They went to the sperm bank but didn't get what they selected, so they sued

Three years ago, Jennifer Cramblett and her partner, Amanda Zinkon, went shopping for sperm.

Not just any sperm would do. They decided that the sperm used to artificially inseminate Cramblett with their first child would have to come from a man with genetic traits similar to theirs. In other words, he had to be white.

This would be a major purchase for the couple, one that would affect them for the rest of their lives. And they didn't take it lightly.

I imagine they felt a little like I did when I bought my first home — a weird mixture of excitement and fear, with a splash of intimidation by the 30 years of payments that lay ahead.

The couple pored through the profiles of men who had donated semen to a Downers Grove, Ill.-based sperm bank, looking for just the right vial to take home with them to rural Uniontown, Ohio. After a week, they narrowed their choices to three and, finally, made their decision.

They would take two vials of sperm from Donor No. 380.

Sold!

Nine months after the insemination, Cramblett gave birth to a healthy girl. But there was a big surprise in the delivery room. This child was biracial, part African-American.

Oops. Someone at the sperm store apparently had placed the wrong vial in the shopping bag. Instead of Donor No. 380, she'd gotten Donor No. 330.

Who hasn't gone shopping only to get home, open the bag and find out that you didn't get what you'd paid for? Under normal circumstances, you'd just return it to the store.

But we're talking about a child here. All sales are final.

Unbeknownst to Cramblett and Zinkon, Cramblett had inserted into her body the sperm of a black man. According to the lawsuit she filed in Cook County Circuit Court against the Midwest Sperm Bank, that has caused her pain, suffering, emotional distress and a host of other problems. She wants the sperm bank to pay her more than $50,000 for that.

Think about how you would have felt in that delivery room, anxiously anticipating the arrival of a little bundle of joy that looks like you. But then she comes out looking like someone else.

In an instant, Cramblett says in the lawsuit, her excitement and anticipation of her pregnancy was replaced with anger, disappointment and fear.

Since filing the lawsuit, the couple has received quite a bit of criticism for what some have called a racist attitude. I don't see the racism there.

Cramblett and Zinkon never said they wanted to be another Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, raising a rainbow coalition of kids with various racial and ethnic backgrounds. They wanted to raise a white child.

And since they live in America, they had the right to make that choice.

But raising a black child has been tough, especially for a mother who admits she was raised in an all-white environment around people who had stereotypical attitudes. Cramblett didn't even know any African-Americans until she went away to college.

And how will she shield her daughter from that uncle who, according to the lawsuit, speaks "openly and derisively" about people of color?

Deep inside, I think Cramblett already knows the answer.

She says in the lawsuit that her family and others in that small town haven't fully embraced her homosexuality either. But that didn't stop her from loving her partner and deciding to raise a child with her.

Certainly, the couple must have given some thought to the adversity little Payton would encounter as the daughter of lesbians. They apparently were prepared to deal with that head-on.

When someone says or does something insensitive, you don't hold your head down and stay quiet. You let them know in no uncertain terms that you have no patience for intolerance.

It probably won't make anyone more accepting, but it will set the standard for how people are expected to behave around Cramblett, Zinkon and their daughter.