Happy New Year!
In the early days of the DSR, we had lulls in our membership interspersed with media surges. We now have very steady and predictable growth.
We are extremely thankful to all the DSR members that have supported us along the way and wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2023!
Consult/Advice/Support
Call or Video Chat
If you're a DSR member, contact Wendy if you are interested in a $50 (no time limit) phone or video consult. Non-members pay $100 for a phone or video consult session (no time limit) or $150 for two sessions.
Here are just a few of the issues that she can chat with you about:
- I just found out that I am donor-conceived ... help!
- My adult donor-conceived child just found via DNA testing that they are donor-conceived ... how do I best support them?
- Maneuvering through the issues of disclosure, a child’s right to know, and when and how to tell.
- How to move forward in connecting with a half-sibling’s family (or many families).
- Coping with donor family members who have different comfort levels and desires to connect.
- Non-biological parents who might be feeling uncomfortable with their children reaching out to biological relatives.
- Helping to make the distinction between privacy and secrecy in the families we connect with.
- Prospective parents: what you should know to make informed and educated decisions that will affect your child for decades to come.
- Donor-conceived people: how to cope when you have a burning desire to know your genetic/ancestral history.
- Donors: how to move forward with connecting when your family members may not know of your donations or may not approve of your reaching out to your genetic offspring (and how to manage when there are many of them).
- Parents/donors/offspring: coming together from different socio-economic/cultural/political/sexual orientation/religious backgrounds who need assistance in moving forward in the most healthy way possible.
Connecting on the DSR
Many families understand the importance of a donor child being allowed to grow up knowing their half-siblings. We have seen many thousands of half-siblings and their families connect over a period of many years and create wonderful and enriching relationships.
Some parents think that keeping their child from half-siblings for 18 years, or waiting until they ask about them, is a good idea. There is no research that backs the "wait until 18" idea, and much that points to the benefits of connecting early on in a child's life. Because these parents might struggle with the idea of their child having "other" genetic relatives, they believe that their children will also struggle with how to define these relationships and need to be more mature or even adults before making connections. We know that this is not the case. It's very simple for donor children, no different than forming relationships with cousins.
So, we now have older donor-conceived teens or adults who try desperately to connect with their siblings posted on the DSR, but no one responds to their messages.
Please….if you are posted on the DSR and have not updated your email address over the years, or do not have a current membership, consider re-joining with a permanent membership.
Not just for you, but for the new half-siblings of yours or your children that might come along. In most cases, it’s not their fault that they never had the chance to build relationships with their half-siblings while they were growing up. It's important that they feel welcomed into any already existing half-sibling group.
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2022 Counseling Book
Published by Ethics Press, this guide will be of interest to therapists, counselors, psychologists, sociologists, physicians, and other mental health professionals who may encounter this topic in their specific settings with patients who have a variety of presenting problems, as well as professionals in the reproductive medicine industry.
A few people have asked if this guide would be helpful for donors, parents, or donor-conceived people. Yes! I wish someone would have given me this type of guide years ago so that I could have more context for the different ways that donors, parents, and donor-conceived people respond to so many different situations. Understanding the layers of emotional depth and the specific challenges that all stakeholders might face is very helpful when maneuvering through your own personal journey.
We have a "private" DSR Facebook group for news, chatting, and advice with more than 7,000 members. The group is only for donor family members. Join in the discussions, ask for and offer advice, and stay up on the latest news!
2 DSR Booklets
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2022: Published in the journal Human Reproduction:
Dana R. Siegel, Jeanelle Sheeder, Wendy Kramer, Cassandra Roeca
Human Reproduction, pp. 1–8, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deac169
2022/2023: A new DSR donor-conceived people research project launched in October. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether attachment style predicts feelings of betrayal and rejection in donor-conceived adults. 81 participants were recruited from the Donor Sibling Registry and asked to take part in a two-part study; they first responded to demographic questions, performed a lie detection task, and completed a self-report measure of attachment. They were then asked to complete a semi-structured interview asking them various questions about themselves, the discovery of their donor conception, and their close relationships. We hope that the results of this study will provide insight into how we can improve the well-being of donor-conceived individuals and their families. Stay tuned for a paper in 2023!
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The Psychology Today blog presents a great opportunity to introduce donor family issues to mental health professionals and to the general public. Each month we journey farther along the donor conception path.
