The Doctor | Chapter 3

Summary

Inconceivable Truth: Episode 3 - "The Doctor"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Inconceivable Truth
• Host/Author: Matt Katz (audiochuck)
• Description: Investigative reporter Matt Katz has been searching for his biological father since childhood. In his 40s, Matt discovers he may have been on the wrong path, uncovering a complex web of confusion and secrecy that challenges his understanding of identity, fatherhood, and family.
• Episode: The Doctor | Chapter 3
• Release Date: April 11, 2024
• Notable Praise: “One of those rare stories in which a deeply personal narrative collides with a hidden history. I count it among my favorites of all time.” – Vogue, The Best Podcasts of 2024

---

1. Introduction to the Revelation

The episode opens with Matt Katz embarking on a deeply personal conversation with his mother, Deborah, revealing pivotal information about his conception. This marks a turning point in his lifelong quest to uncover his biological roots.

Matt Katz [02:34]:
"I'm just gonna record on my phone. I will preface by saying that, like, I love you very much for being my mom, obviously... I'm just trying to figure out... where I kind of came from."

2. Unveiling the Hidden Past

Matt confronts his mother regarding newfound revelations about his biological origins. The discussion uncovers that Deborah had undergone fertility treatments in 1977, during which practices were less regulated and more secretive.

Deborah [05:04]:
"The doctor used a medical instrument to inseminate her with a vial of Warren sperm to get the sperm closer to the uterus as a treatment for infertility. But in reality, that's not what happened."

3. Questioning Paternity

As the conversation deepens, Matt begins to doubt the longstanding belief that Warren is his biological father. This skepticism is fueled by the absence of physical resemblances and discrepancies in ethnic backgrounds.

Matt Katz [07:06]:
"This guy who caused so much emotional angst was just a fucking stranger to me. I didn't look like him."

Warren [08:03]:
"You have no qualities of him."

4. Exploring Fertility Practices of the 70s

Delving into historical fertility treatments, Matt and Deborah uncover that during the 1970s, sperm donors were often medical students or residents, with procedures lacking transparency and strict regulations.

Deborah [09:40]:
"Doctors never expected the resulting children to ever know the identity of their fathers. They advised that children never be told that a donor was involved in creating them."

5. The Search for Dr. Dubrovnir

Determined to find answers, Matt and Deborah trace their steps to Dr. Charles de Brovner, the OB-GYN who oversaw Deborah's fertility treatments. Their investigation reveals unsettling practices of anonymous sperm donation.

Matt Katz [22:30]:
"I found mention of Dr. Dubrovnir in an online registry for donor-conceived people... he donated from 1981 to 1983."

6. Confronting the Source of Secrecy

Through persistent effort, Matt and Deborah manage to contact Dr. Dubrovnir. In a candid interview, the doctor admits to mixing sperm and maintaining strict anonymity, prioritizing the perceived needs of the donors and recipients over the children conceived.

Dr. Dubrovnir [33:13]:
"The donors were students that I had taught, medical students or more often residents in OB GYN..."

Deborah [35:08]:
"It was strange to hear him talk about this extraordinary power that he had, choosing a new human being's genes..."

7. Ethical Implications and Emotional Turmoil

The revelation that Matt was likely not Warren's biological son forces him to grapple with complex emotions regarding identity, belonging, and the ethics of medical practices from the past.

Matt Katz [15:39]:
"Knowing a name would satisfy me. I'm gonna never figure out who he is."

Warren [15:19]:
"You have to decide what makes a father. Not just the sperm, obviously."

8. Reaching Out to Half-Siblings

In an effort to piece together the fragmented puzzle of his origins, Matt collaborates with his newly discovered half-sister, Helena, and reaches out to another half-sister, Tara, who may hold the key to identifying their biological father.

Deborah [21:26]:
"I was so relieved to get this off my chest... but my mom dropped something that night. A clue, a name."

9. The Path Forward

Despite the emotional weight and uncertainty, Matt remains resolute in his pursuit of the truth. The episode concludes with a commitment to continue the search, fueled by the hope of finally understanding his true heritage.

Matt Katz [20:37]:
"I gotta find it out. I may never find out who he is, right?"

Deborah [47:24]:
"So let the search begin for Irish men who would have been in medical school in the 70s, living in New York, and maybe now recently retired gynecologists."

Key Takeaways and Reflections

• Historical Medical Practices: The episode sheds light on the clandestine nature of fertility treatments in the 1970s, highlighting ethical lapses and the long-term repercussions on donor-conceived individuals.

• Impact on Identity: Matt’s journey underscores the profound effect that uncovering biological truths can have on one's sense of self and relationships within the family.

• Technological Advancements: The role of modern DNA testing services like Ancestry.com and 23andMe emerges as pivotal tools in unraveling hidden familial connections that were previously inaccessible.

• Ethical Considerations: The episode prompts listeners to contemplate the responsibilities of medical professionals in ensuring transparency and the well-being of all parties involved, especially the children conceived through such methods.

Notable Quotes

• Matt Katz [08:14]:
  "I play poker and I like. I smoked cigarettes in college... But I don't look like him."

• Deborah [12:49]:
  "Was it even possible that a doctor could inseminate her with a stranger's sperm without telling her?"

• Dr. Dubrovnir [38:49]:
  "But it's a fair number considering... 30 years of doing inseminations."

• Matt Katz [37:36]:
  "But I hate the fact that the baby was never taken into account... the child who would one day want to know the truth about where they came from."

