In 1984, Pauline Chambless went to Dr. Kim McMorries in Nacogdoches for help after she struggled for more than a decade to have a child. After multiple attempts using donors from a California sperm bank, McMorries located a local sperm donor he described as a tall, red-haired, music-loving, medical resident at a nearby hospital. McMorries personally administered artificial insemination and Pauline’s daughter, Jessica, was born in March 1987.
Jessica Stavena, now a young mother of three, lives in the Houston suburbs and runs a medical spa at a Houston plastic surgery practice. In early 2020, she tried a consumer DNA test as a way to unravel the origins of a troubling gastro-intestinal issue. She knew she was a donor baby, but when she got her online test results in February, she was confused: Stavena matched with several unexpected half siblings, including a woman named Eve Wiley, another slim blonde from East Texas.
Born only months apart, the pair bore a resemblance, and Stavena soon received a Facebook message from Wiley, who asked if her mother had also worked with the same OB-GYN. “Heya!! Omg!!” Jessica replied, surprised and thrilled at the coincidence.
