Pauline Chambless had dreamed of becoming a mother for well over a decade. But when she struggled to conceive, she called upon a fertility doctor for help. Chambless even maintained a close bond with that medic until she finally had her child, Jessica, in 1987. That all changed, though, when the DNA test Chambless’ daughter took in 2020 exposed a dark secret. And that shocking news would end up devastating the young woman and her mom.
This bombshell would likely have taken Chambless by complete surprise, too, as she had a long history with her physician, Dr. Kim McMorries. Chambless’ battle with infertility dated back to the early 1970s. At that time, she was trying to get pregnant with her husband. Tragically, though, she ultimately lost several babies to miscarriage.
But in 1984 Dr. McMorries was considered to be the go-to guy for local couples who couldn’t conceive. He worked with Chambless and her husband for over two years, utilizing sperm from unnamed donors. And when Chambless finally fell pregnant in 1986, their hard efforts paid off.
Chambless ended nearly 15 years of heartache when she gave birth to Jessica in 1987. More than three decades later, though, the family received an unexpected shock to the system. It all started when the mom’s daughter decided that she wanted to learn more about the sperm donor who helped to create her.
And what was found out would turn the whole family’s world upside down. The secret also brought back Chambless’ traumatic memories of the conception process – which started with their search for the perfect match. What happened? Well, Dr. McMorries first provided the parents-to-be with a document that listed a number of different attributes about potential sperm donors. They ranged from nationality to hair color.
Once Chambless and her partner had highlighted their preferences, they were under the impression that the information would be used to align them with potential donors who fitted those categories. After that, the mother-to-be started her treatment with McMorries. But as it turned out, it wasn’t all plain sailing at the fertility clinic.
Indeed, while a few of the artificial inseminations appeared to work, Chambless lost each of those babies a few weeks later. And this unsurprisingly took its toll on Chambless, with each loss only adding to the pain she already felt from her fertility struggles over the years before. But during an interview with the New York Post in May 2020, Chambless applauded McMorries for his helpful presence in such times of pain.
“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,” Chambless told the publication. “I put my faith in [McMorries]. You couldn’t have asked for a more caring, polite, likable person and doctor.”
Chambless also recalled that McMorries was with her every step of the way even after the treatment led to her successful pregnancy. She added, “As soon as I got to the hospital in labor, he came and stayed by my side. [He was with me] through delivery until an hour after Jessica was born.”
Prior to Jessica Stavena’s birth, Chambless was given some details regarding the unnamed sperm donor, such as his vocation and interests. Then, as time went on, she passed that information on to her daughter. For you see, Stavena has known about the circumstances of her conception for much of her life.
Stavena told the New York Post, “Mom was completely honest, and it made me feel special. I knew how hard she’d tried to have me. 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.”
Stavena was also curious to learn more about the donor’s family, wondering whether she had any brothers or sisters out there, too. And she was keen to uncover the clan’s health history as well. For you see Chambless’ daughter suffered from certain medical ailments that had left doctors scratching their heads, so she hoped to find some answers in her estranged family.
With that aim, Stavena finally took a DNA test in January 2020 – more than three decades on from her mother’s pregnancy. Before long, the results had arrived at her home in Houston, Texas, and she was on the phone with Chambless to share the news.
“My heart was pounding so hard – I could hear it,” Stavena recalled to the newspaper. “My husband had Mom on speakerphone as I clicked to see my relatives. Suddenly, I had three half-siblings: two sisters and a brother. I was ecstatic.” From there, she quickly made her way onto social media.
Stavena sent friend requests to her new relatives, and it didn’t take long for one of them to get back to her. The woman in question was named Eve Wiley, who also hailed from Texas. And in her response, she had a query for her newly-discovered half-sister.
Wiley wrote, “Hi! Do you know the details of our birth story? Was Dr. McMorries your mom’s doctor?” When Stavena replied with a simple yes, she was completely unaware of the huge bombshell that her sibling was about to drop. And afterward, both Stavena and Chambless would be left utterly stunned.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Wiley said. “But [McMorries] is also our biological father.” Unsurprisingly, Chambless and Stavena were taken aback by the message, with the former finding it particularly hard to compute. Indeed, the bond she had shared with McMorries all those years ago had suddenly been thrown under a far more sinister light.
In an interview with the New York Post, Chambless said, “I just thought, ‘No, that’s absolutely impossible.’ I would never have agreed for my doctor to donate sperm. 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.”
And Chambless elaborated on her reaction to the troubling news in a letter Stavena shared with Scribol.com in July 2020. She wrote, “It was something I would have never agreed to – mostly because of the ethical reasons. He was my doctor, and that is how it should have stayed. What he did was very unethical, deceptive, selfish, and inconsiderate – that he could make a decision for me and my child that would cause a lifetime of emotional trauma and pain.”
Stavena’s thoughts on the situation were pretty similar, too. When she opened up to the New York Post in May 2020, the Houston resident said, “I felt like I’d been hit by a ton of bricks. My mind was spinning, trying to understand what Eve had written. How could that possibly be true?”
At this point, Chambless and Stavena were just trying to come to terms with the information. But, of course, Wiley knew all too well the maelstrom of emotions they were experiencing. Much like her half-sibling, she was welcomed into the world in 1987 and had spent her formative years in Center, Texas.
Unlike Stavena, though, Wiley had no idea that she had been conceived through a sperm donor until she was much older. By that point, her mom was the sole provider for the family, following the passing of her dad. The youngster eventually accessed the information as a 16-year-old, when she browsed her parent’s messages.
