NewsLong ReadsJessica Stavena has spoken out for the first time after finding her half-siblings via a DNA website

Tuesday, 26th May 2020, 10:27 am

On 23 February this year, it was a typical Sunday morning for Jessica Stavena as she played with her children. That was until 11.36am the moment her life changed forever.

The mother-of-three had known from an early age that she was a sperm donor baby. She knew very little about her biological father, identified on records only as "donor no. 10", except for basic details such as height and hair colour.

Longing to know more about her ancestry she took a DNA test with 23andMe.com. As her two young daughters giggled with their dolls, she froze when a phone notification popped up to say her results were ready.

"It felt like the longest 30 seconds of my life as I clicked on the 'view your relatives' button and waited for the page to load," said the 33-year-old medical spa manager from Texas. Her heart "nearly thumped out" of her chest when she read that she'd been matched with two half sisters and a half brother.

Jessica and her husband immediately called her mother, Pauline Chambless, to share the news. Excited, she then began looking up her siblings on Facebook and found two of them, who she messaged. Within minutes, one of them, Eve Wiley, responded.

With her mother still on speaker phone, she read out the messages. Eve had written, "Do you know the details of our birth story? Was Dr Kim McMorries your mom's doctor?"

He was indeed: Pauline and her then husband, who had one son, had struggled to conceive again and so she had seen Dr McMorries, a well-respected fertility doctor running a clinic in Nacogdoches, Texas, where the couple then lived, on a monthly basis for two-and-a-half years until she fell pregnant with Jessica on in June 1986.

Pauline had always sang the doctor's praises and thought of him as "a very caring man who was passionate about his work".

But Eve's next message said: "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Dr McMorries is also our biological father".

'How can my mom's fertility doctor be my father?'

The notion that McMorries had artificially inseminated Pauline with his own sperm left both women "speechless". "I thought, there's just no way," said Jessica, who lives in Houston. "We were both in shock and thought this can't be true. How can my mom's fertility doctor be my father? I felt like I'd been flipped upside down and shaken and thrown in the middle of a tornado."

Jessica would find out that last year Eve had told her story in the press, after she discovered through 23andMe that she had a cousin, and he revealed that his uncle was her mother's fertility doctor. Eve revealed the existence of another half brother, whose mother was a patient of Dr McMorries, on Ancestry.com.

ABC News consulted with a genetic genealogist who said she was confident Eve's findings were correct.

'It's my mother I feel for. He violated and deceived her'

Jessica Stavena

Eve was especially devastated because 14 years previously she had tracked down the man she believed was her biological father, "donor no. 106", and had developed a father-daughter relationship with him. She called him "Dad" and they said "I love you" to each other. She waited three months to tell him. When she did, she recalls listening to him cry for what felt like 15 or 20 minutes.

Jessica contacted i to speak out about her story for the first time after reading the story of Inge Herlaar, the daughter of the now deceased Dutch doctor Jan Karbaat, who used his own sperm to impregnate his clients and secretly father around 60 children.

Jessica explains that she discovered a further bombshell: Dr McMorries is still practicing. He is registered as running a clinic in Nacogdoches called the Womens Center.

"He broke no law at the time," she acknowledges. "But I feel it's deeply unethical. It's my mother I feel for. She was just a woman who desperately wanted another baby and she'd put her total trust in her doctor. He violated and deceived her. "

Meeting up was 'emotional'

Two weeks after the news, Jessica met up with Eve and her other half sister who wants to remain anonymous. "It felt so surreal," said Jessica. "You have this build up for years of wondering if you have siblings out there and what meeting them would be like. It was exciting, very emotional and overwhelming, but in a good way."

Jessica now speaks or texts both sisters multiple times a day every day. "We are close and it's really great that we get along so well and that we have that. My sisters have known each other much longer and they've been through all the emotions when they discovered their origins, so it's been great to have had their support."

Jessica hasn't yet met her two half brothers, but they are in contact.

'It's difficult to wrap my mind around his reasoning'

There was also the issue of telling her children about their grandfather. "I've told my son, who is 13. He was shocked and couldn't understand how this has been possible. I feel my daughters, aged six and four, and too young to for that conversation yet."

