We’ve been pulling some very interesting statistics from the DSR website. All numbers are approximate, as not everyone enters all information.

What is the average wait time from adding a posting to the DSR, to matching (with half-siblings and/or donors)on the DSR?  The average wait is 116 days.

69.4% of DSR posts yield matches.

78% of DSR users, who have matched, matched instantly. (The more users we have, the shorter the average wait time becomes).

What is the average age of all offspring currently listed in posts?  12.7 years old.

What is the average age of children when they are first posted? 7.5 years old.

What are the percentages for the number of children posted per family?  76.6% have one child posted, 19.5% have two children posted, 3.2% have three children posted, and .5% have four children posted and .2% have more than four children posted.

94.9% of DSR posts are families that used sperm donation, 4.3% of families used egg donation and .8% of families used embryo donation.

You can read the pdf copy from our Research Page:
http://www.donorsiblingregistry.com/resource-library/dsr-research

2013 The Journal of Family Issues, DOI 10.1177/0192513X13489299 May 2013: A New
Path to Grandparenthood: Parents of Egg and Sperm Donors. Diane Beeson, Patricia
Jennings, Wendy Kramer.

“…third-party reproduction has implications not only for the donor,
recipients, and offspring, but also for the parents of donors, who in increasing
numbers are learning that they are the biological grandparents of one, or
sometimes many, children born outside of their family. In this article we
examine this new path to grandparenthood by reviewing some of the social
processes that have led to the emergence of this phenomenon.”

Slate Article on upcoming “Delivery Man” Movie

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/07/09/delivery_man_fact_checked_how_much_sperm_would_you_have_to_donate_to_father.html

Wow, this reporter sure got a lot of things wrong!

1. “Most sperm banks and fertility clinics cap the number of donations that even the most generous donors can make.” No they most certainly do not. In addition, sperm banks are not required to, and therefore do not, keep accurate records of how many children are born from any one donor. Therefore, there are no limits in place for the number of children that can be born to any one donor.
2. “In the United States, for example, most fertility clinics and sperm banks adhere to guidelines issued by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), which recommends restricting conceptions by individual donors to 25 births per population area of 800,000.” Again, because there is no accurate record keeping, “guidelines” are not followed. Most sperm banks have no idea about how many children are born to any one donor, so how can they possibly enforce limits?
3. “…each ejaculation provides three to four vials of semen…”. Again, nope. We have donors listed on the DSR that have reported more than 20-25 vials resulting from one single donation. (One of these donors donated for many years, and currently has more than 75 donor offspring.)
4. “…it would take almost seven years to provide sufficient semen. Donors never participate for that long..” Wrong again. From a research paper on 164 sperm donors, currently In Press: “Just over two thirds (112- 70%) of donors had donated for 1-4 years, with 22 (13.7%) donating for less than a year and 19 (22.5%) donating for between 4-10 years. Seven (4.4%) reported that they had donated for over 10 years.”
5. “…and some have begun keeping registries to prevent donors from participating in multiple banks.” No, there is nothing currently in place to keep donors from donating at more than one place. The sperm banks have talked about such a “registry” for years, but it has not ever happened. Two separate studies showed that between 22-27% of donors donate to multiple clinics. Some donating to more than ten and even up to 17 clinics.
6. The Donor Sibling Registry has many large groups of half siblings, the largest approaching 200. (This is the group reported in the September 2011 NY Times Article).
So this is not merely ”fanciful storytelling”. It may also reveal the realities of an industry run without any oversight or regulation.