Conclusion

"The Doctor" serves as a compelling chapter in Matt Katz's ongoing investigation into his biological origins. By confronting his family's concealed history and engaging with the very source of his conception, Matt navigates a labyrinth of emotional and ethical complexities. This episode not only advances his personal journey but also invites listeners to reflect on broader societal and medical practices that impact the fundamental aspects of identity and family.

Transcript

[Ad]

Hey, y'all, it's your girl Ad. You may know me from Love is Blind, but if you think what you saw on the screen was the whole story. Yeah, think again. Because on my podcast, what's the reality? I'm breaking everything down from love. I love love and I love my man. Relationships. What advice would you give to women or just people in toxic relationships? Stop romanticizing red flags. Say that one more time. Pop culture. And what really goes down when the cameras stop rolling and you already know. I'm not holding back. Do you feel like you wanna tell us what actually happened that night? I'm done protecting where it's sacrificing me. Girl wanted to jump through that TV screen.

[Matt Katz]

Same.

[Ad]

I watched that back and I was.

[Helena]

My jaw was on the floor. I was like, they did me so.

[Ad]

Dirty with that edit. So into the group, chat with me Every Wednesday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Y'all, let's spill this tea together. See you there.

[Richard]

How do you make an Airbnb a vrbo. Picture a vacation rental with a host.

[Deborah]

Who'S showing you every room like you've never seen a house before. Now get rid of them.

[Ad]

There you go.

[Deborah]

No host ever.

[Richard]

Now it's a vrbo.

[Deborah]

Make it a vrbo.

[Warren]

Just in and so good. Thousands of spring finds up to 70%.

[Richard]

Off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now.

[Warren]

And that means thousands of fresh reasons to rack.

[Deborah]

How did I not know Rack has Adidas?

[Richard]

Why do we rack for the hottest deals?

[Warren]

Save on madewell, Vince, Kate Spade, New York, Sam Medelman, Joe's and more. Great brands, great prices.

[Deborah]

That's why you rack worried about what.

[Helena]

Ingredients are hiding in your groceries. Let us take the guesswork out. We're Thrive Market, the online grocery store with the highest quality standards in the industry. We restrict 1,000 plus ingredients, so you can trust that you'll only find the best high quality, organic and sustainable brands. All free of the junk, with savings up to 30% off and fast, carbon neutral shipping. You get top trusted groceries at your door and you can stop worrying about what your kids get their hands on. Start [e-mail] podcast for 30% off your first order and a free gift.

[Deborah]

This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

[Matt Katz]

I'm just gonna record on my phone. I will preface by saying that, like, I love you very much for being my mom, obviously, and in, you know, in reality. And then just going above and beyond my mom for the last 40 years and two months. And I have a couple questions and there's no judgment whatsoever. And my, like, search for my ancestry is not about like replacing you or dad at all. I'm just like trying to figure out like, you know, where I kind of came from.

[Warren]

Okay.

[Deborah]

My parents were staying over in our guest room Thanksgiving weekend 2018, and as my mom was going to the bathroom to brush her teeth before bed, I asked if I could talk to her downstairs, away from my dad, Richard and my wife and my kids. Everyone. I needed to figure out how I could possibly have two half sisters, how I was half Irish, and how all of that was connected to what my new half sister Helena had just told me. That she was conceived via sperm donor. That our father, she said, was a sperm donor. My mother had to have some answers. I mean, she was there at the time of conception, after all. She was definitely my mom. The Ancestry.com test we had both taken had proven that. But she didn't know I had taken a second DNA test and that I had connected with Helena and that I had been spending nights messaging distant cousins and digging through decades old medical journals trying to understand how I even existed at all. We sat side by side on the couch, our knees touching.

[Matt Katz]

So this is my question for you. Did you and Warren get any fertility help.

[Deborah]

From Waveland and Rococo Punch? This is inconceivable truth. I'm Matt Katz. Episode 3 the Doctor With a home.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Equity investment from HomeTab you get access.

[Deborah]

To your home equity in cash without monthly payments to use for whatever you'd like, from paying off debt to making.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Renovations to or handling emergency expenses.

[Deborah]

Receive your funds in just a few weeks, start pursuing your financial goals and.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Start getting more out of life.

[Deborah]

See if you pre qualify for an [e-mail] subject to eligibility, terms and conditions apply.

[Helena]

That's hometap.com worried about what ingredients are hiding in your groceries. Let us take the guesswork out. We're Thrive Market, the online grocery store with the highest quality standards in the industry. We restrict 1000 plus ingredients so you can trust that you'll only find the best high quality organic and sustainable brands all free of the junk with savings up to 30% off and fast carbon neutral shipping. You get top trusted groceries at your door and you can stop worrying about what your kids get their hands on. Start [e-mail] podcast for 30% off your first order and a free gift.

[Matt Katz]

So this is my question for you. Did you and Warren get any fertility help?

[Warren]

Yeah, we did. We had trouble. I had to have what was. My ovaries were blocked I had to open up my ovaries. And.

[Matt Katz]

Is it possible there was a sperm donor?

[Warren]

Not to my knowledge. But that. I can even tell you the name of the doctor. I don't think he's alive anymore. But, yes, we had trouble. I had to have what was. My ovaries were blocked where they had a. Open up my ovaries.

[Matt Katz]

And.

[Warren]

It is possible it was Warren's sperm, as far as I know. And we.

[Matt Katz]

It was you inseminated?

[Warren]

Sounds kind of strange. Not to my knowledge. I mean, we had sex and. And. But we. You know, we had a. We had trouble becoming pregnant. Let's put it that way.

