WNYC Radio: Ryan’s biological father speaks publicly for the first time about being found through DNA testing. Lost, Then Found
By admin on October 20, 2013
By admin on October 15, 2013
Article with the trailer:
http://www.thewrap.com/mtvs-generation-cryo-can-16-half-siblings-find-sperm-dono\
r-dad-video/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mtvs-generation-cryo-can\-16-half-siblings-find-sperm-donor-dad-video
Official Press Release:
MTV SET TO AIR GROUNDBREAKING DOCU-SERIES “GENERATION CRYO” ON
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 AT 10:00 P.M. ET/PT
Follow the Remarkable Journey of 17-Year-Old Breeanna Who Discovers 15 Half
Brothers and Sisters on Her Quest to Find the Donor — the Biggest Mystery of Her
Life
Tweet It: Check out the series premiere of “Generation Cryo” on @MTV Monday,
11/25 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT
New York, NY (October 15, 2013) – MTV today announced that it will premiere the
compelling docu-series “Generation Cryo,” which explores families and the issues
faced by a new generation of young people conceived via anonymous sperm
donation, on Monday, November 25 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. The series documents the
journey of 17-year-old Breeanna who recently learned that she has at least 15
half-siblings fathered by the same anonymous donor, #1096. What follows is a
six-episode, one-hour series that re-defines what it means to be a modern
family. For a link to the trailer, click here.
Hoping to find out more about her family history, Bree visited the Donor Sibling
Registry, a website dedicated to connecting sperm donor families. Armed with
this newly obtained information, Bree sets out to meet her half-brothers and
sisters and encourages them to help her find out more about their donor.
Realizing that they are more similar than any of them could have imagined, Bree
immediately connects with her siblings who accept her unconditionally. Along the
way, what starts off as a meeting of strangers becomes an intense and emotional
bonding of family.
Sibling Bios:
Breeanna, 17
For most of her childhood, Breeanna hid the fact that she was sperm
donor-conceived. After her two moms, Sherry and Debra, split up when Bree was
three-years-old, her biological mom, Debra, started dating men again. Bree then
bounced between both homes and is currently living with her non-biological mom,
Sherry.
Like most teenagers her age, Bree is attempting to find out who she is. But
unlike most kids, Bree’s just discovered that she has 15 half-siblings all over
the country. Now Bree wants to meet as many of her half-brothers and sisters as
she can and hopefully gain their help to solve the biggest mystery of their
lives – who is their sperm donor.
Jonah, 17 and Hilit, 17
Raised in a Jewish household with their parents, Terri and Eric, in a suburb of
Atlanta, Hilit and Jonah have already met many of their half-siblings and are
excited to add Bree into their family. However, as far as the sperm donor goes,
they’ve never considered looking for him. To Jonah and Hilit, their “real dad”
is the man who raised them and it’s going to take plenty of convincing if Bree
hopes to gain their support in her journey.
Jayme, 18 and Jesse, 18
Jayme and Jesse were raised by their single mom, Janis. Not having had a father
figure in their lives growing up, both have always been curious about their
“donor dad.” Janis is also interested in knowing who the donor is and even
attempted to go through the Cryobank in hopes of reaching out to the donor, but
was told that only offspring who are 18 years of age can submit a request for
contact. Now that Jayme and Jesse are 18, they’re ready to submit a request of
their own, but are warned that they should temper their expectations of ever
hearing from the donor.
Paige, 20 Molly, 20 and Will, 18
Paige, Molly and Will grew up with their mom, Laura and dad, Perry, who are now
divorced. Despite their parents’ split, they’re still close to their father and
are deeply conflicted about knowing much about the donor.
Twins Paige and Molly are the oldest of all the half-siblings and feel they have
a responsibility to protect the younger ones. Even though they don’t want to
find the donor themselves, they are willing to help mentor Bree as she searches
for him.
Jesse, 18
Jesse grew up with his mom, Laurie and dad, Jim. The couple believed Jim was
infertile and used donor sperm to conceive Jesse. It turns out, however, that
Jim wasn’t infertile and three years later, he and Laurie had a daughter Emily
through natural conception.
