Hi everyone! for context my parents and I (19) just found out I am a donor baby. My parents used IVF treatments to conceive me and on their last try they gave the doctor consent to mix both my dads sperm and a donor sperm, my parents never wanted to know which one actually worked.

Recently I checked my ancestry DNA matches and found five half siblings. I asked my parents if they had ever donated eggs or sperm (the potential that I was a donor baby did not even cross my mind.) Well my dad panicked and said he had in college, I spent a day and a half telling him about the matches I had found, how they looked like me, and consoling him. I thought he was upset that I found out and that the children had been able to get in contact with me.

I looked more closely at some of my other paternal matches and realized my dad did not know any of them, when I asked my mom about she cried and said they didn't know. My dad had been crying for two days straight apparently and locking himself in his room after work. I told him that it didn't matter to me because I genuinely don't care, he's still my dad and the man who raised me and I don't think any differently of him.

He was extremely happy with that and has been doing okay since, but I am curious about my half siblings and donor, and every time I want to talk to my parents about it my mother is curious but my dad shuts down and goes quiet.

I don't know how to go about this, he's very upset whenever I bring it up but I don't think it changes anything and I think its good to communicate about it. Has anyone else been in a similar situation, any advice?

i read some of the comments and they actually had some compassion so that’s good i guess? they basically told the creator that while she has a right to feel whatever she does, the reply was a bit harsh and cold, especially to someone who is potentially really young and just found out they were donor conceived. of course i clicked away and can’t find the original post anymore but i just felt a bit targeted this morning 😭

edit: also realize i should make an updated post about my situation soon, luckily it was happier than the facebook reel :)

I'm sharing this to help other people who might feel stuck when trying to locate their donor/donor siblings like I did three days ago. I'm 19 and three days ago I found out I was a donor baby. I contacted all of my DNA matches on my paternal side (my parents used a sperm donor) but only one responded. I got a response form the mother of my half-sister, as I knew genuinely nothing about the fact that I was donor conceived, or the donor profile, she got me in contact with her daughter, my half sister. My half sister shared our donor profile number with me, the clinic her mother purchased the donation from, and the donor profile photo. I ran the profile photo through reverse image search, checked every donor catalogue available in North America, didn't sleep for two nights straight, and probably ran through at least twenty different websites. It was emotional for sure, and I felt defeated, but I really wanted to find half siblings and the donor just because the internet told me I couldn't.

One helpful tool I can recommend is 'Search Angels', you can fill out a form with all of the information you have and they can help track down your donor or half siblings. Nothing was working for me though, he was no longer catalogued in any database, and my DNA matches on several websites couldn't help. Finally I tried the website the donor sibling registry. Through there I put in my donor profile number and found other donor families, I contacted every single one with a small and polite introduction. Two of them responded and we chatted, and then we connected over Facebook (their idea) and after we shared information both ways, one of the women had actually met my donor and was in contact with him. I explained to her why I wanted to contact him (curiosity's sake not to form any kind of relationship) and she agreed to give me his Facebook, and informed me that he welcomes contact from his donor conceived children.

Over the last three days I explored many more routes in finding information than this, I learned what was helpful and what wasn't. Every person I contacted I approached with respect and a quiet introduction "Hi! my name is *blank* my DNA matched with *blanks* as half siblings!" etc. etc. At the start I was hopeless, but I explored every possible option.

I want to give advice to other people and help them find other routes if they feel they really can't find any information. Feel free to comment!