[Matt Katz]

I don't think. I don't think it's my father.

[Warren]

Holy shit. If that's the case, I honestly. I believe you have no clue. Oh, my God.

[Matt Katz]

Oh, my God.

[Deborah]

My mom's memory was that a doctor used a medical instrument to inseminate her with a vial of Warren sperm to get the sperm closer to the uterus as a treatment for infertility. But in reality, that's not what happened. Because Warren, this man I always knew to be my biological father, who had floated in and out of the shadows of my life for so long, he was not Irish. He was not Helena's father. This was not his sperm. So that seemed to mean he's not my father and never was.

[Matt Katz]

This guy who caused, like, so much emotional kind of angst was a fucking stranger to me. I didn't look like him. Right.

[Warren]

You have no qualities of him.

[Matt Katz]

Other than. I just always thought maybe, you know, I'm, like, a little shadier than you are.

[Deborah]

Right.

[Matt Katz]

Like, I play poker and I like.

[Warren]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Katz]

Like, I smoked cigarettes in college and I like.

[Deborah]

You know.

[Matt Katz]

But I don't. But so maybe that.

[Deborah]

That was.

[Matt Katz]

Did you ever wonder why I didn't look like him?

[Warren]

No.

[Matt Katz]

Did you ever suspect. No.

[Warren]

No, I didn't, because. No. Never did.

[Matt Katz]

So. Do you think he ever suspected that he was your father?

[Warren]

No.

[Matt Katz]

He was just a deadbeat.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Yeah.

[Matt Katz]

And he's not my father, but. And he's not my father.

[Warren]

He acted that way no matter what. In other words, I believe he. We believe that he was your biological father.

[Matt Katz]

I know.

[Warren]

So he.

[Matt Katz]

He was infertile.

[Warren]

Mom.

[Matt Katz]

That's why you couldn't get pregnant. He was sterile. Sterile would be the right word.

[Deborah]

Sterile and fertile. Either word works, actually. But it was clear I'd been doing my research in the weeks since I made contact with Helena, learning about how infertility was addressed through donor conception. Back in the 70s, when we were born. Sperm banks were not a big thing at the time. This all happened in doctor's offices. There were no regulations, no transparency, and total anonymity between sperm donors and receivers. Most doctors didn't even keep records. I'd already found evidence of some shady, medically dubious practices that might have explained why my mother thought she was being inseminated with Warren's sperm.

[Matt Katz]

Do you want more information?

[Warren]

Yeah, no, I do. I want to.

[Deborah]

So that what they would do often.

[Matt Katz]

Then is mix the father's sperm with other sperm.

[Warren]

Really?

[Matt Katz]

Yes.

[Warren]

This is like, without my knowledge.

[Deborah]

You know, there's been.

[Matt Katz]

With the mother's knowledge, generally, I believe there's also cases where mother was not clear about it. There's also times when doctors talk in, like, medical ways. I can just imagine.

[Warren]

Absolutely. I was very emotional.

[Matt Katz]

How. Yeah.

[Deborah]

The condition you're in.

[Matt Katz]

So that I know that they. Historically speaking, now I know this woman, Helena, whose picture I'll show you, who's also 40, just turned 41. The other sister was also 40. She's two weeks old.

[Warren]

That's kind of weird. Why would it be the same? Why would it.

[Matt Katz]

Because what they would often do is the medical. Medical student in the. In the practice or a residence would just use his sperm and they would often mix with the father's sperm.

[Warren]

Mix with that I've never heard of. I know that, you know, I've no sperm donors, but I never heard.

[Matt Katz]

This was like in the days before sperm banks, and it was just kind of. They were doing what they were doing and trying to get women pregnant.

[Warren]

This makes a lot of sense.

[Matt Katz]

Oh, my God.

[Deborah]

This mixing thing. I learned that doctors would sometimes mix the husband's sperm, which the doctor would have known didn't work very well, with the sperm of a donor. They did it this way because they worried that a husband might not view a child of a sperm donor as belonging to him, might leave the mother after the child was born. Mixing created enough uncertainty that he could believe he could be the biological father. Doctors came up with more ways to amp up this idea. They'd tell parents that this donor semen would just boost the father's semen or treat it, help it work, even though that made no sense even back then. But it did help to convince the couple, these hopeful parents, that they might have their own 100% biological child, even if that wasn't necessarily true. Doctors even told couples to go home after the procedure and have sex right away, which cemented this idea that it was the father's sperm at work, not the donors. I told my mom all of this. I also explained how I'd found my half sister, Helena, who told me what she knew. And I had started to do all of this research to figure out who my actual father is or was.

[Matt Katz]

So this is what I know about my family. Right?

[Warren]

Right.

[Matt Katz]

Irish family was called Lynch. Last name is Lynch. They're from the county. County Cook.

[Deborah]

Actually, it's County Cork. Give me a break. I just turned Irish. My mom had a bunch of questions. For one, was it even possible that a doctor could inseminate her with a stranger's sperm without telling her now?

[Matt Katz]

Yeah.

[Warren]

Was that legal?

[Matt Katz]

So this was like in the. The way I've been able to understand it. This is like the. In the beginning of new science. Right. There's not like rules or ethics to it yet. So I've been doing a lot of research and there's websites where you can try to track down your siblings. Because, Mom, I could have fucking dozens of siblings. Seriously.

[Warren]

I never wanted you to be an only child. Oh God.

