Husband donated sperm in 1980s and wants to offer information to his donor-conceived children (if they are interested)

[Dery]

Posted on the “donor conception” board also but that doesn’t look like it gets a great deal of traffic.

My husband was a sperm donor in the early 1980s, at a time when donors were guaranteed lifetime anonymity.

While he’s long been mildly curious about the children who might have been conceived from his sperm, he realises that the curiosity which flows the other way, namely from donor-conceived children who want to find out about their biological parents, is often vastly stronger.

Inspired by the TV series ‘Born From the Same Stranger’, he’s looking for a way to enable his donor-conceived children to find out background information from and/or about him. He’s not at this stage looking for information on his children or direct contact with them, though he’s not permanently excluding that possibility in future if any of his donor-conceived children wanted that.

Can anyone suggest a way through which he could make himself available for his donor-conceived children to find him and find out background information about him, whilst continuing to preserve his anonymity until such time as he chooses to accept more direct contact or reveal more about his identity?

So man donates sperm. Has no input for kids life but wants to go meet them now? This screams a massive ego. Out of interest - how do you feel about this?

Isn’t there a UK sperm donor register? Maybe contact HFEA.

Stacy Dooley did a series on DNA and a lot of those were people trying to find bio parents who had been donor conceived before the law change. He needs to contact The Donor Conception Network who can register him and link him up with any relatives. Good luck!

@Sparklybutold the law has changed. When he donated sperm it would be anonymous. But the law has changed retrospectively and children conceived via sperm donation now have the right to know who the donor was.

So at the time he donated there was absolutely no expectation of being involved or known to any resulting DC. He just thought he would be helping childless couples. Obviously, it is now recognised that these children have a right to know who their ‘dad’ is

Men and their 🍆! 🙄

That’s a bit harsh.

Opinions change, and in those days, everyone accepted that the father would be anonymous, and would have no involvement in the child’s life.

Open up an account on Ancestry.co.uk using a dummy user name but your real email address. Don't put a family tree or user information.

Do an Ancestry DNA test. If any of his children do a DNA test then Ancestry will match it and enable them to contact. But they will only see your user name.

It will come as a message through Ancestry and to your email address, but the email address isn't disclosed. He can respond, or not...

I don’t think that’s what the OP said, was it?

I guess the easiest way would be to have an ancestry DNA test as I would expect that would be the first port of call of anyone looking to find biological relatives.

And your thoughts on egg donors?

We have some experience from the other end of this - parents to a donor conceived child - so I'm thinking the ways we have put ourselves out there to find potential donor siblings your husband will be able to use.

Does he know his donor number? If not he might be able to contact the clinic if they're still in existence and find out what number was used to identify him to recipient parents, which would make things easier but isnt 100% necessary.

There's a website called the Donor Sibling Registry that recipient parents, donor conceived children, or donors can post on. If he only knows the clinic he donated to, he can search the site for that and it will list everyone who has signed up to this registry and having used this clinic. He can either post his details, or search the already submitted entries to see if any match him. Not sure if the attachment feature will work for me, but I picked a bank at random and have attached a screenshot showing what you'll see.

FB is also a good resource. There could be a page or group for whichever clinic he donated to, and if he were to join there could search to se if any details matched his.

Ancestry, 23 and me and the like are also great - a lot of donor conceived children whos parents used an anonymous donor have signed up to try and track down their bio parents that way.

I hope you and your husband take this last part the way I mean it - thank you. I can't speak for any other recipient parent, but I am so so so grateful to the man who donated sperm that allowed us to conceive. Every donor has their own reasons for donating, and I'm not naive enough to believe they're all altruistic or perfect people.. But the fact remains the absolute best thing in my life is my daughter, and she wouldn't exist without me like your husband.

I was thinking, "do a DNA test" and also contact the clinic where he donated, that is often the first port of call for the now grown up children.

So man donates sperm. Has no input for kids life but wants to go meet them now? This screams a massive ego. Out of interest - how do you feel about this?

Last year my cousin found her birth parents, she was adopted and brought up in a very loving home but as she got older she wanted to see what the missing piece in the jigsaw was.

Her birth mother had passed away and never told her family so they got a bit of a shock, and so did her birth father who is still alive.