Wiley spoke to her mom soon after reading the message and discovered that she’d had fertility issues prior to Wiley’s birth. So, before going through the same process as Chambless, her folks also visited McMorries’ clinic in Nacogdoches. But tracing down her relatives would prove trickier than Wiley once thought.
You see, when sperm from Wiley’s dad and an unnamed donor didn’t yield results, her mother had picked a different sample that came from a cryobank in California. Known as “Donor Number 106,” that selection was made after she looked at his characteristics in a document. Her choice eventually led to the pregnancy that brought Wiley into the world.
After finding that out, Wiley got in contact with the donor a couple of years later, connecting with a man named Steve Scholl. The pair hit it off fairly quickly and formed a loving bond. Such was the strength of their relationship, Scholl even served as the officiator at her wedding.
However, Wiley’s world was turned upside down when she, too, decided to take a DNA test. She was 30 years old at the time and wondered if she had any other half-brothers or sisters through Scholl’s samples. She soon found a first cousin who confirmed that his biological uncle was McMorries.
From there, Wiley went on to send McMorries a message, which eventually led to the doctor certifying that he had used his own sperm in the artificial insemination. The doctor explained, “Since I had been a donor while in medical school, I spoke with one of my mentors. And he said they were having better success by mixing [sperm] samples.”
McMorries continued, “[My mentor] suggested first taking the patient’s husband’s sample and combining it with the donor. If the husband’s sample was too poor, then combining two donor samples might do better. The thinking at that time was that if the patient got pregnant, there was no way to know which sperm affected the conception. No one ever considered the effect of genetic testing 32 years later,” he added.
According to McMorries, Wiley’s mom gave him permission to use a “local” donor, but he couldn’t actually reveal that the sample was his. If he did, he would’ve been in breach of an “anonymity agreement.” But the parent has maintained that those discussions never took place.
Since finding out her parentage, Wiley says she’s found more instances where McMorries hasn’t been completely honest with patients. As she explained to Scribol.com in July 2020, “He originally told me there were one-two births from his donations. Then when we hit five, he said he was only allowed to do this five times. Now we are at nine [children], and he says it’s five per area.”
For Wiley, though, the details of the insemination process that took place are particularly troubling. You see, given that sperm can only live for 30 minutes outside of the cervical mucus, the doctor would have had to produce his sample and then quickly return to deposit it into the woman.
She told Scribol.com, “When this happens, the lines of doctor and donor are blurred, and we are unable to determine when the sexual experience ends during that process. This was happening on top of the fact that the women did not assent or consent to the doctor using his own when they specifically consented to a certain donor.”
Wiley was also keen to point out that when she, Stavena and their other half-siblings were being conceived, the world was in the midst of the AIDs epidemic. She told Scribol.com, “Our parents thought they were getting medically screened, quarantined, frozen sperm. Instead of fresh semen from a doctor who is constantly exposed to blood and not tested for the virus.”
So, when Chambless and Stavena’s case hit the headlines, a law professor from Indiana University came forward. Her name is Jody Lyneé Madeira, and she believes that both Chambless’ and Wiley’s families were casualties of “fertility fraud.” “[This is] an intentional act that occurs when a doctor knowingly uses his own sperm to inseminate a female patient without her consent,” she told the New York Post.
It was back in June 2019 that Madeira first voiced her concerns about McMorries’ conduct to the Texas Medical Board. But the complaint was thrown out a few months later, and as a consequence, the doctor still continued to operate out of Nacogdoches. Later that year, however, there was a significant change in the law regarding fertility fraud.
Indeed, every week for four months Wiley would drive to Austin and share her story with various legislators in order to gain support for the bill. And the only opposition that she came up against was McMorries’ best friend, who continued to claim that the doctor “didn’t do anything wrong.” Finally, though, the state confirmed that if a person is artificially inseminated with samples from an “unauthorized” source, that’s now officially considered a form of sexual assault. Yet in other parts of the country, cases of a similar nature still aren’t considered to be illegal.
Needless to say, Madeira hasn’t been shy in sharing her opinion on the matter. “Cases like this are cropping up all over the country at this point,” the lawyer informed ABC News in May 2019. “A lot of people have compared the fertility industry to the Wild West. There’s very, very little criminal [charges] holding these people accountable. The question is, are these physicians playing God?”
Madeira’s stance remained the same when she spoke to the New York Post, too, condemning McMorries again for his part in Chambless’ pregnancy. She argued, “It was always unlawful to intentionally deceive patients about the medical treatment they would receive. And let’s be honest – no patient expected that their doctor might be their donor.”
But while the law change has no doubt been welcomed by a lot of people in Texas, cases are becoming increasingly difficult to prove in court. Madeira admitted, “The problem is that these [fertility fraud] cases are coming to light decades later, after statutes of limitation have run [out], and after most patients’ records have been destroyed. This makes these charges very difficult to prosecute. Although it’s easier to bring a civil suit.”
As for Chambless and Stavena, they continue to struggle with the psychological fallout of their mothers’ experiences. The pair were left overwhelmed by the results of the DNA test, with Stavena uncovering seven half-brothers and sisters by May 2020. In the end, though, two things proved especially upsetting for them.
“[Chambless] didn’t consent to this,” Stavena told the New York Post. “Seeing [McMorries’] picture, I think, ‘How could he? Who made him God?’ I just can’t get past the anger and hurt for my mom.” The Houston resident then segued into her second point, looking ahead to a concerning future.
Stavena concluded, “Three of our siblings live in the same town, and two of them have children that go to the same school. How was [McMorries] going to prevent accidental incest? Every day you wake up with an emotional hangover because you have gone through so many feelings. [But] knowledge is power.”