[Deborah]

I showed her pictures of my new half sisters.

[Warren]

Oh God. She looks more Irish than you do.

[Matt Katz]

She does.

[Warren]

She doesn't have your nose. This opens up so many cans of this.

[Matt Katz]

This is why it opens up so many cans of worms.

[Warren]

But it also will never satisfy you to find out who your biological father is.

[Matt Katz]

I might. Unless I find him.

[Warren]

Unless you find him.

[Matt Katz]

I mean, if he's alive.

[Warren]

Are you okay? It's like.

[Matt Katz]

Yeah, I'm okay. It's when I. And. Yeah. Why? No, I was just like nervous about talking to you about it. I just didn't know. I mean, cuz if you like. I didn't know if you like maybe had a thought all these years and like, didn't.

[Warren]

No, never had a thought.

[Matt Katz]

And I didn't want to like, force.

[Warren]

You to begin with. How that ever happened is beyond me.

[Matt Katz]

But I just didn't want you to make you, like, you know. That's what I was nervous about.

[Warren]

No, no.

[Matt Katz]

Like, if you had not. Yeah. Told me, for whatever reason. Which I would have understood. I just didn't.

[Warren]

No. I had no knowledge. No. None whatsoever. I would have told you. I would have told dad.

[Matt Katz]

No, what's weird is like the sense of not knowing where my father is is so familiar from Warren. You know what I mean? From all those years where I didn't know where he was.

[Warren]

Right, right.

[Matt Katz]

And the curiosity about him is so familiar. But now it's like I'm just reliving a different version of the story. You know what I Mean, it's really weird, but in like both cases, they're absent fathers for wildly different circumstances. And then it's just the fucking DNA, man. That we.

[Warren]

I mean, who had no clue. Just think ahead. What happens if you do find him and then you a. He wants nothing to do with you.

[Matt Katz]

Yeah, it's possible. Well, I'd be familiar with that.

[Warren]

Exactly. Exactly. Which would be a real blunt. Or he turns out to be not who you had hoped him to be.

[Matt Katz]

I mean, look, I feel like the fact that I have. I mean, this one sister hasn't gotten back to me, but the other sister, I don't know if I'll have a relationship with her. But I mean, I also that we're friends on Facebook now. Like, so I think I got something positive out of it. Out of it. Regardless of how he handles it.

[Warren]

Yeah. Could be married and have his own.

[Matt Katz]

Yeah.

[Deborah]

And want.

[Matt Katz]

And not want anything to do with.

[Warren]

You even never told anybody. You know. Oh, God. But I did not know it wasn't his sperm. That's for sure. Did not know. I can't believe. Right.

[Deborah]

I love you.

[Warren]

I love you too, baby.

[Matt Katz]

This might get even more interesting.

[Warren]

I just don't want you to feel any more rejection or.

[Deborah]

No, I'm not.

[Matt Katz]

No, it's okay. I. I don't think I will. Even if he doesn't, like, want to. I mean, knowing a name would be Satisfy me. I mean, I'm gonna never figure out who he is.

[Warren]

Right.

[Matt Katz]

It's totally possible.

[Warren]

You know, and you have to decide what. What makes a father. Not the. Not just the sperm, obviously.

[Matt Katz]

Sure. But it is. It's just about how I came into the world. Like, it's a fundamental question that I kind of want to answer to some degree.

[Warren]

Oh, all right. I'll give you a hug.

[Deborah]

My mom and I went upstairs to the guest room where my dad, the dad who raised me and adopted me, Richard, was reading in bed.

[Matt Katz]

Do you want me to tell him?

[Warren]

Yeah. Okay, honey. Ready for this? You need to Give. Give your 100% attention to this investigative reporting. You know the definition of a good father, right? You're the definition of a good father. Has nothing to do with.

[Deborah]

I'm not looking for a new father.

[Matt Katz]

By any stretch of the imagination.

[Deborah]

I love you.

[Matt Katz]

Don't worry about it.

[Warren]

Okay. I'm dead.

[Matt Katz]

But based on that ancestry test that I took just to find out, like.

[Deborah]

What country I'm from, I now know.

[Matt Katz]

With near certainty that Warren was not my father.

[Deborah]

I had trouble, my mom interjected, telling my dad that she had trouble conceiving and that she had sought fertility assistance.

[Warren]

I remember the doctor I went to, this very kind man. He inseminated me with what I thought was Warren's, but with the way they.

[Matt Katz]

Used to do it in the 70s when they were first developing sperm donations. And they would mix it, mix the. The husband's sperm with a medical resident sperm, a medical student. And I found this out through one of the two half sisters. I've identified this woman, Helena, who's my half sister. So this fucking guy who's caused me considerable angst over the last, on and off, over the last 40 years was just a fucking stranger. I love it.

[Deborah]

I love it. HE WHISPERS this reaction, this realization that Warren was very possibly not my father and was not Richard's grandchildren's grandfather was perfect.

[Matt Katz]

Now you can feel less bad about the fact that you have no contact with him. I sort of regret the amount of emotional energy was spent on him.

[Warren]

Yes.

[Matt Katz]

On a stranger. Nobody could be more my child than you. Right. My grandchildren are my grandchildren. Right? So. Yeah, I know that's. No, it doesn't. This is a funny thing about this, right? It doesn't matter in reality, right? I have. My Parents have a loving family. It does. It doesn't matter. But on the other hand, it sort of is the. It's the reason why I exist. So in that sense, it matters. You know, It's a weird dichotomy. It's crazy. Listen, I gotta find it out. I may never find out who he is, right?