It is really important to most people to know where they come from, why they have a certain eye colour or whether they have siblings.

This is why 'open' adoptions started and why the law was changed.

OP

I think it is lovely of your DH to think he may have contributed to the birth of a child and he is happy to give information.

Apparently there is a register - more information here https://www.hfea.gov.uk/donation/donors/rules-around-releasing-donor-information/

I’m not sure that “your father is a brown haired accountant who doesn’t want any of his children to contact him” would help any of the theoretical children more than “sorry we can’t give you any information”?

I’d start by contacting The Donor Conception Network who I’m sure can advise better than most of us.

I wouldn’t do the Ancestry thing unless he’s actually willing to contact them - because showing up as a person related to them but refusing to answer messages or give a real name isn’t exactly supportive!

As a mother to a donor conceived child I think previous posters are being far too harsh here. Times change and I think what your husband did was kind and likely led to the best thing ever in people’s lives.

I’d do an ancestry test and also contact the HFEA. Some of the children may not know they are donor conceived I guess. things were very different 40 years ago so it could be a surprise. I think the demographics are very now, vastly more single women and lesbian couples whereas in the 1980s there were many more married couples with male factor infertility so less obvious a donor had been involved!

from my perspective I have a donor who my child can contact when they are 18. If tech means they end up finding each other before then that’s fine. Equally I’m preparing my child that a decision taken when the donor was student may be something he feels differently about in middle age.

families are complicated. They always have been and this is just another layer to that.

Typical that I hit post and remember something..

There are counsellors out there that specialise, or at least have extensive experience with fertility issues and gamete donation. They counsel recipient parents, donors, and the children conceived through donation, and I'd highly recommend he chat with someone. It doesn't have to, and most of the time isn't a big life changing sit down conversation, but it's just good to talk to someone for whom fertility and sperm/egg donation is normal beyond normal.

Contact the HFEA who probably can connect to his original records

I think he needs to decide if he wants full and frank contact with his potential children or none.

There's no halfway here where he can put up a billboard to anyone looking, where he can announce details that he wants to reveal about himself but not allow contact in the other direction. Without more details it does seems like it could be an ego thing.

Let me tell them how awesome I am without the inconvenience of them coming to bother me. Pp above are right that sprinkling a little information around but not facilitating further contact will look like rejection even if something like that is even possible. No information would be better.

If pp is right and actually the anonymity has been lifted anyway and non of his children have searched for him, how would he feel about that??

Some great advice here. Just wanted to add: I think he should be prepared for the possibility that no children were born as a result of his donation. How would he feel about this? Also, you don't say whether he/you have any children yourselves. If you do, I would be inclined to talk it through with them first.

Well if nothing else it could prevent incest.

Just going through messages now and will post a proper response shortly. Huge thanks to everyone who has replied so far!

@Dery just to say ,good for him - Born from the Stranger for me has highlighted both an ethics issue and the potential problem of incest, 1 person has found 21 half-siblings and that may be the tip of the iceberg seeing as many people may never have been told they were donor conceived and many people won't be on the DNA websites. I always thought clinics would "cap" the number of births resulting from any one sperm donor but obviously not!!!

This in a nutshell

Even in 1980 what made your husband do it? Did he think he was helping?

Thanks very much, everyone. Lots of really helpful thoughts and advice and kind words. It’s very heartwarming to hear stories of people who have used sperm donation.

The law change didn’t affect previous donors so his anonymity is guaranteed unless he chooses to make himself available to be found.

The clinic called him back on multiple occasions so he took from that that the clinic was using his sperm successfully. I think he liked that idea so it would be disappointing to discover that no children resulted and that’s a really good point to flag.

He donated in response to a talk by Baroness Warnock asking for sperm donors so, yes, he thought he was helping. But given the passage of time, he can only remember that the clinic was in Harley Street, not its name so it sounds like DNA is the way to go.

Huge thanks again everyone. Lots to think about. I had not expected so many responses.

@marathon123 - yes re the incest problem. Reputable clinics were already alive to that so he only donated for a limited period of time.

I remember years ago in the early 1980s the very immature 18 year old medical students gloating to us (the female fellow students) that they were earning (from memory) £15 a go…
They saw it as easy money rather than anything altruistic.