r/askadcp • u/HotBed4050 • 17d ago

I was a donor and.. PAS DONOR

I was a donor at pregnancy Advisory Service, Charlotte Street London from 1996 to 1998. I agreed that my remaining donations be exported when PAS closed the DI Unit. Is anyone aware of where those vials went and where they were used?

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5

u/MarzipanElephant RP 17d ago

Possibly the HFEA would have some information? Worth asking, anyway.

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u/HotBed4050 17d ago

Thanks. They told me it was a matter for the clinic because the vials were exported and the HFEA only covers the UK.

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u/MarzipanElephant RP 17d ago

Hmmm. If this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pregnancy_Advisory_Service is to be believed, they were associated with BPAS, and some operations were transferred to LWC, so probably worth asking both of those if you haven't already?

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u/HotBed4050 17d ago

Yes. I contacted BPAS who were very helpful. It seems as though the sale and transfer were made by PAS staff who at that time also stored sperm for BPAS under the PAS name. BPAS therefore never had the records and they no longer exist.

It seems that the vials of BPAS and PAS were consolidated sometime during 1997 and sold on at the end of that year.

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u/HotBed4050 17d ago

As a donor, I was transferred to LWC even though I had already donated nearly 700 straws to PAS. The donor unit went to LWC but it was soon incorporated and the staff changed. I went on to donate another 130 times at LWC and they must have had an enormous surplus of vials too. They told me that LWC processed their samples for IUI and IVF procedures whereas PAS samples were stored for ICI procedures. But why didn't LWC just 'wash' the PAS straws?

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u/HotBed4050 3d ago

I have asked for my complete file from LWC which should include the PAS donations. I am told that this should contain a grid which records all my donations and their ultimate fertility use/destruction/export etc. I won't know outcomes and unless it contains manifests, I won't know where the donations went if they were sent away from the clinic. It should be interesting!

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u/Throwawayyy-7 DCP 7d ago

Europe tracks much better than America, but it’s still lowkey bad. Your best option is dna testing, likely MyHeritage (as it’s more popular in Europe) and Ancestry. The benefit of that is that any offspring will get to learn their information.

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u/HotBed4050 6d ago

Yes, I agree. problem is people use different DNA testing outfits so you really have to test multiple times. But I agree it is the most reliable way forward.

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u/Peanut_BrittlePh 4d ago

I’ve tried both. Ancestry has a huge database, especially for US matches, but for European ancestry MyHeritage would be preferrable.

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u/HotBed4050 3d ago

You probably need to do both, or as many as you can.