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?

I personally think the donor conceived children have a right to know where they came from, but not a right to a relationship with your DH. If I was you I'd wait till your DC are old enough to process it, and then send your DHs DNA in.

I think this is a good idea OP

And unlike others here I think that there is nothing wrong with donation and that if he is able ot give some information about himself but is tentative about direct contact that is also ok.

I feel really strongly about people knowing who their birth parents are, I dont agree with anonymity, but obviously he should expect that given that he donated at a time which guaranteed that

And just like people whose children were adopted to other families, they too dont always want an adult or later relationship with their children.

@neilyoungismyhero
“Not sure how a person born via sperm donation would feel about just being alive because dear dad needed a few quid when he was a student, to be honest.
Even a one night stand has some sort of emotion attached to it.”

Almost by definition, donor-conceived children are born to a parent or parents who long for a child and will love them deeply but who need the assistance of donor sperm for whatever reason. It’s a bit much to be as casually dismissive - indeed contemptuous - about their origin story as you are.

They would be alive because their parents wanted them, the same as most people.