Children of the Dorn
a six-part documentary series proposal

The Story
...in a rather large nutshell

Nate is an advertising photographer that creates engaging and fun images for his clients, his social circle surrounds him with a legion of eclectic friends who love him dearly. He is smart, handy, and great with dogs. He is at once an artist, a pragmatic thinker, and a lover of the human spirit. He is warm, funny, kind, ever curious, loving, and gregarious. He is the type of person that leaves an impression on you when you meet him; People remember Nate Dorn. 

And, as it turns out; he’s very fertile.

When he was in college Nate needed some extra money. He worked a series of jobs so he could earn and learn. Then one day he walked into a fertility clinic to ‘earn extra money’ and ‘help families out’. They told him about the process and the usage. He was assured that his sample would be used a limited number of times and then retired. It wouldn’t be used close to home and he could keep it confidential from his family and friends. He went on to donate and sign a piece of paper saying he would be open to be contacted down the road by these children. He was eighteen years old and up for anything. As time passed he rarely thought of that moment in time. The money was spent and his life moved on; he focused on finishing college, starting work, and dating. 

His nuclear family continued to grow around him, his brother and two sisters got married and had their kids. Nate never quite found a partner the way his siblings had and has stayed single. On top of that, his work allowed him to always be on the move having different experiences and adventures. That kept him in a state of perpetual exploration. He was constantly making and doing, bounding from one experience to another. 

Eighteen years later he would come face to face with his past. The clinic reached out to broker a request for a meet up with his biological daughter Kianni. Questions raced through his mind; What did she want? Who was he to her? What does all this mean? What did he owe her? 

Kianni did not come to the table with heavy expectations from Nate, meeting him was not about her looking for a ‘long lost dad’ to pay for college or to walk her down the aisle. Instead it was about her continuing a journey of discovery that had begun years earlier. 

Kianni’s mom, Ruth, had been with a woman when they decided to seek out a donor so they could have a baby. They did and they chose Nate’s sample and it led to Kianni. Ruth’s partner would eventually leave them and that left Kianni to be raised by a very loving single mom. Over the years, Ruth had been in several serious relationships; some of those partners came with their own kids. For almost a decade Kianni had two younger step-brothers. They were very close. Then, after eight years of growing up together, the boys were gone due to the couple’s eventual split. That left Kianni very lonely. She loved being the big sister and now that was gone.

Kianni and her mom signed up for the Donor Sibling Registry, a resource that the recipient families connect and communicate with one another or connect with their donor, should they allow it. It was there that Ruth and Kianni began quietly connecting with other kids (and their parents), all of which were Nate’s progeny. When they first joined there were between fifteen and twenty offspring, but the numbers grew each year. The emerging web-based technology made it easier and easier for these siblings to connect. Kianni became the organizer of  a private group on social media solely for Nate’s offspring. She was told by the clinic that she was in fact Nate’s first born, so that made her the big sister to everyone she was connecting with, a feeling she relished. 

Nate and Kianni’s first meeting was awkward, lovely, silly, and full of nerves on both sides. But they got through it admirably. Nate did not make a habit of talking about the chapter in his life to many people, it was a small circle. His family was left in the dark for a long time so as not to embarrass them. Eventually, as the numbers grew and attention was drawn to online ancestry sites, Nate ‘came out’ to his family that this donation happened and these offspring were out there.  As for Kianni, she was now able to report back to the sibling group that she had made contact with Nate, and that he was nice. He was also semi-open to meeting some of the others. The community had so many questions for her, all of which eventually dove-tailed into, “When can we meet him?” That led to Kianni being the broker for future meet-ups with Nate. Big sister now became the gatekeeper. 

As the numbers of the donor sibling community grew, Kianni was the one to break it to Nate that there were over forty offspring out there, with questions. This was counter to what he was told would happen with his donation, but evidently a regular occurrence in the fertility world. What they all soon found out was that the original clinic Nate donated to was sold as part of a bankruptcy and that included all of its assets aka the clinic’s inventory (including Nate’s donation). It was acquired by a new clinic, evaluated, and put back into circulation. Due to his donation’s success rate it became very valuable to this new corporate entity, and all the agreements about ‘retiring’ him were thrown out the window without consulting him. The assurances made to college-aged Nate no longer applied and the new entity sold and sold and sold. 

Over time Nate occasionally met a handful of the growing number of siblings if they came through his home city of Atlanta. The meetings were almost always arranged by Kianni, the buffer. A coffee or lunch with these curious strangers who owed their very existence to the fact that he needed extra money when he was about their age. He would meet them one or two at a time.  Eventually the group’s numbers grew. Dozens and dozens of others began to reach out to the group that Kianni maintained, some wanting community and some wanting to know more about Nate Dorn. 

Today he has over 79 biological offspring (that they know of) and every few months more siblings seem to come out of the woodwork. They range in age from as young as five or six and to Kianni, in her late twenties. His donation has given dozens and dozens of families hope and enabled them to have children and a family of their own. Kianni would take the opportunity to organize meet-ups with multiple siblings twice a year in various parts of the country. It enabled her to travel and to connect with this community she had built from the ground up. She also would get to fill the role of the big sister through it all. She was, after all, the first born of Nate’s donations. Well, sort of...

More on the term ‘black market sperm’ later... 

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The Structure

This project is planned as a 6-part documentary series that meditates on the notions of family, community, and identity in the modern age. It will explore how the traditional notions of family have become entangled with the advancements in digital and medical technology that have created a reality for Nate and Kianni that would once have been thought of as science fiction. 

This is the story of one unique man who has spawned over 79 remarkable people. It will explore who they are and how he has dealt with the special situation. Nate is a truly one-of-a-kind individual who these extraordinary circumstances have fallen squarely on his shoulders. I cannot think of an individual better equipped to navigate such a fluid and sensitive family dynamic.

The story will be told in six 1-hour segments in an effort to capture the scope and scale of the story. Over the course of those episodes we will meet Nate and his nuclear family and tell their rich and fascinating story. We will go on to meet Kianni, her mother Ruth, and her husband Ryan; looking at her conception, early life, marriage, and her growing family. We will meet the other siblings and examine how it all came to pass for them. We will learn about the practices in the field of reproductive science, and talk about the rich tapestry of community and family this story has created for Nate, his family, and these offspring.

Nate and Kianni’s stories are filled with celebration, love, loneliness, community, desperation, identity, and intrigue. We intend to handle the material with gravitas and humor in equal parts. This is a very odd tale about how people ‘do family’. There is very little that is status quo for this group, but they are all human and real people living with a singular experience that very few people can understand. There are over two hundred potential voices and points of view to this story which, while daunting, is an exciting story-telling prospect. All of those voices have experienced this story in different ways. We will make an effort to curate and showcase a select handful of those stories that can stand in for the larger whole.

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