Advice from another donor who is about to register on the DSR. I hope this helps
families, particularly donor offspring, better understand why a donor might have
chosen to be anonymous. As usual, these issues and the choices that are made are
more complicated then we might have thought. And it’s so important to know that
donors thoughts about donating can, and do, change over time.

“….a message to donor families about one facet of my experience as a donor.
The basic point I would want to communicate to them is to never just assume that
because someone donated ‘anonymously’ a long time ago, that they definitely
don’t want to be ‘found’ or be a helpful part of the child’s life…

..When I signed up to be a donor, Fairfax was starting a known ID donor program.
I initially started in this program, because I wanted to be available to any
future offspring. However a month into the program, I changed to an anonymous
status because of the way their known ID donor program was structured. The way
it worked was that at age 18, the donor families would receive a lot of my
personal information. To me, that didn’t make sense at all. It was too much to
agree to..that they can have all of my information in the future and that I
could never change my decision to allow this…I didn’t know who I’d be in 20
years or what my future family might think so how could I volunteer all my
personal information right away? Why did it have to be all or nothing right
then? In contrast, it SHOULD have been structured more like the DSR and I
would have been much more inclined to stay in the known donor program.

The entire way the industry functions is appalling the more I learn about how it
actually works. It is a bit shocking to learn how driven it is by money and how
little regard they have for the people (donor offspring, parents, and donors)
involved. These companies have created a culture where this is okay and some
people actually believe it! In reality these companies’ interests are trivial
and absurd compared to the interests of the actual people whose lives are
impacted.

I do not regret being a donor, but at the moment I’m not in love with the idea
that I freely involved myself with an industry that doesn’t understand what is
sacred. I feel that in most ways being a donor was a beautiful thing and the
positives outweigh the negatives. Still, the not being able to know what you
might want to know (about your own flesh and blood) can be a frustrating thing
and I don’t believe it should be this way for anyone.”

Donor P.

The Donor Sibling Registry and the University of Cambridge have just published their 4th paper together on research conducted on donor offspring, sperm donors, egg donors and parents of donor offspring.

Hum. Reproduction Advance Access published December 21, 2010
Human Reproduction, Vol.0, No.0 pp. 1–8, 2010

Sperm and oocyte donors’ experiences of anonymous donation and subsequent contact with their donor offspring

V. Jadva1,*, T. Freeman1, W. Kramer2, and S. Golombok1
1Centre for Family Research, Faculty of Politics, Psychology, Sociology and International Studies, Free School Lane, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3RF, UK 2Donor Sibling Registry, PO Box 1571, Nederland, CO 80466, USA

*Correspondence address. Fax: +44-1223-330574; E-mail: vj227@cam.ac.uk Submitted on July 15, 2010; resubmitted on November 19, 2010; accepted on November 26, 2010

background: This study examined the motivations and experiences of anonymous donors who decide to make themselves open to contact with their donor offspring.

methods: Online questionnaires were completed by 63 sperm donors and 11 oocyte donors recruited via the Donor Sibling Registry (http://www.donorsiblingregistry.com), a US-based international registry that facilitates contact between donor-conceived offspring and their donors.

results: Donors’ main reasons for donating were financial payment and wanting to help others. Sperm donors had donated between 1 and 950 times and oocyte donors had donated between 1 and 5 times. The majority of sperm donors and more than one-third of oocyte donors expressed concerns about having donated. These concerns were mainly about the well-being of any children conceived using their gametes and not being able to make contact with them. Most sperm and oocyte donors felt that it was important to know how many offspring had been born using their donation, and 51% of sperm donors and 46% of oocyte donors wanted identifying information. All of the donors who had contact with their donor offspring reported positive experiences and the majority continued to have regular contact.

conclusions: Although the sample may not be representative of all anonymous donors, this study highlights the importance of donors having access to information about their donor offspring and the positive consequences that may arise when contact is made.