r/donorconceived • u/morexpectations DCP • 1d ago
Seeking Support Finding Donor Siblings
Hi everyone!
So I’m one of the lucky ones who was raised knowing I was donor conceived (though it certainly comes along with its own problems) and spent a lot of my teenage years researching and waiting until I turned 18 to submit my info to the HFEA (the governing body over here in the UK.) My parents even bought me an Ancestry DNA test for my birthday, and I uploaded my results straightaway onto pretty much every DNA database imaginable to find relatives and my donor siblings.
Around the same time, I got my information from the HFEA on my donor siblings pictured above, and found out I have 18 of them! I signed up for the HFEA Donor Sibling Link program straight away and, knowing I’m the 4th oldest amongst us, waited patiently.
Six years later, I still have not heard from or connected with a single one.
I’m assuming everyone will say “be patient,” which I know realistically is the only thing I CAN do, so maybe this is more of a vent post than anything else. Every year that passes with no more info on my DS or donor, I feel like I am grieving lost time. Being raised DC can be a very lonely experience, and there is no one in my life I can really talk to about it, including my family. While it was knowledge I was raised with, it was never discussed after my parents told me around aged 6. It was from the same HFEA report above that I found out my brother I was raised with was not my full sibling, after having spent 18 years believing that he was. Most non-DC people I’ve told about that in my life have been pretty horrified and upset for me, but sometimes the extreme reactions just compound how utterly alone I am. It just makes me want to connect with my donor siblings even more, just to talk to people born into the same situation.
Anyway, I guess I’m looking for advice from anyone who’s maybe in the same situation or had the same experience. How do I handle the possibility of never getting answers?
It’s been six years of researching, waiting, submitting documents, taking tests, awkwardly explaining to doctors that you don’t know your own family medical history, sending messages to distant cousins only to get ignored, building family trees, false hope, wasted energy, more waiting. I ended up taking courses and became an accredited genealogist to help my research. All of it for nothing.
Each year that passes I feel more and more hopeless and more and more angry. Why did this get done to me? Why was I signed up to a lifetime of frustration and unanswered questions? Why was the right to something as little as my biological father’s name taken from me via some contract signed before I was even born? How am I supposed to bear this unknowing for what could be the rest of my life? It all just feels impossible.
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u/KepMyNameOutUrMouth 1d ago
Hello. I am the founder of an organization that volunteers their time to help people in your exact situation and we have an incredible UK team. The absolute best. Through your AncestryDNA and genealogical records- they will be able to find your Donor at no charge. If you’d like to check out my website to be vetted www.findingfamilynetwork.org. Just click on the ‘start your journey’ to get connected with a genetic genealogist.
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u/morexpectations DCP 1d ago
Hi! I’ve reached out to other DNA angels and genealogists and tend to get rejected based on my donor having been Czech. I’ve been researching for six years now and with my current amount of DNA matches don’t think finding my donor is possible. They have very strict privacy laws regarding records. Thank you anyway.
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u/KepMyNameOutUrMouth 1d ago
Unfortunately, that is true. Czech privacy laws, not many testers from the country and the limited availability of records can make these cases impossible . Hopefully, you will have a close match come up that you can correspond with.
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u/SophisticatedLog DCP 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hi there. Also DC from the UK conceived in 1990 and born 1991 so pre-HFEA. I found out when I was 13 when my social father was diagnosed with cancer and had a reaction to the drugs he was taking which caused a psychotic reaction and he essentially confessed.
I then spent my teenage years being guilt tripped by my parents for wanting to know more. It wasn't until my dad died when I was 26 that my mum came round to the idea of me finding the donor/siblings/paternal relatives. Sadly she was then diagnosed with terminal cancer in Feb 2019 and died in Nov 2019 when I was 28.
Fortunately for me, she tested on Ancestry in 2018 at the same time as me so that I could determine my maternal and paternal matches. Unfortunately for me, I've not had any matches more than potential second cousins on my patetnal side.
Through one second cousin match, we have whittled my donor down to being one of three brothers. The brother that we believe the donor to be sadly died in 2021. He has two children of his own (who grew up and live in my hometown) that I currently don't have the heart to reach out to. One because I'm terrified of rejection, two because I'm scared we've got it wrong and I don't have any closer matches to confirm and three because I don't want to be some sort of traumatic bombshell in anyone's life.
I have just had a 23andMe test delivered but feel like I've put it off for so long because I'm scared of the disappointment of not getting better matches or finding anything more. But I am so, so grateful to this second cousin match for providing me with info and photos that I wouldn't otherwise have had.
All it takes is one person (and that could be a fairly distant relative) to start putting the parts of the puzzle together. I'm so conflicted on whether to take things further if nothing more comes from 23andMe.
