What Came First Read Online Free Page B

what?”
    “Jake,” he says without hesitation.
    “You wish I’d named you Jake ?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “But why?”
    “I just do.”
    We go back to watching the chickens.
    “This is nice,” he says.
    “It sure is.”
    Unfortunately, since I lack Ian’s gift for living in the moment, “nice” quickly shifts to “boring.” When I can’t take it anymore, I nip back into the house for my work laptop, along with a couple of throw blankets. Outside, I drape one blanket across Ian’s lap and the other across my own, and then I boot up my laptop. I check my e-mail, delete some forwarded jokes from my stepfather, and answer a couple of work queries. On Yahoo, I read the day’s top news and check the weather forecast for Orange County: sunny with a high of seventy-two. What a surprise.
    Finally, I shift the screen out of Ian’s view and log on to the Donor Sibling Network. “DSN featured on Good Morning America!!” it says on the home page. In Dallas, seven blond children and their parents, along with a Good Morning America crew, met for a New Year’s Eve potluck. Photos show two children from one single mother, three from another, and two from a lesbian couple. It’s eerie how much the children look alike: all those wide pug noses, that straight pale hair. If you superimposed all of the children’s photos over one another, you’d probably get a pretty good idea of what their sperm donor looked like as a child.
    Maybe it’s odd, but until a couple of years ago, I didn’t think much about Donor 613, the man who supplied half of Ian’s chromosomes. At the time of his deposit, he was twenty-three years old and in his first year of medical school, a five-foot-eight Caucasian with light brown hair and blue eyes. The donor’s height, hair, and eye color seemed irrelevant. It wasn’t until after I’d conceived that I realized they were exactly the same as mine (though I’ve been highlighting my mousy hair since I was in my twenties).
    It was his enrollment in medical school that sold me. Getting in takes extreme intelligence and getting through takes self-discipline and drive. Most likely, the desire for a medical career indicates a compassionate nature. Do drive and compassion flow through the genes? Maybe not, but you never know. Ian has always been an exceptionally gentle and generous boy.
    I bought three vials of 613’s sperm from the Southern California Cryobank, conceived with the first, disposed of the rest. It never occurred to me that I might want more children, that I’d fall so in love with my son that I’d long to give him a playmate just like him.
    I could use another donor, of course. But Ian has asked questions about 613 since he was old enough to understand the concept. Do I think his donor likes spaghetti as much as Ian does? Do I think he’s the reason Ian’s so good at piano? Any identity issues are apt to amplify as time goes on; bringing a new set of genes into the mix could only make things worse. It would be so much better to give Ian a full sibling with whom he could compare proclivities and talents.
    Two years ago, I turned forty. Faced with my declining (and possibly expired) fertility, I called the bank only to learn they had no more vials from Donor 613. They suggested I check the Donor Sibling Network, an online registry that was set up to allow families with shared donors to contact one another. The first time I logged on, I posted a message on the bulletin board: Anyone else conceive from Southern California Cryobank Donor 613?
    Since then, I’ve checked the Web site every day, hoping to discover my son’s blood ties. I’d love to meet that child or those children, to see Ian form an instant bond with a complete stranger, a more-than-friend that he can have for life and who can perhaps give him a more complete sense of who he is and where he came from.
    But more than that, I’d like to meet other women who purchased the sperm. To ask if maybe, just maybe, there might be a