Multiple siblings

Sperm donations plummeted in this country when all resulting children were given the right to contact their sperm donor at 18.
Men are not donating sperm at multiple clinics. When a close relative of mine went to the top clinic in London there was NO sperm available. Another clinic had a choice between TWO donors.
There’s a lot of misinformation in this thread. Stop getting your education from the Daily Mail!

Booklady if that aunt had kept her mouth shut would you have ever been bothered? I think if I needed to use AID I wouldn't tell anyone and then no one could let the cat out of the bag.

I think the chances are loads of people grow up thinking someone is their father and only their mother knows the truth, her husband just assuming the child is his. This must have been going on since the dawn of time, AID just added to it.

I read somewhere, no idea where, that the first case of AID was along time ago when a woman was examined under GA to try and work out why she wasn't conceiving. The Consultant sent one of the junior doctors off to provide a donation and woman was "cured" when she discovered a few weeks later that she was pregnant. As far as I know no one was ever told.

Unfortunately not all sperm donors are registered and go through the screening process. I have read that there are men out there who advertise their services as sperm donors on internet using 'natural method' for no fee. They will travel to impregnate woman. Heaven knows how many children they produce with some desperate woman who cannot afford to pay for screened sperm donors
agreeing to use them. No records kept there. I have read about one egotistical man who thinks he has fathered over 60 children and mostly in and around Manchester.

Is AID new though? I remember reading about it in my mum's medical book when I was reading the bits about reproduction when I was a child when I was getting my sex education. From what I remember it was regarded then (the book was published in the early 1950s) as something to be kept hushed up. I bet there are more checks nowadays then there were then, now that such things are talked about more.

I remember reading years ago that researchers into Huntingtons Chorea which is a genetical disease kept finding it in families where it shouldn't be. It isn't only sperm donors whose children may never know them. Shakespeare knew "Its a wise child that knows his own father".

When I saw the heading, I thought 'I can say something, there were four of us in our family'. Then I realised....... oops!

I know that BlueBelle just don't understand it.

Christinefrance it didn’t bother you not knowing your father but for some people it a huge big deal I have a friend who was left on a church doorstep and had no desire to ever know who his biological parents were but I have another who is desperate to know and felt totally incomplete without that piece of the jigsaw so it is very individual but I think the information needs to be there whether you want to use it or not

The Guide Dogs for the Blind keeps a very long record of the parentage of puppies so that there can be no chance of 'interbreeding' which has been proven to produce various problems. If they can do it, why isn't there a similar world-wide register of sperm/embryo donors?

Maybe they should introduce a pedigree system like they have for artificial insemination of cattle and horses. This ensures there is no inbreeding.

Nonnie, I don’t know the details of how they ensure a donor cannot donate to more than one clinic.
The donor sperm for my DGC came from Denmark. Full medical histories were given including parents and grandparents..
There was information about his education and qualifications and the number and sex of his own family children. There was a photo of the father when young, a letter written in his handwriting to give to the child when appropriate and an audio recording of his voice.
However, at the time, the information given by the UK equivalent agency was very limited. I don’t know if this has changed.

I agree about attraction of siblings when they are unaware of their relationship. That has been well documented. There should be some control over sperm donation but would be difficult to regulate.
I don't agree with the missing identity idea, you are who you are. I never knew who my biological father was but I don't feel any loss, I am my own person.

Its not only children conceived by sperm donation that I am concerned about. I have a friend with grown up children who knows that her husband, in his student days, donated sperm to earn a bit of extra cash. If it were me I'd be worried my children might fall for a half sibling. And yes, most if not all of us have some faulty recessive genes which usually have no effect as we have two genes for every characteristic and usually one normal gene will suffice. But if parents both pass on the same faulty gene this can cause an abnormality. This is obviously more likely if they are closely related.

I still miss my father who died suddenly when I was 16. How much worse never to have known who he was. In today's Times there is a story of a Japanese millionaire in Bangkok who has won custody of 13 of his surrogate children. He actually has 19 by at least 9 surrogate mothers. He paid the mothers between $9,300 and $12,500 and the children are all being well looked after in several of his homes by nannies and there is provision for them in financial trusts. I suppose the children will know who their father is but probably not their mothers. He comes from a large family and wanted to have a large family. Not exactly my view of a family.

In Britain there’s a very low limit on sperm donations.
As incest shows, the offspring of very close relatives are usually perfectly healthy. The problems arise when cousin marriages are the norm for generation after generation.
Blood tests have shown that very many people cannot be the children of who they think is their father so half siblings we are not aware of are also very common.
My children have half siblings who they have never met. They have no ties whatever, just the same biological parent which means nothing.

There are limits on how many children a donor can father and all reputable AID clinics obey them. I think in this case the doctor concerned was covertly using his own sperm instead of the sperm from other donors so no-one knew what he was doing.

Now, I may be wrong, ( I was wrong once before), but isn’t it the case that there has to be a genetic abnormality, and the ‘ faulty’ gene being passed down by both parents greatly increases the risk?

One of my Sils was separated from her brother very early on in their lives. They met up again when they were teenagers ( not knowing they were brother and sister) started courting. Fortunately an older woman who knew all the families history told her who she was courting.

Readymeals you are so right about feeling the missing identity when you are donor conceived. I was donor conceived in the 1950s and nobody saw fit to tell me until I was 50 and my 90 year old aunt just had to let the cat out of the bag. To say I was devastated is an understatement. My whole life had been based on a lie, and I am still searching for any half siblings I may have. All children should have a right to know their genetic heredity. Do not underestimate the damage secrecy can do, apart from the obvious problems, already stated about half siblings being attracted to each other.

I don't know whether Sweden has a register for sperm doners, but they were talking about the necessity of it in the 1990s as they were worried about the large number of children conceived in this way and the possibility that half-siblings would marry (or not) and have children believing themselves in all good faith to be unrelated.

My adopted sister always felt something was missing because she had no idea who her biological parents were and I can't imagine the child conceived through a sperm donation would feel any different, but I don't know.

I've been interested in family research for a few years and recently did a couple of DNA tests: Ancestry and 23andme.
I'm still scratching my head with the results, how did a girl from Essex end up 1% polynesian., but may be that's a post on the genealogy thread. It's very surprising to read on the 23andme just how many people are finding out their father's are not actually their biological fathers and quite a few people know or learn they were the result of sperm donors. In the US, particularly in the 60's many medical students donated for science or money to fund their medical tuition.

My sons father sperm donor had so many children to so many different unfortunate women that we eventually lost count. I do know for certain that my son was the first but how many came after? I can only hazard a guess. At his (high profile) funeral his widow told me that she was under no illusion that she would have been the last in line and that his (untimely) death had probably saved even more heartache for more children.

My son has met at least 5 of his half siblings and they all look very alike.

Have just read this and realised I should that put 'because of a loophole in the regulations he was allowed to donate again'.

'Donate through a loophole' What was I thinking of.

This girl was in America and the regulations state that there is a limit, around 12 families that they can donate to, however, in this particular case the company he was registered with was bought out by another company and he was allowed to donate again through a loophole. Have no idea what the regulations are here.

Bluebelle I don't imagine this situation would only effect those born through the process of a doner. Bad outcomes could affect any one of us. Am I being ott in suggesting that a persons DNA be disclosed in their medical history.? Should a couple reach the point where they want to start a family then tests would determine any risks to the children. Who would knowingly want to take that risk?