Donors of Eggs, Sperm, and Embryos: How to Get Ready for Contact From a Biological Child

You donated sperm, eggs, or embryos in the past and have begun to hear the news stories that home DNA tests have done away with the promise of anonymity you were once guaranteed. Here are a few tips for you that I’ve compiled, after working with families and individuals involved in surprise discoveries from DNA testing.

2. Try registering on the non-DNA sites at the same time. Some donor-conceived people look for their biological parent(s) through the non-DNA registries before resorting to DNA testing. Look into both the Donor Sibling Registry and donorchildren.com, for example. You would likely need to have kept track of your donor number to participate in these registries.

1. Consider testing your DNA now and opting into all of the genetic family matching databases. You can use your initials rather than your real name in these databases if you want to protect your identity until you’ve made initial contact with any new DNA relatives. Ancestry and 23andMe are the companies to prioritize as most people searching for their donor will start at those two companies first. If you take the proactive step to test, any donor offspring you have who have also tested will likely discover you first rather than finding and reaching out to a relative such as a cousin, niece, sibling, or someone else in the family.

4. Review these guidelines on the ISOGG Wiki. Note that these guidelines were written for and thus apply more to donors in the UK where there is a centralized system for tracking donors, unlike the US where the fertility industry is privatized and details on donors and offspring are not centrally managed or tracked.

3. Try to contact the cryobank or medical office where you donated, if you can remember (and it is still open). Try to find out what they are doing to enable contact between donor and offspring, now that remaining anonymous is no longer an option.

5. Connect with support. There are many groups, like some on Facebook - DNA Surprise and DNA NPE Gateway, for instance. Even if your situation is different from the other people involved in these online groups, you might find commonalities with some members in your experiences, fears, and joys.

6. Tell your current/existing family you were a donor in the past! You will be surprised how well parents, siblings, spouses, and children can adjust to finding out there might be donor-conceived children trying to contact the family soon. Sometimes it helps to apologize for not telling them sooner and to explain why you chose to keep it a secret before. Members of the Watershed DNA Mighty Network mentioned above will have had experience in what worked and didn’t work for them when it came to breaking unexpected news in the family.

The world has changed quickly for you if you were a donor of sperm, eggs, or embryos in the past.

It’s important to be thinking about these things and be proactive.

Share with your family how you feel about the possibility of being contacted by donor offspring and how you would want them to respond if a new DNA relative reaches out to them before they reach out to you.

I’ve learned from working with people who have been “found” by biological child that they would have found it easier to be prepared before suddenly being caught off-guard by a Facebook message or unexpected letter in the mail explaining, “I think I might be your biological child.” I hope these tips can help you get there.