One morning in 2006 Kimberly, then a 38-year-old New York therapist, was getting her three children ready for their day at preschool. She was cooking breakfast for her two daughters and one son when her husband, Ken, called out from another part of the house, telling her there was a morning show segment on that she should watch.

Kimberly's daughter was right: Every single child did look remarkably like hers. Then she heard the commentary: "Sperm Donor 401...German background..." The seven women onscreen were talking to the show's host about a man neither she nor they had ever met: the biological father of all their children.