Ways of living and traveling.
Some are marked on their road map to visit the 50 states that make up the USA. There are those who dedicate themselves to visiting places where things have happened that have shaped the history of this country or the world. Others want to enjoy the wonders of the planet (seven and many more), go to music festivals or, if they are fond of long-distance running, sign up for marathons to jog across the global atlas. Nor should we forget those who put on their caps and go from house to house of friends (or not so much) who receive them due to land or sea geography.
In this era of mass tourism, in which the sense of adventure remains in the catalog, it is about finding a story that allows the traveler to feel different from the others, away from the common lane.
The truth is that for these deployments you only need time, money and desire, of the latter more and more due to the increase in inconvenience caused by the growing feeling that you need to go back to work to rest from the holidays.
And in this landscape appears Dylan Stone-Miller and his completely original excuse in his journeys, unattainable for all, or almost, ordinary humans.
According to the calculations of the Wall Street Journal, whose name already denotes wisdom in indexes and statistics, Stone-Miller has traveled 15,000 kilometers this summer with one goal: to visit some, just some, of his 96 children. He does not rule out that there are more. “I will never know how many children I have”, he confesses when faced with the difficulty of sometimes keeping track of his contributions.
Let’s see who can have a guide like that of this 32-year-old man.
His route through North America, as the Journal points out, is complex, full of logistical and emotional difficulties for the children, the families and himself.
Stone-Miller is a prolific sperm donor. His odyssey represents a long journey that consists of finding out how he can fit into the lives of these boys and girls to whom he gave the seed, but whose father he is not. It all started three years ago when he saw a photo of a baby named Harper, who to him had the same blue eyes and blonde hair as his sister. He says he cried because he was certain that Harper was the first fruit of his donations. He met her when he was three years old.
He quit his job as a software engineer and used his savings to try to have a relationship with as many of his children as possible. The mission itself is an accident arising from the unforeseen confluence of IVF, the Internet, and low-cost DNA testing. These factors have made it possible to find biological parents that in the past were a secret of sperm banks.
Stone-Miller’s parents, who live in Atlanta, divorced when he was 14 and his sister 10. At 19, he got the woman he was dating pregnant. Although at first she agreed to be a mother, she later changed her mind. Months later, as a Psychology student at Georgia State University, he was arrested for consuming alcohol while under 21, the legal drinking age in the United States.
The father and mother told him that the lawyer had to be paid. A colleague told him about a sperm bank (Xytex) and he jumped at the chance. He was paid $100 per visit. Now he maintains that it was something more than money that kept him doing it over the course of six years.
Shortly after separating from his wife in 2020, Stone-Miller received a message. It was signed by Alicia Bowes, one of Harper’s two mothers, who had tracked her down as the donor. He showed him the gratitude of his family. They resided in Canada. He opened Bowes’ Instagram and discovered the girl’s photo. He asked that woman for help to open a Facebook group to find more children. About twenty families responded, mostly made up of couples of women or single mothers.
On this summer’s trip, he met 14 descendants. In some cases, his obsession has caused him to be told that he was not the father, “nor will you ever be”.
But he continues.