Jessica has felt angry that she and her family have been at risk of meeting and having a physical relationship with relatives without knowing. "It horrifies me to think that could have happened to myself or my children. My father has more children with his wife. I'm relieved we moved away from Nacogdoches."

Now that she's had a few months to let the news sink in, she's starting to come to terms with it all. "I'm not sure it fully has sunk in, but I'm a positive person and I keep my chin up."

Jessica says she doesn't want to talk to Dr McMorries. "I do have lots of questions. But it just would feel odd to have contact."

'I have the daughter I prayed for'

'It's difficult to wrap my mind around his reasoning. If I could ask him one question, it would be, "Why"?'

Pauline Chambless

It's Pauline who Jessica worries about the most. "It took a while for my mother to open up and be able to talk about it. I think it has really affected her and that's what hurts me. Something like this impacts so many lives."

Pauline said Dr McMorries discussed using a fresh donor with her after frozen samples had failed and she'd suffered several miscarriages. But she says he never told her that that fresh sample was from him.

"I'd have never had agreed to that, I didn't want a local donor," said the 67-year-old. ''It's still sinking in. I felt we had a great doctor-patient relationship. It's hard for me to believe he has done this.

"It's difficult to wrap my mind around his reasoning. If I could ask him one question, it would be, 'Why'? Did he justify it by telling himself he was just helping us?"

Does she forgive him? "He had no right to do what he did to me. And he's denied Jessica the chance to have a normal daughter-father relationship.

"I don't really focus on whether to forgive him or not. What's done is done. I have the daughter I prayed for for 16 years and I'm thoroughly blessed to have her."

Fertility industry compared to 'the Wild West'

As at-home DNA tests gain popularity, instances of so-called fertility fraud have cropped up in 12 US states, as well as in England, South Africa, Germany, and the Netherlands, according to Jody Madeira, a law professor at Indiana University who is following more than 20 cases worldwide. She compared the fertility industry to the Wild West, saying, "Theres very, very little criminal [charges] holding these people accountable".

Indeed in the US, there's no national law criminalising doctors using their own sperm without a patient's consent. Last year Indiana became the first state to make it illegal, followed by California. Eve has campaigned for change in more states, last June Texas enacted laws that go even further by classifying this activity as a form of sexual assault. Now other states are following suit.

In the UK in 2012, a story claiming Australian biologist Bertold Wiesner, who ran a fertility clinic in London since the 1940s, fathered 600 children by using his own sperm without telling the mothers shocked the world.

Today, laws here prohibit men from making bulk donations (there's a 10-family limit). Information about the donor must be kept so that the children can apply to identify their biological father and siblings after they turn 18.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates UK fertility clinics, was not aware of a specific UK law that would make a doctor using his own sperm a crime. But the General Medical Council strikes off doctors who it finds have failed to uphold standards.

Doctor: 'It was acceptable practice for the times'

'It was not wrong 33 years ago as that was acceptable practice for the times'

A quote allegedly from a letter from Dr Kim McMorries

Dr McMorries declined to comment for this article. ABC News reports the same with Eve's story last year.

Eve says she contacted Dr McMorries and he wrote back, admitting he mixed his sperm with that of other donors to increase her mother's chances of conception. She says he claims he gained her mother's consent to use a local donors sperm which she denies and that laws regarding donor anonymity prevented him from telling her he used his own sample.

Eve and Jessica claim their medical records were falsified, stating "donor 106" and "donor 10" respectively, when Dr McMorries reportedly said he was "donor 12" in his letters.

Eve claims that in his correspondence, he apologised for all the grief this has caused you and your family, but defended his actions by stressing that changing attitudes had merely put his past practices in a new light. It is easy to look back and judge protocols/standards used 33 years ago and assume they were wrong in todays environment, he reportedly wrote. However, it was not wrong 33 years ago as that was acceptable practice for the times.

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'My mother's fertility doctor secretly fathered me and he's still practicing' - iNews