[Deborah]

So I gotta find it out.

[Matt Katz]

I don't know if I will.

[Warren]

Unbelievable. I have an Irish kid.

[Matt Katz]

Yeah. I'm the least Jewish person in this house. That's fucking crazy.

[Warren]

Thank you for telling me.

[Matt Katz]

Of course. Thank you for listening. Come here, son. I want a kiss. Love you. I love you.

[Deborah]

I was so relieved to get this off my chest, to finally have this conversation with my mom and to connect with her in a way that normal life doesn't really make space for. I still didn't know what happened, but my mom dropped something that night. A clue, a name.

[Warren]

I wonder if Dubrovna's alive.

[Deborah]

Dubrovnir.

[Warren]

That's the doctor.

[Matt Katz]

Where is this?

[Warren]

Manhattan. He was in Manhattan. Might have been at nyu. I remember very few names.

[Matt Katz]

I know, it's amazing you remember this name. This is very important.

[Warren]

A wonderful doctor, that he was important.

[Matt Katz]

She told me, really, because he was.

[Warren]

Kind and he was helping us. He was helping us. He was helping us become pregnant. Never in a million years would I have thought that this is how this occurred. Oh God.

[Deborah]

Right away I pulled out my phone and started searching.

[Matt Katz]

Dr. Charles de Brovner. D E B R O V N E R oh my God. He's still alive. Devoted much of his professional career to helping couples challenged with reproductive difficulties and infertility to achieve their dreams of a family. So he's still alive.

[Deborah]

Then I found mention of Dr. Dubrovnir in an online registry for donor conceived people. People apparently like me, looking for their biological families. They'd post what year they were born and where they were donor conceived and the name of the ob GYN hoping to find siblings or the donor himself.

[Warren]

Does it say without the patient's knowledge? I mean.

[Matt Katz]

No.

[Warren]

Must be.

[Matt Katz]

There's a guy who is a sperm donor who posted saying he post he he donated for Dr. Dubrovna from 1981 to 1983.

[Warren]

And why did he post it?

[Matt Katz]

He was working at medical school NYC at the time.

[Warren]

Does he want to see?

[Matt Katz]

He wants to find his kids.

[Warren]

Really? He could have like a dozen kids?

[Matt Katz]

Exactly.

[Warren]

Never dawned on me. Never.

[Deborah]

I can't believe he's alive.

[Warren]

I.

[Richard]

What if you could use your home equity to pay off your debt without monthly payments so you could focus on reaching your other financial goals? With a home equity investment from HomeTap, you can get access to your home equity in cash, get closer to financial freedom and get more out of life. Learn more and see if you pre qualify for an [e-mail] subject to eligibility terms and conditions apply. Get access to your home equity in cash. Visit hometap.com to apply in minutes. That's hometap.com substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay.

[Ad]

When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out [e-mail] brought to you by the National Council for Mental well Being, Shatterproof and the AD Council.

[Deborah]

After my mother told me the name of the doctor who inseminated her in an office on the east side of Manhattan sometime in the fall of 1977, I scoured the Internet for Charles de Brovner and for any clue about how sperm donation worked in those early days, I learned that the first successful artificial insemination happened in 1884. It was in Philadelphia when a doctor found that the semen of a woman's husband was void of sperm. He inseminated her with a rubber syringe full of the semen of a man the doctor thought to be the most attractive of his medical students. The mother was never told and thought she gave birth to her husband's baby. Nearly 100 years later, in the 70s, doctors were still getting donors from the pool of men most available to them. Medical students and interns and residents working in their practices or hospitals. But there were clues that even this was not a hard and fast rule. Doctors never expected the resulting children to ever know the identity of their fathers. They advised that children never be told that a donor was involved in creating them. Of course, a few decades later, we map the human genome. We get the Internet. We swab the insides of our cheeks for DNA samples, send them off to a direct to consumer DNA company and find out in a matter of weeks where in the world our ancestors came from and who all of our relatives are. No one could have imagined that. It was fascinating and kind of amusing to learn the very unusual way in which I was conceived. I'd be up late at night doing this research. I remember lying in bed with the laptop open while my wife Deborah was next to me scrolling through pictures of Japanese pottery on her phone. I badgered her with each new discovery in my crash course on 1970s infertility treatments. Like when I learned I was born in the so called fresh era. Back when most mothers received fresh recently discharged sperm, not frozen. I mean, this sentence is crazy. I was frozen, comma, 1980, but my social cis was fresh 1982. Like that is nonsense. Now we can translate that. Her father's sperm was frozen in 1980.

[Matt Katz]

But her social cis.

[Deborah]

Oh, the sister she grew up with.

[Matt Katz]

Got fresh sperm and she got one DC so far, which means donor conceived.

[Deborah]

I read a post from a D.C. person who had found 38 siblings born 1945 to 1971.

[Matt Katz]

Our estimated numbers are startling.

[Deborah]

We're meeting up in New York City next weekend. I love spending time together. What?

[Matt Katz]

There must be people, siblings that are 27 years apart.

[Warren]

Wow, that guy had great sperm.

[Matt Katz]

That's some fresh sperm.

[Warren]

Sure is.

