They are called 'donor children', the approximately 40,000 Dutch children who were born until it was banned in 2004 thanks to anonymous sperm donation. The great secret that is still jealously covered up in many families has almost been overtaken by time. The DNA tests that are accessible to everyone are the big game changer .
Her mother asked her whether she could come to Amsterdam at the end of July 2020. Something had to be discussed. Something that was not suitable for over the telephone. And they had to be four of them: Marilien, her brother, her mother and her father.
That was something that had not happened for thirty years, with 'the whole family' - as it is called - in one room. Whatever had to be told could never be as bad as that, I thought. The four of us in one room, we hadn't done that for a long time. ' Marilien (52) has always been funny, her brother Steven (50) too.
She had a valid excuse: corona, especially if, like Marilien, you work and live with the family in Ireland. A trip to Amsterdam had meant quarantine on her return for two weeks. Could it really not be over the phone? No, it really couldn't be over the phone, said her 83-year-old and very spry mother, but she didn't have to worry either. It was not a disease, no one was going to die for the time being. It had to do with family history. What could this be, Marilien and Steven wondered.
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