- Donor families are unique in some ways yet also very common.
- Many donor family issues have not yet been properly addressed by the mental health community.
- It is important to create and support happy, healthy, and informed donor families.
- Henry the "Impotent" and more!
- Terminology indicates how we define our relationships.
- Language in donor conception is always evolving.
- Listening to how donor-conceived people define their donor-family relationships is crucial.
- The only-parent experience is frequently quite different from a single-parent experience.
- Sperm banks sell around 50% of their sperm to solo single women.
- Solo parenting is 24/7 and 365 days a year.
- There are some positives to being an only parent.
- What will the use of donor gametes mean to you, your family, and to your future child?
- Donor-conceived people desire to know about their ancestry, medical history, and close genetic relatives.
- Some parents are reluctant to tell their kids that they were conceived with donor gametes. For decades, physicians advised them not to.
- Parents can start this dialogue when their children are preverbal so that it becomes an integrated part of a donor child’s identity.
- Telling is just the first step; the conversations on the heels of disclosure are extremely important.
- Research demonstrates that parents and donors are not adequately counseled before using a donor or donating.
- Parents and donors cannot make fully-informed decisions and choices affecting their families' lives without adequate counseling.
- The choices parents and donors make today will affect them and their children (and potentially other family members) for decades to come.
- Selling sperm or eggs is much more than a financial transaction with a sperm bank or egg facility.
- Sharing and updating medical information is crucial.
- Gamete vendors do not keep, nor are they required to keep, accurate records of live births or of medical issues.
- Many donor-conceived people are curious about their close genetic relatives.
- The parents that raise donor-conceived people and those that contribute 50 percent of their DNA have unique influences.
- Almost three-quarters of women who utilized donor eggs indicated they would like to meet the donor. Less than half of the men indicated interest.
- It’s important to honor and respect a donor-conceived person's desire to seek out their unknown or “invisible” family.
- Many parents have not been honest with their donor-conceived adult children because they're afraid of anger and/or rejection.
- Donor-conceived people deserve to hear the truth and the emotion behind why they were not told earlier.
- Donor-conceived people's natural curiosity about their ancestry, medical history, and close genetic relatives is not a betrayal.
- Donor anonymity ended in 2005 when the first donor child located their formerly anonymous donor via a commercial DNA test.
- Donor anonymity is still promised (and mandated) by the fertility facilities that benefit financially from the practice.
- Many donors are being found via DNA websites, even when they themselves have never submitted their DNA.
- Egg and sperm donors do not always want anonymity.
- Privacy is the choice to not be seen, while secrecy is based in fear, shame, or embarrassment.
- Privacy involves setting comfortable and healthy boundaries.
- Carrying a family secret is a heavy burden.
- Donor families based on honesty and transparency have more meaningful and deep relationships.
Stay tuned for upcoming articles!
There are medical, psychological, and social consequences of donor anonymity.
Empathizing with donor family members' experiences and perspectives is crucial.
June 2022: We had a booth at the Boulder County Pride event in Colorado and look forward to more LGBTQ+ events in 2023!
As you begin your journey to build your family with donor sperm, eggs, or embryos, here is some information you probably won’t find anywhere else. Sperm banks and infertility clinics have websites that are filled with marketing materials ... but may not tell the whole story. You can count on us to highlight all the important information you may not find anywhere else.
Upcoming in 2023:
January: the British Fertility Society's Annual Meeting: Counseling donor Family Members.
2022:
October: Fertility Cafe Podcast: Donor Anonymity. Listen on Apple or Spotify to hear Wendy Kramer and the founder of Family Inceptions Eloise Drane, discuss anonymity in the fertility world.
October: American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Annual Meeting
Our Egg Donor Research, A mixed-methods evaluation of Egg donors' physical, psychological, and disclosure experiences post-donation, was presented by our partners from the University of Illinois at Chicago Dept. of Population Health Nursing Science/ Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynecology. This was selected as the NPG (the Nurses' Professional Group of ASRM) Prize Paper Winner!
September: Colorado Counseling Association's Fall Conference: One-hour lecture: Counseling Donor Families
July: Jewish Fertility Foundation Podcast
July: Lecture: The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE): New Study of 529 Donor-Conceived Adults: Does how and when a donor-conceived person (DCP) learns about their conception significantly affect their experiences and choices, including whether they’d consider using a donor or donating their own gametes.
