BARWIN’S BABIES
THEY SAY THEY ARE THE CHILDREN OF AN OTTAWA FERTILITY DOCTOR WHO BROKE ALL THE RULES. BUT THEY ARE FINDING, IN EACH OTHER, A NEW FAMILY
HE TOLD ME I WAS OBSESSIVE FOR WANTING THE ANSWER. I WAS TRYING TO GET INTO HIS HEAD THAT THIS ISN’T A RIDICULOUS QUESTION. YOU ARE NOT BREEDING PUPPIES, YOU ARE CREATING HUMANS. — KATHRYN PALMER
Kat Palmer always knew she was a Bar win baby. It was a matter of pride in her family that Dr. Norman Barwin, Ottawa’s renowned fertility doctor, had helped her parents conceive after years of trying.
As members of Ottawa’s tight- knit Jewish community, they sometimes ran into the doctor at events while she was growing up.
“My parents were so grateful to this man. My dad would bring me over and say: ‘ We are so thankful to him because he gave us you.’ ”
Those words have new meaning now.
In 2015, the petite 27-yearold was able to do what no one else had. She convinced Barwin to take a DNA test. The test confirmed her growing fear that Barwin, not the unidentified sperm donor of Irish and German heritage her parents had chosen, was her biological father. Years of searching for half siblings and comparing her DNA profile against others had convinced her there was no other conclusion.
“I cannot understand how this could have happened,” Barwin wrote to her in an October 2015 email confirming his paternity. “This has caused me much stress and remorse. I regret we have both to endure this major disruption in our lives.”
The former fertility doctor is facing a potential classaction lawsuit from 11 people who say are Barwin babies, conceived using the doctor’s own sperm. Some had believed their own fathers were their biological parent; others believed they had been conceived with donor sperm; but all allege their genetic link to Barwin has now been identified by testing their DNA against two women believed to be his biological children.
The lawsuit includes others: Some conceived at Barwin’s clinic and have now learned their own fathers are not their biological fathers and don’t know who is. Others, who were conceived using donor sperm selected by their parents, do not know which sperm was used or who their biological fathers are. A final group includes men who stored their sperm at Barwin’s clinic, in some cases because they had cancer, and who are concerned it may have been used to conceive children without their knowledge. The potential suit, which has yet to be confirmed in court, involves 150 people so far.
RESEMBLANCE
Like Palmer, Rebecca Dixon, is 27, petite and olived-skinned with sleek dark hair.
Lawyer Peter Cronyn says Dixon’s resemblance to the fertility doctor hit him like a gut- punch the first time she walked into his office. “When I saw her, I was quite blown away.”
Cronyn is one of the lawyers working on the lawsuit. His firm has hired a geneticist and is setting up a genetic databank to help clients find information.
The suit comes after Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons reprimanded Barwin in 2013 and found he had failed to maintain a professional standard of practice and failed to use the correct sperm. He was banned from practising medicine for two months and reprimanded for artificially inseminating three of his patients with the wrong sperm. Even if all the allega-- tions against Barwin were true, it is possible he would have broken no law. Such is the lax state of regulations around the world of fertility medicine and sperm donors.
Amid the confusion and devastation, something positive has emerged: The halfsiblings conceived using Barwin’s sperm — born between the 1970s and 1990s — are building a new kind of family.
They have met in small and larger groups and are slowly getting to know each other. The newly formed bonds are an unexpected silver lining.
“Every time I spend time with my siblings, afterward I am filled with love and joy and warmth. It has been fascinating to get to know them,” Dixon says.
FINDING SOLACE
One of the the strongest half- sibling bonds is between Dixon and Palmer.
The two young women, both “only” children and born seven months apart, led such parallel lives growing up in Ottawa, and resemble each other so much, it is remarkable they had never met until 2016.
Both young women attended Canterbury High School and were in t he music program one year apart. They had a friends in common.
When the half siblings
finally did meet, there was an eerie familiarity.
They both giggled the same way; they both played with their hair the same way; they looked like sisters. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off her,” Dixon says of Palmer.
Their paths to finding each other and their other half- siblings, none of whom wanted to speak publicly, were quite different.
Dixon grew up happily in Ottawa, the only child of Davina and Dan Dixon. The couple had tried to conceive without success and started seeing Barwin in 1989. Rebecca was born a year later.
