He became a sperm donor during his university years, now (as far as he knows) he has 96 children! ‘I burst into tears the moment I saw your blue eyes’
Dylan Stone-Miller, a sperm donor, traveled nearly 15,000 kilometers this summer to see some of his 96 children. Dylan, 32, who started sperm donation as a university student to earn money, reached a point he never expected and said he felt like a parent. Here are all the details about Dylan’s interesting story and his long journey…
It all started three years ago, when Dylan Stone-Miller saw a photo of one of his biological children. The toddler, named Harper, had Dylan’s blue eyes and his sister’s blonde curls. Dylan told the Wall Street Journal that the moment he saw the photo, he burst into tears and felt an unexpected closeness.
“I consider Harper my first child,” said Dylan, who met Harper when she was just 3 years old and then decided he wanted to meet and communicate with as many children as possible.
Dylan, who quit his job as a software engineer and financed his search for his children with his savings, has met 25 biological children so far, but said, “I will never be sure how many children I have.”
IT ALL STARTED WITH A FRIEND’S ADVICE
So how did Dylan Stone-Miller’s story of being the biological father of 96 children (for now!) begin?
Dylan’s parents divorced when he was 14. He and his sister, four years younger, spent six out of every two weeks with their father, a forensic psychologist, and the rest with their mother, a professor of art history at Emory University in Atlanta.
One of the turning points in Dylan’s life came when he was 19 and his girlfriend told him she was pregnant. According to him, she initially planned to keep the baby, but later changed her mind. Dylan said that this affected him a lot, “I was starting to mentally prepare to be a father. I had thoughts in my mind about what it would be like to bring a life into the world. My girlfriend’s decision left me with a lasting sense of loss.”
Nine months later Dylan, who was studying psychology at Georgia State University, was arrested for underage drinking. (The legal drinking age in the US is 21.) His parents told him he needed to hire a lawyer. He needed money for that. A friend told Dylan about the money he was making from donations to a sperm bank. Dylan, who became a sperm donor for $100 per donation when he was still a college student, said that looking back, it was more than money that kept him in the business for six years.
A MESSAGE FROM A STRANGER AND A LIFE CHANGED
In 2020, Dylan received a message from a stranger. “Today is Canadian Thanksgiving and I wanted to tell you how grateful my family is for you,” wrote Alicia Bowes, Harper’s mother. Bowes had found Dylan on social media, following clues such as his first name on his donor file and the fact that his father was a forensic psychologist.
Dylan opened Bowes’ Instagram page and saw Harper’s photo. A few days later, he asked Bowes if he could join a Facebook group of parents who had had children through the Sperm Bank. Bowes agreed to start a new group for those interested. When Dylan posted in the group that he wanted to meet the children, 20 parents responded.
Dylan found out about the Facebook group at a difficult time in his life. He had quit his job. His ex-wife and young son had just moved out of the three-bedroom house they had bought together east of Atlanta. “I felt like such a failure,” Dylan said, but a few months later, on the first day of his new job, he received Bowes’ message and a whole new door opened.
JOINING A FACEBOOK GROUP CHANGED HIS PLANS
The sperm donation process, long shrouded in secrecy, changed dramatically when Dylan became a donor. The young man was allowed to reveal his identity to any of the sperm bank’s biological children after they turned 18. But joining the Facebook group opened the door to meeting his children years earlier. “I wanted to watch the kids grow up,” Dylan said.
Some parents had decided they didn’t want to meet him. Those who agreed to meet with him were trying to understand Dylan’s purpose, trying to decide whether he was a biological father, a donor father, a visitor or a special friend. Neither the parents nor Dylan were sure where to draw the line.
‘I CAN SEE DYLAN’S CHARACTERISTICS IN ALMOST ALL CHILDREN’
Alicia Bowes, who paved the way to include him in their lives by texting him out of the blue one day, has allowed Dylan to visit their home twice in the past year. Bowes explained their complicated situation: “There are moments when we are intrusive with Dylan. It’s about us finding out what our boundaries are and him finding out what his boundaries are.”
