Alysa Liu Has a Mother Mary but She Isn’t Her Real Mom

Arthur Liu is an attorney who immigrated to the U.S. from a small mountain village in Sichuan, China, after earning degrees at the age of 25 in the 1990s.

But this story is not about him. It’s about his oldest child Alysa Liu, a professional American figure skater — her birth story.

The two-time U.S. national champion was born on August 8, 2005, in Clovis, California, with Arthur and his ex-wife, Yan Qingxin, who goes by Mary, acting as her legal parents.

Mary, whom Alysa and her four younger siblings call mom, was married to Arthur when he welcomed his daughter home.

But Mary, who lives in Antioch, isn’t Alysa or any of her younger siblings’ biological mother.

Interestingly, she was conceived through an anonymous egg donor and a surrogate mother.

Alysa Liu Was Not Surprised by the Truth

When Arthur was reportedly still married to his ex-wife Mary, he started his search for an egg donor to conceive his first child.

In the next two years, he found an egg donor, a surrogate mother, and even welcomed his daughter, Alysa.

According to Sports Illustrated, Arthur chose white women to donate their eggs because he felt his children would benefit from a diverse gene pool.

In addition, he wanted to see his life as a fusion of cultures, Chinese and American, and he wished his kids to reflect that.

However, when Alysa was around eight, she noticed that she looked different from her dad and mom, Mary, who is also Chinese.

“That’s how I figured out she wasn’t my real mom,” Alysa told the tabloid while explaining, “because she was Asian and I did not look Asian.”

Alysa Liu at her home. (Photo: Instagram)

In another interview with NBC Sports in December 2018, Arthur revealed that he told Alysa about the circumstances of her birth about five years ago.

He told her after she asked, “Why do I look different?  Why don’t I look Chinese?”

NBC Sports also reported that Alysa had met the woman who bore her before knowing of the link between them. They have regularly visited each other since.

“Alysa and a friend had almost figured it out on their own,” Arthur Liu added. “So she wasn’t surprised when I told her.”

That said, the egg donor remains anonymous to date, due to which neither the Liu family knows about the donor nor the donor has an idea that her DNA helped create a precocious girl who is redefining skating.

Alysa Liu Was Raised by Her Father, Mom Mary, and Grandmother

After the birth of Alysa, Arthur welcomed his second child, Selina, and triplets Joshua, Justin, and Julia, by in vitro fertilization.

And since the attorney was the only parent to his kids, he took the help of his ex-wife, Mary, and his mom, Shu, to raise the little ones.

His mother reportedly spent around eight years in California helping him raise the five young children.

On the other hand, Mary served as the kids’ legal guardian and often invited them to spend time together at her house in Antioch.

At present, Alysa’s grandmother has already returned to China while Mary and Arthur serve as her legal parents — despite her legal parents getting divorced some years ago.