- When Jessica Share, 48, held her daughter, Alice in her arms she didn’t give the sperm donor another thought.
- But when a DNA test tracked him down 12 years later, Jessica knew she had to meet him.
- Falling in love, Jessica and Aaron have found 22 children conceived from Aaron’s sperm!
Here Jessica tells her story in her own words
Desperate to be mums, my wife and I were searching on an online database for a sperm donor. It was 2004, and we’d decided I’d carry our bub.
We scrolled for what felt like hours before settling on a young man with wavy brown hair and olive skin, who had an interest in music and sports and a degree in creative writing.
The profiles didn’t have photos, but he felt like the perfect match.
Ordering our first vial of sperm for $500, it arrived via courier the next day, nestled in a 90cm-tall tank of liquid nitrogen.
Getting pregnant via home insemination was like a science experiment.
Pulling on a pair of gloves to extract the tiny plastic vial, I sat it on the kitchen counter to thaw – like a meal taken out of the freezer!
‘We’re pregnant!’
Over the next few months, we ordered 14 vials of the same donor’s sperm, only to get negative pregnancy tests.
It was heartbreaking.
I’m young and healthy, we can do this! I prayed.
Then a miracle happened – two tell-tale pink lines appeared on a test.
‘We’re pregnant!’ I cheered.
And on June 18, 2005, we welcomed our daughter Alice.
Falling in love with our perfect girl, we didn’t give the donor another thought.
Sadly, when Alice was three, my wife and I parted ways.
But Alice was never short on love.
‘I was not expecting that.’
And when she was five I explained to her that somewhere out there she had a donor dad.
‘If you want to find him that’s okay,’ I told Alice.
I also said, ‘Families are built on love, not genes.’
Alice wasn’t curious about her biological dad until she was 11.
Then she asked my mum, Sandi, her grandma, for a DNA testing kit for Christmas in 2016.
Unwrapping the gift, Alice spat into the test tube and we sealed the package and sent it away.
The results came through in February.
Logging into the website, I clicked on the DNA relatives section.
The first I read was, Aaron Long: 50%. Father.
Then, Bryce Gallo: 25%. Half-brother.
‘I was not expecting that,’ Alice said before skipping to her bedroom.
Messaging Aaron, then 51, I explained Alice had matched with him.
I’m happy to get to know Alice on whatever level you’re comfortable with, he replied soon after.
Becoming friends on Facebook, Aaron and I chatted almost daily.
He even sent me a 50-page life history, which I devoured.
I learned that while he now lived five hours away, he’d spent several years in a band in the town where we lived.
‘It’s such a cool thing to have a kid that looks like both of us,’ I said to him.
How many times had we walked past him in the supermarket? I wondered.
I also wrote to Alice’s half-brother Bryce, then 21.
Bryce told me he’d already connected with Madi, then 19, another half-sister.
‘Maybe there was a mix-up at the Bureau of Boyfriends.’
We planned a two-week holiday in July for everyone to meet.
‘They might be super cool,’ I said to Alice.
Piling into the car one July weekend, we set out on our road trip to meet my girl’s long-lost family.
Arriving at Aaron’s front door, I knocked and he answered with a grin.
We’d never met before, but he felt so strangely familiar to me.
‘It’s so great to finally meet you,’ Aaron smiled, wrapping Alice in a hug.
Madi and Bryce were already there, having breakfast in the kitchen.
It quickly felt like we’d all known each other forever.
Aaron threw a party later that day for his nearest and dearest to meet his ‘donation’ children.
He and the kids were all very talkative, and they shared the same witty sarcasm and beautiful emerald green eyes.
As the last few days of our trip neared, I felt so connected to Aaron.
‘I feel the same way,’ Aaron replied.
For the last few years I’d coincidentally been dating a man who was also named Aaron.
But our relationship had fizzled a month before this trip.
‘Maybe there was a mix-up at the Bureau of Boyfriends,’ donor Aaron said flirtatiously when I told him.
I was feeling the spark between us too.
Aaron was thoughtful, empathetic, and played to the beat of his own drum.
I don’t want to ruin this for Alice, I worried.
But I couldn’t help wondering if my girl’s donor dad may be my person?
Realising I was smitten, I couldn’t believe it.
‘The kids keep coming!’
I’d fallen in love with my sperm donor 12 years after I’d given birth to our baby – 13 years after that first vial arrived.
Back home, after telling Aaron how I felt, luckily he said he felt the same.
‘I have feelings for you, but I don’t want to screw things up for Alice,’ I confided to him.
‘Let’s keep things low key,’ Aaron agreed.
But that didn’t last long – and a fortnight later, Alice and I moved to be with him.
‘Great, I went from being the cool kid with two mums to being part of a conventional nuclear family,’ Alice laughed.
All living in the house, we spent most nights on the rooftop having family dinners, and we spent every weekend doing things together.
Alice, now 18, and Aaron get along like a house on fire.
So far Aaron has connected with 22 of his biological kids, but he estimates that he could have up to 67 children!
Aaron and I have now been together for seven years.
And due to our very modern blended family, a few people call us the Brady Bunch!
While we consider ourselves basically married, we hope to make it official sometime soon.
‘The kids keep coming,’ I laugh when Aaron gets another DNA match.
We have our hands full, but I wouldn’t have life any other way!
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