“Yes.” Christine remembered.

“None of these interviews or tests constitute psychological screening to any reasonable standard of care in psychology or psychiatry. No nice lady with a liberal arts degree will be able to identify, much less stop, a sociopath.”

Christine felt a chill run down her spine. Lauren looked over, but neither woman said anything.

“The other characteristic of a psychological test is that it has reliability and reproducibility. It’s called ‘test-retest reliability.’ In other words, the test will reveal whether the donor has anxiety issues and the same result will occur if he is retested. Egg donors are routinely given those tests, but sperm donors are not.”

“Why is that?”

“It began because egg donation is a more extensive, physically invasive process. Egg donors have to go through cycles of IVF, and they undergo the procedure by which the eggs are retrieved.”

Christine understood. “Egg donation seems like a bigger deal.”

“Yes, and, in the old days, you could donate sperm anonymously, or before the banking industry mushroomed, you could order the donations yourself. You could use a turkey baster, for real.”

Christine had heard that from the techs at Families First.

“They didn’t think about it downstream, in other words, no matter how differently the gamete—that is, the sperm or egg—is obtained, it’s the same as far as the donor recipient is concerned. There is simply no reason that sperm donors should not undergo the same psychological testing that has become the ordinary standard of care for egg donation.” Gary’s eyes burned with a new intensity. “Moreover, the industry’s record-keeping is also unregulated. Patients, or customers, like you are not required to report births or defects to the banks. The banks are not required to report births or defects to anyone above them, like the FDA. So if there’s a flaw with the sample, they may not know, and they keep selling it.” Gary shook his head. “To make matters worse, there’s no regulation on how many times they can sell the same sample. There’s no limit on the number of offspring produced by any single donor. That’s left up to the banks. Some banks limit the number of offspring to 60. I’ve heard numbers as high as 170.”

Christine shuddered.

“There’s no financial incentive to make banks limit the number of times they sell that sample. The incentive is to use it more, you see? The banks pay a fixed cost for the minimal testing they perform on the donor. Most banks try to recoup that cost by requiring the donor to donate for a year.”

Christine hadn’t known that. She’d thought the donors could just donate once. Her head was spinning, and she knew Lauren’s had to be, too.

“Because the banks rule their jungle, bad things happen to people like you, who just wanna be moms. You’re vulnerable, you’re weak. Some of you fight back. You sue. I can tell you about the case of the bank in Wyoming, who sold twenty-year-old sperm. The offspring was born with cystic fibrosis. Nobody tested for CF when the sperm was donated.”

Christine recoiled.

“Let me tell you a recent case that’s something like yours, involving Xytex. They’ve been in the business for forty years, a major bank. Do you know the name?”

“Yes, Families First uses it.”

“Do you know that they were sued last year by a same-sex couple, two women, because their sperm donor become schizophrenic, dropped out of college, and was arrested for burglary?”

“Yikes.” Christine thought it sounded a little like their case. “How did the women know it was their donor?”

“The bank told them their donor’s identity by mistake, in an email. The women started playing detective. They had the name, they looked him up, they found out.”

“My God.”

“By the way, did you know that anonymous sperm or egg donation is illegal in the U.K.? They don’t allow it. Interesting, no?” Gary nodded. “Anyway, to stay on point, Xytex followed the current standard of care, which is asking donors for three generations of family medical history, doing physicals, blood tests, and a minimal amount of genetic testing. And no psychological testing.”

“Did the couple win?”

“Yes.” Gary paused. “It illustrates another problem in their jungle. Even the best banks, like Homestead, don’t follow up on the information to verify that it remains accurate. They don’t follow up to see if any of the donors develop an illness or emotional disorder. They don’t even try. The profile for 3319 that your husband showed me, that’s just a snapshot. You follow?”

“Yes,” Christine answered miserably. That was why they weren’t sure their donor had gone to med school or not.

“There’s no blood test or genetic marker for mental illnesses. So it’s not easy, quick, and most important of all, cheap to screen for. Let me read you something.” Gary pivoted to his laptop and hit a few keys, then read from his monitor, “The Director of Public Affairs for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine was asked about this, and he said, ‘As technical capabilities to do genetic testing and screenings improve, the banks will do that. But it would be incredibly expensive to test for everything.’”

Christine inhaled, despairing. She understood why Marcus had wanted her to come.

“So you see, it’s about money. It’s business. They could be selling sneakers. It’s all the same to them.” Gary frowned. “They could hire a qualified psychologist to evaluate the donor, but they don’t do that. Families First does, for egg donors. Correct. Props to them. But they don’t do it for sperm donors because they’re not in the sperm banking business. You might want to ask yourself why.”

Christine blinked. “Why?”

“Davidow is doing only what he can do competently. Also, he wants to avoid the exposure. This is the next wave in med mal litigation. Infertility practice is the cutting edge, and there’s going to be more of it, now that same-sex couples can get married.”

Christine saw where he was going.

“So you see why I would advise that you and Marcus sue Homestead. They’re doing wrong. Their wrong hurt you. They rule their jungle. They’re not going to get away with it anymore, not under my watch.” Gary paused. “It’s your decision, but it’s my advice that we file suit for negligence with respect to their psychological screening practices. Also for breach of contract, because you signed a contract with them, and implicit in that is a duty of reasonable care, and I don’t think they exercised that.”