After a year of selling my sperm, I went back to giving it away and largely forgot about the whole thing. Occasionally the subject of whether I had children would come up, and I’d make a joke about probably having a bunch. I had signed a nondisclosure waiver and assumed there would never be a way for my progeny and me to find one another.

Then the internet happened.

In the early 2000s, I searched online for a way to find my offspring and discovered the Donor Sibling Registry but didn’t see any leads there and never got around to checking back. (I had looked way too early: My progeny began to use the site to find each other when they became teenagers in the 2010s.)

A couple of years ago I began seeing ads for 23andMe, a service that analyzes your saliva — you spit in a test tube and mail it off for analysis — and provides you with information about ancestry, health and DNA relatives. The opportunity was obvious, but I assumed the odds of finding my children were low. I procrastinated for months before curiosity and an urge to know them made me order a kit.

I got my results back, and boom: I had a son, Bryce. His full name was unusual enough that I easily Googled him, and the picture resembled me enough that I felt confident this senior geography major was mine (mine?). Guessing he had been notified of my existence by 23andMe, I mulled in agitation for a week before finally putting fingers to keyboard.