May: Infertility Unfiltered virtual meeting.
May: The Disclosure Experiences of Egg Donors Across the Lifespan. Research Abstract. Presented at the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) Conference.
March: Midwest Nursing Research Society (MNRS) Conference. The Psychosocial and Physical Experiences of Egg Donors Across the Lifespan. Student Research Poster.
March: University of Colorado Law School Guest lecturer: Bioethics and the Law class.
January: Training with Conceivabilities staff about continuing to connect their egg donors and parents right from pregnancy/birth on the DSR.
January: British Fertility Society Annual Conference: we presented our research on adult donor-conceived people.
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November 2022: The Walrus
But the US sperm-donation industry “is largely unethical and irresponsible,” according to Wendy Kramer, an American author, and advocate who has been fighting for the rights of donor-conceived children for more than twenty years. Most US sperm banks promise donor anonymity, making it difficult for families who use the service to learn about health developments in their donor that may be genetic or to know about other children conceived from that donor’s sperm. Kramer, who has written extensively about the problems of donor anonymity and advocates for more medical screening, says that, with insufficient oversight and regulation of the sperm-donor industry, “money is put before the well-being of the children being born.”
In 2000, along with her son, Ryan, Kramer co-founded the Donor Sibling Registry, an organization that helps donor-conceived people track down their donors and half-siblings. (The process ensures the donor and siblings agree to be contacted.) The organization has since helped more than 25,000 people in more than 100 countries contact their biological families and has allowed Ryan to contact some of his half-siblings.
He was also able to find his donor through DNA testing and publicly available information. “If we had not met my son’s biological father, we would not have known about some pretty serious medical issues,” Kramer says. Now Ryan and his half-siblings can watch out for signs and get annual screenings for inherited health conditions.
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August 2022 from a former egg donor: "These are two of my donor kids from my first donation in 2004. Imara was born in 2005 and Jackson was born in 2007. I joined DSR in June this year and Imara happened to as well. She had been searching for me since she found out they were DC two years ago. I’m so thankful for the DSR for making it possible to connect. I’ve enjoyed getting to know them and they have been communicating with my personal children too. I look forward to attending Imara’s HS graduation in May 2023 and meeting them personally."
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Many egg donor agencies and clinics write the Donor Sibling Registry right into their contracts/agreements so that recipient parents and donors have access to each other right from pregnancy/birth. You can request this!
●CONTACT: The issue of contact between the donor and the recipient is removed from the hands and focus of the agency/clinic.
●CONSENT: Since the DSR relies on mutual consent contact; the agency/clinic doesn’t need to be worried about protecting anyone’s privacy or incur the costs of tracking communication between donors and parents.
●CHOICE: Each party can remain private if they choose, so the decision is ultimately in the hands of those involved. Each party can decide the depth and breadth of the information they’re comfortable sharing.
●CURRENT: The sharing and updating of current medical information happen on the DSR, so the agency/clinic has less work since they have provided a tool for medical updates.
●EMPOWER: Parents and donors are empowered to set the parameters of their own relationships, without a middleman, and without having to wait 18 years. Donor-conceived people have the opportunity to establish relationships with their genetic mothers/fathers while they are developing, not having to wait until they are adults.
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For our Spanish-speaking friends!
Your Family: A Donor Kid’s Story is a sweet and light-hearted picture book that answers the question "where did I come from?” and then gently introduces the concepts of half-siblings and donors in an open and honest way. The book starts with the parent’s desire to have a baby, the use of a donor, and then broaches the topic of half-siblings and biological parents/donors. A perfect book for (the millions of) donor-conceived children to learn about how they were conceived and for understanding that being curious about their unknown genetic origins and relatives is natural.
Just as there are many family types, there are also many ways to define a child’s family and their donor relatives. Reading this book with your young donor-conceived child can initiate or supplement important and ongoing dialog about these genetic connections. These early conversations are integral for creating a happy and healthy donor child and family.
"Your Family gives children born from egg or sperm donation a chance to see themselves reflected in a positive informative and accessible story. Most importantly this book will help families who have used reproductive technology to explain complex concepts to their children while giving them vital information about themselves and how they came to be. Here’s a book that is relatable and will allow children to feel proud of their special story."
