Podcast description (a stand-alone episode)

Laurence Dauphinais learned at the age of 11 that she was born through artificial insemination. She wondered what she had inherited from her donor, but could not confirm anything because the donation was completely anonymous. All she knows is that her mother made a deal with the Montreal General Hospital Fertility Centre in October 1982. The procedure had just become legal in Canada. There is no donor bank in the country and it is often young doctors who donate for science.

With her identity in limbo, Laurence began to fantasize about filling the void. Growing up in a unilingual French-speaking family in the north of Montreal, she wonders what explains her fluency in English and her call to go elsewhere. Her parents are artists, but she has a fascination with science. Why is that?

She has fun drawing conclusions about the donor’s origin. If he is a doctor at the General Hospital, he is probably an English speaker. If he is English-speaking, he may be Jewish. This rings true for Laurence, who will even go to Israel hoping to get a revelation about his identity.

She wanders through the maze of hypotheses until something changes: the DNA tests.

Laurence suddenly has access to a wealth of information about her donor. But despite everything, her biggest questions remain.

A podcast of the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui and Centaur Theatre in collaboration with Transistor Media (website in French only)

Transistor Media, based in Gatineau, Quebec, is a company that creates, produces, and distributes audio projects. On top of its podcasts, the organization holds the annual Transistor Festival and Kino-radio.