#cryobank

Excerpt from this Smithsonian article:

The last male northern white rhinoceros—his name was Sudan—died in March, leaving only two members of the subspecies behind: his daughter and granddaughter.

In the past, those stark facts would have spelled the end. But researchers at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research—home to a frosty menagerie known as the Frozen Zoo—are working to give northern white rhinos a second chance. Since 1975, the institute has been collecting tissues from creatures, some endangered and some not, then growing the cells in the lab and preserving them at a chilly 321 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

Zoos already use reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization for animals like gorillas, and artificial insemination for pandas. (Elsewhere, scientists are considering the merits of resurrecting extinct species such as the woolly mammoth and the passenger pigeon, though they’d have to use ancient DNA for that.) The Frozen Zoo has used its preserved sperm to create pheasant chicks, for example, and has gone as far as making embryos of cheetahs and fertilizing the eggs of southern white rhinoceroses.

I thought I saw you the other day. I was standing in the hall of the DMV office, waiting for someone, when a man walked past me to reach the door. And, for a moment, I couldn't breathe. This had never happened to me before. Mainly, I had never seen anyone in public who was so close to your height, but this man was very tall, like you. He was naturally tan, like you. And he was young, like you. I had never seen anyone who could have so easily been you. So I stood there for a moment, not breathing, and waiting for something, though for what I don't know. He disappeared around the corner of the door, but the tears that had begun were still there as I stared at the spot he had occupied. It scared me slightly, this encounter, because he could have been you. It scared me how easily any man could be you. And of course I want to see you, meet you. Any human being endowed with the slightest bit of curiosity would want to know what their father looks like. They would actually want to know more than that, but that is not an option for the children of donors.  And, putting you aside for a moment, what about my siblings? I was overwhelmed with jealousy at the girls who made national news. The two had been living in the same state and had been friends, both eventually attending the same college out of state. It was there they discovered that they were sisters, that they shared the same donor father. I couldn't help the jealousy I still feel. Something like that does not happen twice. Yet, maybe it does. You see, when I was standing immobile in the DMV hallway looking at that man who could have been you, I never registered that he was wearing glasses, and that when you donated you had perfect vision. I certainly wasn't focused on the fact that chances were very slim you would ever be in my overlooked state, especially not in my small town. Being the child of a donor has a unique ability to make one forget how large a place the United States is. How large a place the world is. The realities came later. But there is always that hope, that possibility that he was you, that the next man I see will be you.  As people there are certain things we must tell ourselves in order to get through the day, and the things donor children say to themselves serve the same purpose. People have to believe in something in order to survive. I don't know if I ever will meet you, even by accident. I can't distinguish whether the hope I feel is justified or if it is just something else I as a human being must tell myself in order to continue. While I know the odds are not in my favor when it comes to a chance encounter with you, I do know that as long as we are both alive on this earth, there is always something that could happen to throw us together. There is always a possibility; it's the never knowing if that possibility will ever come to anything that is just so hard.  And, Father, don't think this means that I'm not angry with you. Don't think I'm not angry with the corporations that continue to separate families. Don't think I'm not angry with all of the parents who lie to their children about their true heritage. Because I am angry, and I know it's contradictory to want to know about you and see you, and also to be angry with you and the world for the circumstances of my birth. But the foundation of life would be nothing without contradictions. So I'm going to continue with my anger, continue with my hope, continue with my life, and I'll write to you again one day. Maybe by that time I won't know anything new. Or, maybe I will. Your Daughter

Date submitted: August 16, 2014

I used to think that I was standing in mountain pose like every body else, but that I lacked balance. I look like my mum but I do not look anything like my dad however hard I've tried. Not the eyes, not the nose, not the face, not the body, not the interests, not the tastes. It hit me particularly hard when he died, and I looked in the mirror and saw no trace of him there. One year ago I was told that I am a donor child. I could not help but feel relieved: not being like my dad is no fault of mine. I also felt sadness: I will never be able to tell him that it makes no difference to me, and that I still love him dearly. I am not one half known and another half refusing to fit in; I am one half known and one half (as yet) unknown. And I am now gradually finding my balance, standing tall. In tree pose.