—Susan Frankel, MFT, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and mother to a donor-conceived daughter
"A lovely book for children who were conceived with donor sperm or egg. Parents in all kinds of families will find it very helpful in explaining their child’s conception story in a gentle simple and positive way."
—Jane Mattes, L.C.S.W., psychotherapist and Founder/Director of Single Mothers by Choice
"Having worked with Wendy Kramer for many years I know her organization Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) is valuable to the LGBTQ parenting community. We’ve published family stories that talk about how DSR has brought joy to not just the half siblings discovering each other but to their gay parents as well. Kramer’s children’s book Your Family: A Donor Kid’s Story is an important contribution to the LGBTQ community and a great addition to the homes of all parents with donor-conceived children."
—Angeline Acain, publisher and editor, Gay Parent Magazine
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Donor Family Matters: My Story of Raising a Profoundly Gifted Donor-Conceived Child, Redefining Family, and Building the Donor Sibling Registry
The story of Wendy Kramer and her donor-conceived child, Ryan, who eventually found his biological father and 19 half-siblings. Wendy and Ryan created the Donor Sibling Registry, the world’s largest platform for mutual-consent contact of sperm, egg, and embryo donors, donor-conceived children and adults, and their parents.
Educate the child. Raise him or her without biases of any kind. Teach him or her to trust in others but to rely on self. Instill in him or her a sense of humor and the ability to enjoy life.”
Penned on a sperm bank intake form, these words of advice from Donor 1058 to the future recipients of his donations became a parental motto for one particular recipient, Wendy Kramer, who would go on to found the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR). With almost 75,000 members in 105 countries, the DSR is the world’s largest platform for sperm, egg, and embryo donors, donor-conceived children and adults, and their parents to connect and share information through mutual-consent contact. In her role with the DSR, Wendy has become a leading advocate for donor families and for reformation of the modern profit-driven donor conception industry.
This is the story of Wendy’s journey as the mother of a donor-conceived profoundly gifted child, Ryan, whose relentless curiosity — under the tenacious guidance and support of his mother — eventually led to his reunion against all odds not only with his biological father, Donor 1058, but also with 19 of his donor-conceived half-siblings scattered across the continent. Their experience — like the experience of so many of the Donor Sibling Registry’s members — illustrates how this brave new world of donor conception is stretching our understanding of the evolving nature and possibilities of “family.” This memoir, written with warmth and humor by Wendy herself, reminds us with story after story that there are few things more fundamental than the human need to know where we come from, nor more beautiful than the triumph of truth over shame.
"Wendy Kramer’s memoir — like Wendy Kramer herself — is invaluable, lucid, engaging, and full of wisdom. This book is a gift." —Dani Shapiro, donor-conceived offspring and author of Inheritance
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Finding Our Families: A First of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and their Families
Millions of people have been born with the help of donor sperm or eggs, including Wendy Kramer’s son. Realizing the unique concerns of being or parenting a donor-conceived child, Kramer launched what would become the world’s largest database for connecting donor-conceived people, the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR).
Finding Our Families provides additional support for this growing community. With compassion and insight, the authors draw on extensive research to address situations families face throughout a donor-conceived child’s development, including the search for a biological parent or half-sibling and how to forge a healthy self-image.
"Finding Our Families is a treasure trove of compassionate advice designed to help those raising the more than an estimated million people who were conceived using so-called donor* sperm, the tens of thousands whose lives began with eggs of contributors, and thousands who were "adopted" frozen embryos, as well as the donors.
The 258-page book compiled by Wendy Kramer, the mother of a donor-conceived son, and Naomi Cahn, family and reproductive law professor, helps blood-related kin navigate relationships unthought-of generations ago. The book offers how-to search assistance and suggests ways for the legal, social, and nurturing family to open their hearts and minds to those who contributed eggs, sperm, or embryos in addition to welcoming siblings who share the same or half genealogy." —March 2015 Huffington Post book review by Mirah Riben
"The book successfully honors its promise to deliver the tools necessary to help donor-conceived children discover and explore their genetic legacies.” —October 2013 Publishers Weekly review
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LGBTQ FAMILIES
The DSR welcomes and supports all those in the LGBTQ+ community as you make up around a third of all DSR families and are represented in the DSR's Board of Directors. We have a page just for LGBTQ families. The DSR had a booth at the Boulder County Pride event in June!
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Donor Sibling Registry www.donorsiblingregistry.com
wendy@donorsiblingregistry.com
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