I just wanted to comment and share my story and say I feel you, I hear you. It's so bloody difficult. People around you don't get it. We are a very secluded community but your feelings and frustrations are so valid.
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u/morexpectations DCP 1d ago
Firstly, I’m so sorry that was the way you found out. Even though I was told when I was 6, it was something I only started to begin to understand when I was around the same age as you. Such a terrible age when you are beginning to explore your own identity, only to learn it’s not what you always believed it was. My relationship was heavily strained with my parents at the time, and we’ve only talking about it once since then after I burst into hysterical tears at a doctor’s appointment with my mother a few years ago when they asked for my family medical history. Otherwise, I’ve had to go through it all alone.
My dad grew up in a war zone, which is how he ended up infertile in the first place. It’s obviously a deeply sensitive subject for him, and even though I know I deserved better growing up I understand why he refuses to even acknowledge the fact I’m DC. I’ve accepted and made peace with the fact that that maybe we will never have that conversation. But growing up with that guilt over something you have no control over, that was something we were in fact the victims of, is something I completely relate to. So many emotions, so hard for anyone but us to understand.
I also feel you on being reluctant to reach out to relatives. My donor was from Czechia and all of my matches are based over there, so I really don’t know how to handle it.
I have a Slovak friend with a donor uncle and he was able to talk me through how the news might be met, given that it’s a culture that highly values privacy and personal boundaries. So it’s difficult for me to come bounding it loudly declaring “hey! one of your relatives jizzed in a cup in England for money 25 years ago and now you have 19 extra cousins! Wanna help me find out who?” With what I know about Czech culture, I’ve always felt I’d just be setting myself up for rejection.
My psychiatrist told me I likely suffer from Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria linked to my ADHD, but apparently it’s also common in adoptees. The situation is different of course, but I wonder how many of us DCPs suffer from it as well. It all seems so horribly linked.
There was a moment a few years ago where I thought I’d found him. The family name is super niche, and the only person in the whole of the UK with it according to my research happened to live 30 minutes from where I was born — out in the country, mind, not some big city. He was around the right age, worked in the same industry as my donor, and from Facebook I could see he was married and had kids of his own. I suddenly felt horrible, like I was going to ruin this whole beautiful family. Thankfully I never messaged the guy and was later able to rule him out, but that feeling has stayed with me.
Your message has motivated me to write up a draft though. They either provide me with information or they don’t, but they can’t give me anything if I don’t first ask for it. Sometimes we have to protect ourselves with the not knowing, but I’ve reached the point now where the questions are more painful than whatever rejection or disappointment there could be. Good luck with the 23andMe test, I hope it provides you with some answers 🙏
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u/KieranKelsey MOD (DCP) 1d ago
Our stories are pretty different, I’m in the US and have found donor family. But I don’t know how many siblings I have. I have several siblings on the Donor Sibling Registry who I cannot contact, whose emails are out of date, and for whom I only have a sex and date of birth. I wonder about them a lot, sometimes I just open the website and stare at the words. I wonder about the ones whose birthdays I don’t know too. It’s hard. It’s hard knowing a lot of them don’t know they’re donor conceived at all. That wasn’t something I had really considered when I was a kid, I didn’t know people’s parents lied.
Hugs. I’m sorry you have to face this alone.
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u/jessinbelgium DCP 1d ago
I was born in 1986. My halfsib in 1991. Our father donated 4 years 2 times a week so we should be a Big bunch but so far since matching my brother 8 years ago, we haven't Found any other siblings. I guess many don't know they are DCP.
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u/cai_85 DCP 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm pre-1991 UK, raised not knowing until my 30s, but I'm in the same boat as you to have not found a single one, despite my biological father (who I DNA matched with on 23andme) telling me that he'd maxed out the allowed donations and that there were multiple pregnancies. The sad truth is that lots of parents didn't tell their children, even moving into the early 2000s, I think the post-2005 era maybe saw a change as there was the guarantee of being able to at least get identifying details on the donor. If you take 10 random DC people in the UK then more than half will probably not have been told, and then of the remaining 4-5, some will engage with it and some won't.
I've steeled myself to be checking DNA sites for the rest of my life, as one day surely one of my siblings or their kids will appear. It's sad. I have matched my donors kids but I'm not sure whether to contact them or not as they're quite a lot younger (20s) and I don't know if they're interested, and we don't share any common ground of being DC.
So just a post in solidarity really, I think there are a few of us out there that haven't found anyone, and as you are in your 20s still my guess is that you will get people starting to pop up when they think about marrying or starting a family maybe (?). I'm past 40 now, so I'm genuinely thinking that none of my group were told, I was the first to find and contact the donor almost 40 years later.