[Deborah]

I was also researching Charles de Brovner, the doctor who had treated my mom in 1977. Was he mixing sperm and was he using his own sperm? You hear a lot of stories these days about doctors who use their own sperm to impregnate their patients without their knowledge or consent. DNA tests in recent years have revealed this happened across the globe. But I soon found a YouTube video where Dr. Dubrovnir talks about his life. In it, he Explains how he grew up as an Orthodox Jew. So he was Ashkenazi Jewish, not Irish. Therefore, he was not my father. Eventually, I found this tiny private Facebook group made up of people whose mothers went to Dr. Dubrovnir's office for fertility issues. All had recently discovered that they were donor conceived just like me. I was not the only one in this situation. All of these people in the Facebook group were looking for biological fathers and siblings. I shared my story. It was nice to have this larger community of people who knew exactly what I was going through. Some of them said they'd actually spoken to Dr. De Bravner. They said he'd take my call, and then they gave me his phone number.

[Tara]

Wow.

[Deborah]

I am.

[Matt Katz]

Alright.

[Deborah]

I'm just gonna do this.

[Matt Katz]

I'm nervous as hell.

[Tara]

My heart is beating out of my chest.

[Deborah]

Please enjoy this Verizon ringback tone while.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Your party is reached. Hello?

[Deborah]

Hi there. I was calling for Dr. Dubrovnir, please.

[Helena]

Speaking.

[Deborah]

Hi there.

[Tara]

My name is Matt, and I was given your number by women I met on Facebook whose mothers had you as their doctor some time ago. And I. I just learned I was likely conceived in your office back in 1977. And I have. I'm just learning this now, 40 years old, and I would love to just.

[Deborah]

Chat with you for a couple of.

[Tara]

Minutes to find out more. This was all kind of new information to me. As you can. As you can imagine, I'm 40. I turned 40 in July.

[Deborah]

Dr. Dubrovnir spoke to me graciously for about 40 minutes. He was no longer practicing medicine. He was in his 80s at this point, but he was keeping busy, lecturing on bioethics. Here was a doctor who may have inseminated my mother with a donor's sperm without her full knowledge. Based on what my mom remembered, she had no idea I was not Warren's biological son. I laid all of this out to Dr. Dubrovnir, and he later agreed to a video interview with me to tell me what he knew. On the record.

[Tara]

Does this face look familiar? Do you remember it from 42 years ago?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Had a different view at that time.

[Tara]

You essentially created my life. I mean, and for how many thousands of other people? Do you have any idea how many.

[Deborah]

Lives you helped to create?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

No, I don't. But it's a fair number considering. As I say, we used fresh semen from 1965 to 1986. All right, so that's right there. That's 30 years. Now, in 30 years of doing inseminations, figure whatever kind of multiplier you have it gets up to a fairly large number. If you did it doing two inseminations a week or five a month or whatever you want to say, it's a lot of, it's a lot of numbers. That's very, very gratifying.

[Tara]

And then, and then, then we have children and then that, that's also lives created. My two kids exist because of this technology that you employed at the time?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Yes, sir.

[Deborah]

Of course. My kids also don't know who their grandfather is because of how this technique was shrouded in secrecy. The donors, the mothers, the mother's husbands. Dr. Debrovener told me no one signed any paperwork at the time to indicate that they knew and agreed to what was happening. So no, he had no records and no idea who my father was. And that's exactly how it was intended. Where did you find the donors?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

The donors were students that I had taught, medical students or more often residents in OB GYN that I had worked with over the four years of their residency. And I had an opportunity, one, to know them as people in terms of people that I was teaching, so to speak, and watching under the fire of various kinds of emergencies, things of that sort, and decide at that point, well, that would be somebody I would like to be my father, so to speak. And those are the donors I would choose.

[Deborah]

The doctor chose my father based in part on how he performed, handling medical emergencies. So I knew my father was Irish and now I knew he likely became a doctor who was apparently cool under pressure.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

We would offer them the astounding compensation of $20 for a semen specimen, which was probably a lot of money at that point, but they very much appreciated it and very much. They, they were very happy with the idea when we talked about it, to help somebody, to help a couple. Cause that's why they were in medicine in the first place. It was a win, win situation as far as that's concerned.

[Deborah]

Dr. Dubrovner told me that the donors were matched to the blood type and physical characteristics of the husband.

[Tara]

Another criteria was physical appearance.

[Deborah]

Tell me about that. What did you base that on?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Well, obviously there were two situations. One, I was looking at any given time for a personal donor for a specific couple. One, I would have to like the physical characteristics of the husband didn't have to be handsome, but he had to be relatively good looking.

[Deborah]

Let's say that I like this idea of having a good looking father, I guess. But it was strange to hear him talk about this extraordinary power that he had, choosing a new human being's genes altering Generations to come with the sort of casualness of picking out well ripened vegetables at the farmer's market.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

I was very, very interested in matching as much as possible the physical characteristics of the donor to the characteristics of the husband whose semen he was going to be replacing. I was very anxious to have the hair color match, the eye color match and the blood type match, because at that particular point, my goal was to make the donor anonymous to the couple, but the husband anonymous to the world. Unless the couple decided to make the fact that he was not the real father of the child public. At that particular point, a great percentage of the couples had decided that they weren't going to tell anybody, including the child.

[Deborah]

Do you remember your thought about that.

[Tara]

At the time, that the husband would be as anonymous as possible to the world and therefore to his would be child?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

I think that the feeling was that there was a certain virility, a certain strength, a certain ability to accomplish this task of impregnating your wife and being the father of a child that was a positive. The feeling was perhaps even by myself, but certainly among the couples that the father being known as unable to do so was a negative that they would wish to avoid. And therefore they didn't want to know that the father of the child wasn't the biological father. And I considered at that particular point, and maybe I was wrong to an extent, that the husband, the wife and the donor were the three people that I was most interested in at that particular point. I was anxious to have a healthy child, but what the situation might be with the child as an adult was really not something I was perhaps factoring to the equation at that point.