“We had a very good experience with Barwin,” says Davina Dixon. “He never put us off, weekdays, weekends, it never made a difference. We called him and he gave us a time to meet at the clinic.”
Rebecca was the apple of her parents’ eyes, although she did not physically resemble either of them. She has brown eyes and olive skin and her parents have blue eyes and pinkish skin.
But it wasn’t until she was diagnosed with celiac disease as a young adult, a condition no one else in their family had, that the Dixons began asking questions.
Allegations against the highly respected doctor surfaced publicly in 1995 when a patient discovered her child was not biologically related to the sperm donor.
After that case, the college warned Barwin to take steps to ma sure no such errors happened again. Then, in 2013, Barwin was disciplined by the college for sperm mixups with three patients. He admitted he failed to maintain the standards of practice of the profession but couldn’t explain how the mix-up occurred. He gave up his licence after being reprimanded by the college in 2013.
The publicity caused others who had been patients of Barwin’s to look more closely at their own experiences. Many are now involved in the potential class action.
The fall of a fertility doctor long revered by patients continues to stun many. Among other things, Barwin, an avid runner, was found to have cheated in both the Boston and Ottawa marathons. He resigned from the Order of Canada in 2013.
HOME DNA TEST
It was a blood test that confirmed what the Dixon family most feared — that Dan could not be Rachel’s father.
Dan, who had been against using donor sperm to help his wife conceive, reacted with tears and anger. Davina says she was angry at what her husband and daughter were dealing with and for herself.
“I had had something done to me without my permission,” she says.
The Dixons looked up the lawyers who had dealt with the previous cases involving Barwin and contacted them.
When they walked into Cronyn’s office, he was immediately struck by Rebecca’s appearance.
Cronyn had spent time around Barwin as part of earlier lawsuits.
“When I saw Rebecca, I was very concerned. I really was almost certain, but I am not a doctor. The resemblance (with Barwin) was just so striking.”
The law firm attempted to get DNA from Barwin’s law - yer, to confirm the concerns, with no luck.
But there turned out to be another way to test whethe Barwin could have used his own sperm to help Davina Dixon conceive. Cronyn learned another young woman had contacted Barwin and done a DNA test — Kat Palmer.
Palmer’s quest to learn more about herself had started as a search for halfsiblings. When Palmer began with a home DNA test, the results told her that her genetic background was Ashkenazi Jewish. There was no Irish and German, as her parents had been told.
During a visit to Ottawa from Vancouver where she now lives in 2014, Palmer made an appointment to see Barwin in person.
She was told no donor list could be found. “I don’t know how this happened,” she recalls Barwin telling her.
The fertility doctor had something else to say to Palmer.
“He told me I was obsessive for wanting the answer. ‘ You are young. You are in a healthy relationship, isn’t that enough for you?’ he asked.”
Palmer says she tried to be as cordial as possible. Inside, she says, she was seething.
“I was trying to get into his head that this isn’t a ridiculous question. You are not breeding puppies, you are creating humans.”
She says she felt as though he was lying.
She decided to register on the database Family Tree DNA and search for matches.
By the summer of 2015, a third cousin — a journalist from New York — contacted her. Palmer had included information that she had been conceived at Barwin’s clinic in Ottawa. The cousin, whose family was from the same town in Lithuania as the Barwin family and whose mother was his second cousin, was certain he had found the link.
“He says, ‘ I think it was probably ( Barwin).’ He was the one who linked it together. I think he thought I had never considered it. He was very gentle in telling me.”
In fact, it had been a conclusion that Palmer was coming to on her own. Her genetic profile — Ashkenazi Jewish — matched her mother’s genetic material, but also Barwin’s. Her appearance, from her nose, eyes and mouth, to the way she smiles is uncannily similar to Barwin’s.
At the time, the idea was overwhelming. She became determined to find out the truth.
Her cousin helped her draft a letter to Barwin.
“I am writing this letter because I have found information that makes me believe that you used your own genetic material or that of a close relative in your fertility treatment of my mother and that I am, genetically, your descendant,” she wrote.
“It seems beyond statistical possibility that you would have used a sperm sample of a male donor who, by coincidence, was a close genetic match to your own Barwin family.
“My interest is very basic, very human. I want to know more about my genetic legacy and the story of how I came to be.”
