her children were my half siblings. I wasn’t 100 percent Filipino, as I’d always believed. I was half white,” she said.<\/p>\n

“My life felt like a soap opera. For two months, I stared at my ceiling. I didn’t brush my teeth. I barely ate. I just wanted answers.”<\/p>\n

She asked the mother who raised her why she waited so long to tell them that she was not their biological mother, but none of her mother’s answers were “satisfying.”<\/p>\n

“The more questions I asked my mum about her\u00a0fertility treatment<\/a>, the tenser our relationship became. She accused me of being overly dramatic. We started arguing. She told me I wasn\u2019t getting over the news fast enough,” said Albaran.<\/p>\n