Eve Wiley was conceived via sperm donation. When she found who the donor was, it devastated her.

How many times can you find out life-changing news about your father? For Eve Wiley, the answer is three times.
And about three different men.

Eve Wiley has had three fathers in her lifetime. One of them, sadly, passed away when she was seven. One of them is a great guy, but wasn't who she thought he was. And the other was an egomaniacal monster.

For years now, Wiley has been campaigning tirelessly about fertility fraud. She even featured in the hit Netflix docuseries The Man With 1000 Kids, which told the story of serial sperm donor Jonathan Meijer.

Along with Jonathan, there is an alarming number of serial sperm donors out there who are obsessed with the idea of impregnating women under false pretences — for their own twisted reasons. Nobody knows that better than Wiley.

Growing up, Wiley had always believed Doug was her biological father. He was married to her mother, Margo, and he was a high school teacher in their hometown in America. Sadly, Doug passed away when she was seven.

Years later, 16-year-old Wiley was going through her mother's emails, and she made a discovery.

Watch the trailer for The Man With 1000 Kids. Post continues below. 

"My mum was a nurse at my school. I had this little habit where I would go into her emails and find all the juicy gossip on my cohorts. That's when I found the emails in my mum's personal inbox from California cryobank and I saw my birth date on it," she tells Mamamia's No Filter.

It was at this moment that Wiley realised she had been donor conceived. Doug wasn't her biological father. 

Rather, Donor 106, real name Steve, was her biological father. 

"The next morning I barged into the bathroom where my mum was getting ready and said, 'Mum, I know that Doug isn't my dad.' I just remember her looking at me in the reflection of the mirror and she started bawling. She was going to tell me, she just didn't know how to tell me."

"There was definitely a level of trauma of not having a father figure growing up. I tried to look at it in a Pollyanna sense though, thinking of all the half siblings I probably had. I was not aware that the donor could decide not to have contact with me, or that I could be rejected."

During childhood, there had been jokes from family friends or schoolmates that Wiley was adopted. She was blonde, had blue eyes and her sister, who was 14 months younger, had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Wiley looked like no one in her family. 

After Wiley was conceived via sperm donation, Doug received medical treatment that increased his fertility changes. It then meant he and Margo welcomed their second daughter, who was biological to both of them. 

Wiley made the choice to make contact with the sperm donor her parents had used.

"The recommendation in the '80s was 'don't ask, don't tell.' But thankfully, mum had kept all the information in a green folder. We pulled it out and saw the records. His name was Steve. Mum had chosen him because he had certain qualities and an interest in film and politics that she thought was similar to Doug," explains Wiley.

The pair met and went on to form a close bond. Steve told Wiley he had been a donor years ago while in college, doing it to earn a quick buck. Now his life looked very different.

"He was a father of three children. We ended up talking on the phone like forever. He flew down to meet me for the first time, and it was amazing. It was like a huge hug. I was 19 at the time."

"His wife hadn't known about his donation, I mean while they were dating it never really came up. I really understood her desire to not want to tell the kids right away. It took multiple years for them to disclose me to them. They were cool with it."

Years went by. The father/daughter relationship continued. Steve even officiated Wiley's wedding to her husband, Blake. Then upon having children of her own, Wiley's son became sick.

"My oldest had all these allergies and no one could figure out what it was. He had celiac disease. Doctors wanted a better medical history, so they recommended we do DNA testing, as it's a hereditary condition."

Eve Wiley with her husband. Image: Instagram.

She undertook the genetic testing, and it transpired that Steve was not her biological father. Commercial DNA testing found it was her mother's fertility doctor who had intentionally used his own sperm. He had not used the donor her parents had selected and consented to. 

"DNA doesn't lie. But I desperately wished I had never discovered this and had continued living a fairytale life with my dad Steve and mum. I wanted to pretend it had never happened. The denial was strong," says Wiley.

Soon the reality hit home hard. 

"I equate it with medical rape, because there's no consent," notes Wiley.

Wiley says breaking the news to Steve was incredibly hard.

"I didn't tell him until weeks later, because I think there was a small part of me, that was really hoping that it wasn't true. But I knew the truth needed to be told. It was the hardest part of this entire process. It was like a daddy wound being ripped open again, I was so afraid of rejection. I knew there was nothing that would undo that 13 years of us building the relationship. I was still worried though."

"We just cried and cried and cried. At the very end of the conversation he said, 'It changes some things, but it doesn't change the fact that you're my daughter.' That was all I needed to hear."

Upon finding out the truth, Wiley and her mother contacted the authorities as well as their lawyers. They were informed that this insemination without consent was only a crime in one state in the US. 

Wiley has since set out to change the laws in Texas and other states by creating civil and criminal causes of actions for victims. As of 2022, eight US states have passed some sort of fertility fraud bill.

Wiley also decided to confront her biological father via email. 

"He is a pillar in our community, people love him. I did everything in writing, and told him that through testing I am his daughter. He wrote back just with smoke and mirrors, like 'It appears that you would have inherited some of my genetics.' Yeah dumbass. Through commercial DNA testing I can see that I have 14 half siblings."

"He f**ked with the wrong woman. He thought I would buy his bullsh*t or maybe I wasn't smart enough. He said I should just be grateful. I never heard from him again after I told him I would be lobbying to make this a crime."

When Wiley went public with her story in 2020, the reaction in her local area was difficult to grapple with. She even had the doctor's preacher call her to say he had been doing "the Lord's work" and that she should be "grateful to have his wonderful genetics".

Wiley says it was a very disappointing response that many had, around 90 per cent of the community taking his side.

Her cases against the doctor are still in the court system. She is hoping to have his medical license revoked. 

"If I truly believe that we need to leave this world better than we found it, I need to find the purpose in my pain. I need to do it, not only for the rest of the people who have been deceived, but also to be an example for my girls, that it's not always the tragedy that happens to you. It's what you do with it. And that is empowerment."

You can listen to the full conversation with Eve Wiley on No Filter now. 

For more from Eve Wiley, you can follow her Instagram and see her website here.

Feature Image: Instagram.