Within an hour, Barwin responded: “Please contact me on my cellphone.”
In Palmer’s mind, the search for her biological identity was over. “I had my answer.”
It took her more than a week to call him back, during which they arranged a swab test to confirm paternity.
He t old her he didn’ t know how it could have happened and that he used his sample to calibrate the sperm counting machiner y. “The only explanation I can offer is that there was some contamination of the sample. The sample was used inadvertently.” It is unclear whether his explanation would be plausible in one case, let alone 11.
By the end of the conversation, Palmer was in tears.
“At that point, I couldn’t talk to him. He had lied to my parents, he had lied to me. It was devastating.”
She had begun her search as a means to find half- siblings. Now she knew she had some: Barwin’s children.
“I desperately wanted him to tell his kids. I wanted to know half-siblings, and here they were.”
In fact, she had grown up knowing some of his grandchildren.
In a series of email exchanges in the spring of 2 01 6 , Barwin wrote to Palmer t hat he couldn’ t bring himself to tell his family. The emails give the clearest sense yet made public of what the fertility doctor was thinking.
Palmer wrote to Barwin in March 2016, telling him:
“I don’t expect to suddenly be a part of the Barwin family, nor do I want to be. I certainly don’t expect any money or other forms of inheritance. What I want is much simpler than that. I don’t want to feel the burden of hiding who I am, the fullness of who I am. … ” Barwin responded:
“I am concerned that if this becomes public my professional credibility will be damaged. … I am so sorry that my issues are causing such an impact on you. It’s not that I don’t want to let my children know about you. It’s just I am worried about how they will feel about me. If you plan to inform others, my concern i s how they will see me — again it is not about you.”
In June he wrote in another email that he was “just not ready yet” to tell his family.
Palmer says his response was infuriating but, a few months later, in August 2016, she got word that there might be another family connection. She had been in touch with a family that had sued Barwin for a sperm mixup when their child was conceived. They strongly suggested she contact their lawyers, saying they had clients who were very suspicious that Barwin had used his sperm to conceive their child, but that they couldn’t get a DNA sample to prove it. That was Rebecca Dixon. Palmer and Dixon compared their own raw DNA and had their answer: They were half siblings.
Palmer and Dixon were thrilled to get to know each other.
“While finding out that Kat was my sister confirmed Barwin would be my biological father, I was really excited and really focused on the fact that I had this relationship with Kat,” says Dixon.
They met first on the phone, then on Skype. They emailed constantly. They discovered how much they had in common, from going to the same high school, to the way they laughed and reacted to each other.
When they first met in person, at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Dixon says she couldn’t keep her eyes off her half sister.
The relationship has blossomed to a larger family of half- siblings — nine others, all of whom have concluded Barwin is their biological father by testing against Palmer or Dixon’s DNA . Their lawyers still do not have any of Barwin’s DNA.
‘ WEIRD SITUATION’
Palmer calls her half- siblings “a weird alternative-universe version of myself.”
Dixon has had the half siblings to her house, has met in small groups at bars or over coffee and talks or emails with Palmer in Vancouver frequently.
“I havr e neve had people who physically look like me before. For me, it is the act of claiming each other as brothers and sisters.”
Davina Dixon, who has also met her daughter’s newly discovered half siblings, says they are creating a family with each other. “They have all been l ovely and supportive of each other in this weird situation.”
Dixon calls what Barwin is alleged to have done “such an intimate kind of violation.”
After years of pressing the now 78- year- old Barwin for answers, Palmer says she no longer expects one.
Dixon recoils with a “No, no way!” when asked if she would like to meet Barwin. “I don’t really feel I have a connection with him and I don’t want one.”
Cronyn says he tells his clients that they will probably never get an answer from Barwin and not to expect one.
“Every time he has been asked, he says he regrets it and it is his worst nightmare. I don’t think we will ever get any answers from him.”
Barwin declined to comment for this story.
I CERTAINLY DON’T EXPECT ANY MONEY OR OTHER FORMS OF INHERITANCE. WHAT I WANT IS MUCH SIMPLER THAN THAT. I DON’T WANT TO FEEL THE BURDEN OF HIDING WHO I AM, THE FULLNESS OF WHO I AM.… — A LETTER TO DR. NORMAN BARWIN