Mom Uses A Sperm Donor Only To Find Out Her Doctor’s Twisted ‘Trick’

Pauline Chambless and her husband struggled with infertility. After over a decade of failing to conceive, along with several taxing miscarriages, they could no longer bear the disappointment. So, in 1984, the couple walked into Dr. Kim McMorries’ office in Nacogdoches, Texas.

“He was the fertility doctor in our area. You couldn’t have asked for a more caring, polite, likable person and doctor,” Pauline said. She felt comfortable, confident, and safe working with Dr. McMorries (below). It was safe to say Pauline and her womb were in the best hands.

It seemed that way, anyway. Just like any alternative methods for having a child, whether it be adoption, IVF, or utilizing a sperm donor, there was a ton of paperwork. Pauline and her husband filled out a questionnaire regarding their preferred donor features, including hair color, height, and ethnicity.

Before they knew it, the couple was paired with hand-selected, anonymous sperm donors that matched their desired characteristics. Pauline endured two-and-a-half years of artificial insemination appointments, praying and hoping a pregnancy would stick.

While this led to a handful of pregnancies, they all ended in miscarriages after about six weeks. “It was devastating,” Pauline stated. Over the course of the long, draining process, she got closer and closer to Dr. McMorries, as he was always there for emotional support.

“Over that period of time, you build up trust for someone who appears to be doing his very best to try to help you conceive. I put my faith in him,” explained Pauline. And in 1986, a miracle happened.

A pregnancy finally stuck, and Dr. McMorries was there for Pauline throughout all nerve-racking nine months. “As soon as I got to the hospital in labor, he came and stayed by my side, through delivery until an hour after Jessica was born,” Pauline detailed.

Jessica was born beautiful and healthy, and Pauline and her husband never wanted to keep any secrets from her; therefore, Jessica grew up knowing she was conceived with help from a donor. So as she got older, the curious kid wondered who her biological daddio was.

“Mom was completely honest, and it made me feel special. I knew how hard she’d tried to have me,” Jessica told The New York Post. The ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s passed the family by, and in 2020, 33-year-old Jessica Stavena (right) was determined to get some answers.

“She also shared everything she knew about my biological father — that he was a tall medical student, with red hair who loved music. I’d often wonder if one day I’d meet him,” the medical-spa manager continued. She soon realized there was more to the mystery than just her father’s identity.

Did Jessica have any half-siblings? Did they know who their father was? Was there a genetic explanation for her own rare medical issues? Her burning questions only got more intense, and she finally did something about it in January 2020.

She took a DNA test, thrilled to finally have some concrete answers. When the results came back on February 23, Jessica was so ecstatic that she called 67-year-old Mama Pauline. “My heart was pounding so hard — I could hear it,” she relayed.

“My husband had Mom on speakerphone as I clicked to see my relatives,” Jessica said. Though her results weren’t as crystal clear as Lizzo’s, turns out Jessica has three half-siblings: two sisters and a brother.

Jessica was practically bursting at the seams with excitement, as she immediately hopped on Facebook and sent her half siblings friend requests. It wasn’t long before she received a message from her long-lost half sister, Eve Wiley.

“Hi! Do you know the details of our birth story? Was Dr. McMorries your mom’s doctor?” Eve’s message read. While Jessica was a bit puzzled, she never could’ve expected what Eve wrote next. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he is also our biological father.”

As you could imagine, Jessica was shell-shocked. What was Eve talking about? How could that be? After reading the message aloud to Pauline (who was still on speakerphone), she was silent. Pauline managed to shout “What!?”

“I just thought, ‘No, that’s absolutely impossible.’ I would never have agreed for my doctor to donate sperm,” Pauline explained. Shockingly, it was possible, as they were victims of “fertility fraud.”

Indiana University law professor Jody Lyneé Madeira defines fertility fraud as “illicit inseminations — an intentional act that occurs when a doctor knowingly uses his own sperm to inseminate a female patient without her consent.” Eve learned about it in 2018.

She and her own mother had a very similar story to Pauline and Jessica’s, and her DNA test revealed some shocking information about her donor. When she realized her donor was actually Dr. McMorries, she confronted him. He wound up sending her a bizarre letter in response.

He explained that he had purposely mixed his sperm with other donors’ in order to improve her mother’s chances of getting pregnant. Eve’s mother denied claims that Dr. McMorries got her permission to do so.

Eve testified to a Senate panel in April 2019, and that September, it officially became a sexual assault for a healthcare professional to use human sperm, eggs, or embryos from an unofficial donor in Texas. Without Eve’s nudging for the passage of Senate Bill 1259, it may’ve never happened.

Jody Lyneé Madeira explained that when cases such as these emerge decades later, way after statues of limitations have ended and documents have been destroyed, pressing charges isn’t an easy task. The professor even filed a complaint against Dr. McMorries with the Texas Medical Board, but sadly nothing came of it.

“To give birth to your baby in front of your husband, while the doctor delivering her is the biological father? It blows my mind that he thought that was okay,” Pauline stated. “It breaks my heart that she wanted to find her biological father for so long. Now it’s just a hardship to her.”

“She didn’t consent to this. Seeing his picture, I think, ‘How could he? Who made him God?’ I just can’t get past the anger and hurt for my mom,” Jessica said in frustration. The mother and daughter felt anger and sorrow for each other, clearly both empathetic individuals.

After doing more digging, Jessica has found that she has a total of seven half siblings, and she only expects that number to grow as more people take DNA tests. Though Jessica’s DNA test led to a sinister discovery, she doesn’t regret it one bit.

As for Pauline, she’s just eternally grateful to have her sweet Jessica, and stated she wouldn’t change that for anything.