Dylan’s mother, Rebecca Stone, is baffled by what is happening. Saying that she did not have a simple answer to explain exactly what her son’s purpose was, Rebecca said that she was still very happy to see the photos of her biological grandchildren and said, “I can see Dylan’s features in almost all the children. Many of them are blonde and blue-eyed like him.”
‘DYLAN IS NOT HIS FATHER. PERIOD…’
As mentioned above, Dylan has visited his biological children Harper and her sister Harlow twice before. In July, he spent nine days in a hotel near their home in Edmonton, Canada. This was the longest visit of Dylan’s journey. During these visits, of course, there were some complicated and even tense moments. One of these moments concerned how the children would address Dylan.
Bowes emphasized that Harper can’t call Dylan whatever he wants and said, “Dylan is not his father. Period.” Dylan stated that he didn’t like this situation and said, “It was hard to look my biological daughter in the eye and tell her that I’m not her father.”
Dylan also explained that he had a lot of anxiety at the beginning of his journey. “Am I a parent? I don’t know. It’s not for me to say, but I certainly feel like a parent at times,” Dylan said, adding that he told his therapist that he expected to stay in touch with his biological children forever but didn’t know how that would be possible.
‘I TRUST DYLAN COMPLETELY’
Before traveling, Dylan went to see another biological child, 6-year-old Cal, who lives in a suburb of Atlanta. He had visited the boy several times in the past two years, and on the last visit Cal told his mother that he wanted to spend time alone with Dylan. The mother, Lindsay Harris, was worried but allowed Dylan to take Cal to a store to buy toys.
Harris said, “I was a little hesitant about sending Cal off in the car with Dylan, but I believe he is who he says he is. He’s proven it. It’s a reassuring feeling. I trust him completely.”
After the toy store, Cal and Harris went to the park to spend time with Dylan and another of his biological children, a 3-year-old boy. When it was time to leave, both Cal and Dylan were very sad. Dylan said it was very hard to say goodbye every time.
ONE MORE STOP BEFORE CANADA: VISIT WITH MAC, 5 YEARS OLD
Two days after his visit to Cal, on May 26, Dylan left Atlanta and headed for Vancouver. On the way, he made an early stop in eastern Connecticut to see 5-year-old Mac Wraichette, who was excitedly waiting for him. This was Dylan’s third visit with Mac. His mother, Jessie Wraichette, said Mac was so happy to see Dylan: “He was so impatient that as soon as he woke up he asked, ‘Is Dylan coming?”
During their time together, Mac went into the pool to show he could swim. “You’re like a fish,” Dylan told him. After the pool, they played together in the backyard, with Dylan pushing Mac on a swing.
On the other hand, Dylan said that he tries to be fair in dividing the time he spends with his children, keeping a chart of their names, ages, birthdays, and the last time he saw or spoke to them.
HARPER CALLS HIM ‘DONOR DYLAN’
Arriving in Vancouver at the end of July, Dylan planned to see 14 people on his trip, spending the longest time with Harper and Harlow. He arrived in the city on July 10 to see the girls and plans to return in September. Since arriving in Vancouver, he has spent a lot of time with the girls. He even babysat them and arranged for their mother to spend a night out.
Dylan said he made ravioli for the girls that night, but Harper didn’t like it, adding: “I made her toast and eggs, read the girls bedtime stories and helped them brush their teeth.”
Dylan also said that he took Harper to the mall during the visit and that a passerby in the food court said to him, “What a good father.” Dylan said, “It was a strange moment. We look alike. Because of the closeness Harper and I share, people can easily conclude that this is a father-daughter relationship. Harper calls me Dylan the Donor,” he said.
Bowes said he now understood Dylan better and could imagine the strong attraction he felt for boys and girls who looked like him and wanted his time and attention, adding: “Being with children gave him a new purpose. The more we get to know him, the more comfortable we all feel. But I think she will feel more entitled, which could be a problem. We need to keep the walls high enough to protect our family, but permeable enough for him to get in.”
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal article ‘A Sperm Donor Chases a Role in the Lives of the 96 Children He Fathered’.
Illustrations: Harun Elibol