[Deborah]

Well, the situation with me as an adult was that I suddenly didn't know who my father is. And I wanted to, and I thought I had the right to know, but he couldn't tell me who he was. And that was by design.

[Tara]

It's four or five decades of hindsight. So a lot has happened, personally and globally and technologically and scientifically. How do you look back on it, that idea of not the child not knowing?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

I do not regret making it possible for the couple to make that decision for themselves. And I really thought at that point that we were doing absolutely the right thing. And it was not until Ancestry.com and 23andMe that there became another way of identifying the fact, other than hair color, eye color and blood type, that there was another way of identifying parentage that didn't exist. 25, 30, 40 years ago when we were doing these things. I still marvel at perhaps how important the need to know one's exact ancestry actually is. I think that the a single biological event is important, but far more important is what your known to be father, who raised you and supported you and taught you and did everything that a good father should do was far more important than whoever was who contributed the sperm.

[Deborah]

I agree with that. My dad, Richard, who is not related to me biologically, was more important to me personally than whoever this Irish medical student might have been. But I hate the fact that the baby was never taken into account. The baby who would one day want to know the truth about where they came from, the truth about whether their father had significant health issues that they needed to know about. The truth about whether. Let me just put it this way. The girl they liked at school was really their half sister. But Dr. Dubrovnir said one reason why the donor was to remain anonymous forever. The reason why the whole thing was designed this way was to protect the reputation of the donor who may have not wanted his family to know that he had fathered a child outside of marriage, and to protect the donor's financial interests in case the child wanted money in future years. The child me was never a consideration.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

The donor would produce a specimen at the hospital, drop it in my mailbox at the hospital. I would go over from the office and pick up the semen specimen, bringing it back to the wife so that the wife and husband would never have any contact at all with the donor, who I wanted to be anonymous and then do the insemination. And we would start out at that point by taking the semen and husband semen and put it into the cervix. When that didn't work, we went further and put the semen into the uterus. We also interestingly requested that the husband and wife have intercourse on every night that we did insemination.

[Tara]

My mother remembers that she unfortunately told me that was one of her memories.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Yes, well, obviously there was always the possibility that, you know, you have the semen from the donor and the semen from the husband. We expected that the semen from the husband was not going to produce a pregnancy because it hadn't up until now, but it's always possible. So there was always that element of doubt who the real father was at that particular point, at least in the.

[Deborah]

Couple'S minds, an element of doubt. Dr. Debrovener says my mother definitely would have known that she was being inseminated with donor sperm and her husband would have also known. But the doctor acknowledged, given the fact that the couple was under doctor's orders to go home and have sex. After the procedure, there was an element of doubt.

[Tara]

My mother does not remember agreeing to a donor insemination. She remembers being inseminated. She says she thought she was getting pregnant with her husband's sperm. And I wonder if that element of doubt, this idea that possibly, maybe a small percentage, but possibly her husband could be the father, became the reality over the course of the pregnancy and in the ensuing years. Is that. Is that possible?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Well, there is interesting in our current political situation where the truth is not always the case, they have various things called cognizant dissidents and things of that sort, where people sometimes believe what they want to believe, believe, as far as that's concerned, and that might be an aspect of these things. It becomes the truth, let's put it that way. But we took great pains to inform the couples of exactly what we were doing and why we were doing and what the chances would be in terms of success. And we again did talk about the fact that we couldn't guarantee that if they both had intercourse that it was either one. But we did tell them that it was certainly more likely that it was not going to be. And if they didn't accept that premise, they shouldn't be having donor insemination. We did tell the couples that we're going to inseminate you on 3:00 on Tuesday, and we'd like to arrange it that your husband will be available so that you can have intercourse that evening on Tuesday night. So certainly there was that possibility, and maybe that's the possibility that she or they fixated on. But there's no way that they should have known otherwise.

[Deborah]

Back then. Dr. Dubrovnir explained how would be mothers tracked their menstrual cycle, so the insemination would occur 48 hours before and again after ovulation. He said before donor insemination happened, the woman would have been inseminated with her husband's sperm with techniques like putting a cervical cap over the cervix to hold the husband's semen in place. It was only when that approach didn't work that donor semen was introduced. This, of course, is the critical moment that my mother doesn't remember. Regardless of what happened in that office, regardless of what was said, secrecy was embedded into all of this. In most cases, the parents were aware that their child was conceived with donor sperm, but they followed the prevailing medical advice at the time and never told their kids. Deceit was built into the even the whole part about Having sex after the procedure. Dr. Dubrovnir said that was to increase the naturalness of the whole deal, to make it seem to the couple that they were having their own fully biological child. It's the same reason doctors would mix the husband's sperm, which had proven to not work, with donor sperm, and inseminated women with that mixture. Dr. Debromir said he did do this mixing procedure, but that it wouldn't have happened in my case. He said by 1977, when I was conceived, his office had stopped mixing. Still, I had questions.

[Tara]

When would this process have been done? Why? Was it to further protect the father from the burden of knowing he might not be the father? Was that why? Why?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

That's right. Exactly. Same reason.

