Donor Family Matters

This is 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.

The first comprehensive book that offers invaluable step-by-step advice for families with donor-conceived children. Wendy Kramer, founder and director of the Donor Sibling Registry, and Naomi Cahn, family and reproductive law professor, have compiled a comprehensive and thorough guide for the growing community of families with donor-conceived children. Kramer and Cahn believe that all donor-conceived children’s desire to know their genetic family must be honored, and in Finding Our Families, they offer advice on how to foster healthy relationships within immediate families and their larger donor family networks based on openness and acceptance. With honesty and compassion, the authors offer thoughtful strategies and inspirational stories to help parents answer their own, and their children’s, questions and concerns that will surely arise, including: How to support your children’s curiosity and desire to know about their ancestry and genetic and medical background. How to help children integrate their birth story into a healthy self-image. How to help your children search for their donor or half siblings if and when they express interest in doing so. Finding Our Families opens up the lives of donor-conceived people who may be coping with uncertainty, thriving despite it, and finding novel ways to connect in this uncharted territory as they navigate the challenges and rewards of the world of donor conception.

No federal law in the United States requires that egg or sperm donors or recipients exchange any information with the offspring that result from the donation. Donors typically enter into contracts with fertility clinics or sperm banks which promise them anonymity. The parents may know the donor’s hair color, height, IQ, college, and profession; they may even have heard the donor’s voice. But they don’t know the donor’s name, medical history, or other information that might play a key role in a child’s development. And, until recently, donor-conceived offspring typically didn’t know that one of their biological parents was a donor. But the secrecy surrounding the use of donor eggs and sperm is changing. And as it does, increasing numbers of parents and donor-conceived offspring are searching for others who share the same biological heritage. When donors, recipients, and “donor kids” find each other, they create new forms of families that exist outside of the law. The New Kinship details how families are made and how bonds are created between families in the brave new world of reproductive technology. Naomi Cahn, a nationally-recognized expert on reproductive technology and the law, shows how these new kinship bonds dramatically exemplify the ongoing cultural change in how we think about family. The issues Cahn explores in this book will resonate with anyone—and everyone—who has struggled with questions of how to define themselves in connection with their own biological, legal, or social families.

"The ready availability of donated sperm and eggs has made possible an entirely new form of family. Children of the same donor and their families, with the help of the internet, can now locate each other and make contact. Sometimes this network of families form meaningful connections that blossom into longstanding groups, and close friendships. This book is about unprecedented families that have grown up at the intersection of new reproductive technologies, social media and the human desire for belonging. Random Families asks: Do shared genes make you a family? What do couples do when they discover that their children shares half their DNA with a dozen or more other offspring from the same sperm donor? What do kids find in common with their donor siblings? What becomes of these chance networks once parents and donor siblings find one another? Based on over 350 interviews with children (ages 10-28) and their parents from all over the U.S., Random Families chronicles the chain of choices that couples and single mothers make from what donor to use to how to participate (or not) in donor sibling networks. Children reveal their understanding of a donor, the donor's spot on the family tree and the meaning of their donor siblings. Through rich first-person accounts of network membership, the book illustrates how these extraordinary relationships -- woven from bits of online information and shared genetic ties -- are transformed into new possibilities for kinship. Random Families offers down-to-earth stories from real families to highlight just how truly distinctive these contemporary new forms of family are." -- Publisher's description

A sweet and light-hearted picture book for donor-conceived children 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. For ages 2-8.

Our Story - A book for donor conceived children under seven years old explaining about their origins. This is one of a series of books and this book is for solo mum families who have used sperm donation. This book is relevant for those who have used known, identifiable and anonymous donors.

Drawing on the experiences of parents, offspring and donors and including her own and her family's story, this thought-provoking and informative book explores the process of donor conception. From finding out about an infertility problem, to considering whether - and how - to tell the children about their conception, and how those children feel as the adult offspring of a donor, she provides practical suggestions as well as in-depth consideration of the emotional and ethical issues involved. Lorbach takes the reader step-by-step through the process of deciding to use donor conception, choosing a donor, and discussing the decision with others - and considers the perspective of the donor alongside those of parents and offspring. Tackling difficult subjects such as disclosure and offspring's access to information about the donor, this important book is a much-needed resource for health, counseling and social work professionals as well as for the couples and families themselves.

Donor families are unique, yet are also becoming substantially more common with the exponential advancements being made in the field of reproductive medicine, and with the wider acceptance of LGBTQ+ and single-parent families utilizing donor gametes in recent decades. The accessibility of commercial DNA testing is also helping to expand these families, as many people are finding out by surprise that they are part of a sometimes quite large donor family. Individuals connected to donor families are therefore much more likely to be seen across a variety of mental health and medical settings for a range of presenting problems, either related to or separate from this part of their background. Regardless of the presenting issue, for these individuals the challenges of forming and redefining family as they explore their own or their child’s new biological connections can seem overwhelming and are therefore very likely to surface as a topic of discussion in treatment. Given the greatly increased probability of encountering a client connected to a donor family in their practices across settings, and the specific challenges this presents, clinicians must be well-informed about all perspectives in order to address such issues in a knowledgeable and sensitive manner. Counseling Donor Family Members provides clinicians and mental health professionals with guidance on the unique issues that can present for egg and sperm donors, parents of donor-conceived children, and donor-conceived people. They will be better prepared for many of the issues that donor family members might present in regards to their family of origin and with their new donor family relationships. Counseling Donor Family Members is both a resource for mental health and medical professionals in any setting, and a useful reference book for researchers, and donor family members themselves. It presents evolving ideas, recommendations, and talking points, that can be used in counseling everyone in the donor family. Because each stakeholder is deeply connected to the others, understanding all viewpoints is important for a successful counseling experience with any parent, egg and sperm donor, or donor-conceived person.