Finding My Sperm Donor Siblings and Father

Hi,

I stumbled across your article because I’m also searching for my donor father from Queensland Fertility Group. He is donor number 74. I’ve had no luck and found the fertility group to be completely unsupportive… I see you’ve posted this years ago, so I guess you might not read this. But if you do, i’d love to know how you got on and if you ever found him?

Hi there,
I was conceived in 1981 (born in 82) at the QFG in Brisbane also. My mother used Dr De Ambrosis for her treatment.
When I contacted them in about 1998 for information, I was led around a little until being told that records are destroyed after 15 years (it had been 16 years).

However, there are a few identifying features that I know about me that could possibly narrow down my search for my donor:

My Blood type: B Pos (there are only 8% of ppl in Aust. that have this blood type)
I have Blue eyes (mum has green and my ‘dad’ had brown so i’m assuming this has come from my donor or his family)
My Characteristics:Caucasian, Fair complexion, Medium Build, blue eyes, medium Brown hair, Wavy hair, 164cm Height.
Don’t wear glasses, but have starting signs of glaucoma which is inherited from the father’s gene’s

I did a bit of research and spoke to a Dr that used to work in a medical research office and donate at the time. He said most of their donations came from medical students or medical officers.
Lenoxlou if you have any other information about your donor, please let me know!
kfraser(at)hotmail.com

Hi Lenoxlou

Have you searched for your biological father by focussing on his skills?

I note he’s an RMO (or was at least at a time) and that he has degrees in engineering and medicine. I wouldn’t have thought there were that many bright individuals out there with such a combination. Perhaps you could do a search to see if he is a member (of some kind) of the Institute of Engineers (IEAust).

Of course you face the ethical question of whether it is appropriate to utilise such a resource for this purpose. Not an easy question to contemplate of course – I wouldn’t blame you for doing so personally.

I would look at it this way – if the information is public then there ought not be a difference in finding your biological father this way than by looking for an address and doing what madman did to find his biological mother. That isn’t really addressing the issue though.

I think you have a right to know but others may argue that donors have a right not to be found if they don’t want to. I know nothing of this subject matter – do you know whether donors now or at the time your biological father donated were asked whether they wanted to be found by the progeny?

Hi Peter,

How old are your children now? Is there a large age gap between them? The most important thing is to tell them together at the same time. And I think it would be an important for the eldest to understand, as the other siblings could lean on them for support if they struggle to grasp it all. I think also if you have girls or boys makes a big difference to, cause we deal with things differently. When I found out I went to find who my donor was. My brother went to the doctor and got a full health check to see if there was anything hereditary (that they hadn’t known when he donated).

I think its really important for you to bring it up with your children occasionally after you tell them. Keep the communication there for them to ask questions, it may feel awkward for the both of you to discuss it, but keep the door open for later communication. That’s something that I don’t have with any of my family, we just don’t talk about it. And its important part of the whole process.
Trust me if they want to find out more about their donor, its not saying that they want to know who their father is cause they know they have one and always will. You will always be their father and it makes you no less of a man. My Dad is the greatest Dad and I couldn’t have asked for any better. And I am so lucky. My donor will never be my dad, but he will always be half of me.

Offer support and assistance in finding their donors if they want to know more. Have you got any of their details? I guess being overseas would seem to make it harder for them to find them, but that’s not true. If their from the US, it will be pretty easy considering they have so many registries with a larger data base.

This is my personal opinion but I think girls need to be older and need to understand the sensitivity. If the younger ones are about 10 and the eldest over puberty, maybe 16+ (girl). For boys I would think before puberty, they’re becoming men after that and developing who they are. And will look up to you a lot for that growing. Finding out that after they have discovered who they are can be very disturbing. My brother was 25 when he found out so was able to accept it move on. But a 16 year old boy may do a lot of soul searching and be very confused. So earlier for a boy and later for a girl. But remember I’m not a physiology doctor or anything! They have counsellors at the clinics if you want to discuss it further.

Do many people know if your family?
Hope this has helped!

I would also like to note, that even though this story is started in Queensland I am actually a ACT resident now.

Good luck with your search lenoxlou.

Well I know how you feel… I’m in a similar boat to you. I guess I’ll share my story.
I’ll make it short.
I was adopted at a young age of around 3 months. I was told about my adoption at arount he age of 12, I took it lightly and din’t really care about it as much. Although it was in my mind the whole time and when I gradually got older I started caring more and more about it. So I contacted the adopt. agency at the age of 20 and asked how I could get in contact. They sent me some forms to send to a NSW Gov Dept to seek information – it was quite costly and was about $400-$500 to seek information and searches on my birth and parents.

There was no information on my father but after 6 months I recieved the name of my mother and also a marriage certificate from a few years back, noting she had found another partner and changed her name. Took me another year to actually look for her, having to do whitepage searches, school year book searches, electoral role searches and anything I could get my hands on.

I gave up….

But then I thought I would do a search on the house that she lived in when she gave me up for adoption on whitepages – it showed the same surname and the intials of her parents, so I thought I would write to her parents to find out information. it turns out they had moved and was renting the house to another couple but the mail got forwarded to their other house which they had moved from also and reforwarded to theeir current house. They recieved it and sent it to my mother who wrote me a letter, my letter touched her heart but she didn’t want to continue our regathered relationship as she thought it could hurt her young children with not knowing what happened and that i belonged to the parents I now have. She kept my contact details for when it was a better time.

I don’t think I will ever meet her, but she will always be in my heart; and at least we both now we are alive and well.

So sometimes they don’t want to be in contact because of their past and future.

Well that’s it for me! =-) promised it would be short…

another thought, am I the only klinefelters person out there? I understand that there used to be a local support group, but it has fizzled out. Does anyone know of a klinefelters group in the ACT that is still active?

i have a condition, that is genetic and has prevented me from fathering my kids. we used the donor program, but it did not work the first time around. We eventually paid a lot of money and got the donated substance from o/s.

I have a condition called klinefelters. want to know more, have a look at wikipedia.

I have 3 kids through ivf, but they will be told well before their 18th birthday of what has occurred. I am interested if your initial reaction was that your father wasn’t your real father, and how long it has taken to come to terms with it. this is something that concerns me regarding my own children. How has your brother reacted?

it is a sensitive issue, but I need to know how we can raise the subject and at what age would be appropriate?

any info you can provide would be great.