[Deborah]

Other questions? How come the mother of my sister Helena, went to a different doctor? How did the sperm get to that office? And why was my other half sister, Tara, born within three weeks of me? The doctor said he may have used the same donor for multiple pregnancies, but given the large population of New York, he wasn't concerned that the kids would meet down the line and not realize they were siblings. And while the doctor told me he matched physical traits of the donor and husband and would match religion upon request, how come my father apparently had a different ethnicity from my mom's husband at the time? I had more research to do. Dr. Dubrovnir was helpful, but something felt off. These pieces were not fitting together.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

I never was a lawyer, but I was always interested in the combination of what's right and wrong and what's truth and how it can best be handled.

[Tara]

Did you ever imagine that you'd be having these kinds of conversations and that there'd be a website where you basically spit into a cup and ship it away to Utah, and then it's put into a machine, and then a website pops up and tells you who your father is and who your half sisters are? I mean, could you have ever conceived of anything like this in 1977?

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

The answer is absolutely not. If I had conceived of it, I would have had to disclose this situation to the couple, et cetera, et cetera, and we might have acted differently. But, no, I never even considered it. Never even considered it.

[Tara]

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for helping my mom in 1977. We all would not be here having this conversation if you had not. And appreciate you being open and honest and talking through some of these issues and some of these sort of conflicts in my mind about how things went down. Really appreciate it.

[Deborah]

Bye.

[Matt Katz]

Bye.

[Tara]

Bye, now.

[Warren]

Bye.

[Dr. Dubrovnir]

Bye.

[Deborah]

And that's where the doctor and I left things for now. Was he remembering everything correctly? Was he being completely truthful? Why did his version of what happened differ from my mom's? Because now I knew that my biological father was not, never was Warren. And my father was an actual stranger to me. So I had to find him. I'd spent decades trying to connect with a man who often seemed to want little to do with me. But I'd been banging my head on the wrong wall the whole time. Now I had an opportunity to put Warren in my past and figure out who had dropped off his genetic material in Dr. Dubrovnir's mailbox on a fall day in 1977. To finally find my father for real. So let the search begin for Irish men who would have been in medical school in the 70s, living in New York, and are maybe now recently retired gynecologists. Helena and I Googled last names of distant cousins we found on Ancestry.com and put Dr. Next to that name. Like, is there a Dr. Lynch anywhere in America? Is he the right age? Did he go to medical school in New York? We did this for hours, days, months. I called New York University, where Dr. Dubrovnir was affiliated, and spoke to someone there asking for a registry of all medical students in the seventies. She was nice. She said she couldn't help. Then we wondered, the other half sister, Tara, has an Irish last name. And Helena said I looked like Tara's father. So could her father be the donor? Our father? We wrote him a letter we didn't hear. Back in February 2019, I sent Helena a note. The dark feeling I've had is we may never know. We may never be able to figure out what happens. But not giving up, months went on. Finally, Helena and I crafted a letter and sent it via certified mail to our half sister, Tara in California. She could be the key to finding our father. Dear Tara, we are writing to you because we both connected with you on Ancestry.com Matt already tried to contact you on Ancestry, on your website, and on Instagram. Since we didn't hear back, we looked up your address in order to write this letter. We hope we're not being too intrusive, but we don't think you received Matt's previous notes. So that's why we figured we'd try you this way. I hope you're open to hearing our story. According to Ancestry.com, we're all half siblings. Helena and Matt only connected with each other this past September and have since begun to piece together. How we could be so closely related? Matt is 40. Helena is 41. Neither of us had any idea until recently that we would have had half siblings. But based on this DNA evidence and based on our conversations with our mothers, it appears that we were both conceived by sperm donors in New York City in 1977. We don't know how much of this information you may be aware of. If it is shocking to you, we hope that you were able to receive it as well, well, as possible. We certainly know it's difficult. We're happy to tell you everything we figured out so far if you're willing to hear it. We gave Tara our email addresses and waited to hear back. Next time on Inconceivable Truth.

[Matt Katz]

Keep going.

[Warren]

Going over the road and first road on the left. First road on the left and you will find them there.

[Deborah]

This is the house.

[Matt Katz]

Okay? Scare these old people.

[Deborah]

Inconceivable Truth is a production of Waveland and Rococo Punch. I'm writer and host Matt Katz. The story editor is Erica Lance. Mixing by James Trout. Emily Forman is our producer. Natalie White is our intern. Special thanks to Lulu Miller and Pat Walters of Radiolab. Our executive producers are Jason Hoch at Waveland and John Peratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch. For photos and more details on the series, follow avelandmedia on Instagram X or Facebook and you can reach out via email. Odcastsavelength. That's Waveland. W A V L A N D. If you like the series, please leave us a review. And as always, don't forget to tell a friend or relative. I'm Matt Katz. Thanks for listening.

[Matt Katz]

Wait.

[Tara]

Say something.

[Deborah]

What'd you have for lunch? I don't think I had lunch.

[Matt Katz]

No, me neither.

[Warren]

That might be the problem.

[Deborah]

Wait, what problem? Too tired to? No, I'm dig into my past.

[Warren]

Always happy to dig into your past.

[Ad]

Vitamin Water was born in New York because New Yorkers wanted more like more flavor to go with all the flavor. A refreshing drink after climbing six flights of stairs to a walk up apartment or standing in the subway station in 100 degree heat.

[Deborah]

Focus.

[Ad]

When I have an 8 hour shift and triple X after I was out all night at a club called xxx drink Vitamin Water. It's from New York.

[Richard]

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud. It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay.

[Ad]

When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out [e-mail] brought to you by the National Council for Mental well Being, Shatterproof and the AD Council.