Jesse isn’t fully comfortable with being a sperm donor child and doesn’t like
being labeled as one. He was hesitant to meet his half-siblings earlier in his
life and his desire to ignore the subject of where he came from puts a strain on
his relationship with his family. After meeting up with Jesse, it becomes
Bree’s mission to help him come to terms with being donor-conceived.
Viewers can go to MTV.com for sneak peeks of the show including bonus and
extended scenes, plus exclusive interviews. For even more information and
exclusive content, fans can “like” the “Generation Cryo” Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/GenerationCryo.
“Generation Cryo” will also air on MTV’s international channels beginning in
March 2014.
“Generation Cryo” is produced by Off the Fence for MTV with OTF’s Michael Lang
and Ellen Windemuth serving as Executive Producers. Marshall Eisen, Nomi Ernst
Leidner, Betsy Forhan and Dave Sirulnick are Executive Producers for MTV. Rob
Schwarze and Dave Wadsworth are Supervising Producers for OTF. Jonathan Mussman
is Executive in Charge, MTV. Wendy Kramer is the Associate Producer and the
Founder and Director of the Donor Sibling Registry.
By admin on October 12, 2013
New Family Trees: Five Ways to Reform Fertility Medicine
I like to call it Fertopolis. If all the people born in the United States as the result of egg and sperm donation lived in one city, they would be more than 1 million strong. More people than all but eight of the largest cities in the country, bigger than Seattle and 17 times the size of my hometown of Great Falls, Montana.
And if they all lived in the same city, they probably would have a lot more clout. As it stands, they can’t find out much of anything about at least one of their biological parents. Their family history of illnesses and genetic disorders remains off limits. And the number of people who share a parent with them – even on the same city block – remains a mystery.
Wendy Kramer, the founder of the Donor Sibling Registry, and Naomi Cahn, a George Washington University law professor, want to change the rules that govern Fertopolis and give its citizens the same rights as all citizens. But their proposals will not be easily embraced. They are outlined in their new book: Finding Our Families: A First-of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and Their Families.
I have summarized the five I find the most intriguing below to start a conversation about the fertility industry and the families that have formed as a result.
Require mandatory third party counseling for all prospective donors and parents. This is a low-cost requirement that could pay significant dividends, albeit in a few cases. It may, for example, have helped in the case of Krystie Karl-Steiger, who was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder more common among people of Jewish, French Canadian, and Cajun descent. Had both the egg donor and the fathers of Krystie – sperm from both of them was used to fertilize the egg – been adequately counseled, they may have pushed for more genetic testing and the mutation would have been found.
Mandate comprehensive medical and genetic testing for donors. This would be a more expensive requirement and would add a layer of red tape to what already can be a cumbersome process, but, again, as in the case of Karl-Steiger, it could prove worth it. When Kramer asked sperm donors if they would have consented to genetic testing, she found that 93% said “they would have been open to genetic testing if it had been offered to them.” The authors also quote Kirk Maxey, a physician and former sperm donor, who says that sperm and egg donors should be required to undergo full genomic sequencing and report every genetic variant known in the Johns Hopkins Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database, which includes about 12,000 genetic traits. Would this grind all donations to a halt? Maybe. Would some people see the possible genetic risks, match them against their own genetic risks and take a gamble? Probably.
Require donors a.) to provide a full medical history at the time of donation and b.) to update their family medical history regularly. Kramer’s survey of donors found that “98 percent of surveyed egg donors and 84 percent of surveyed sperm donors report never having been contacted by their clinics to update health information after donation.”
Track all recipients, donors, and births and safeguard all records in a central data bank indefinitely, with information accessible only to involved families. The industry promised to do this nearly five years ago. In January 2008, I wrote a story quoting representatives from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, the leading fertility industry organization, saying they would work to create a system for recording the histories of donors and surrogate mothers. “If you have a case of a donor who is a carrier for Tay-Sachs, there is no mechanism in place right now to let other parents and agencies know. We need to change that,” said Dr. David Grainger, a Wichita fertility specialist and a member of the reproductive technology society’s executive council. I intend to follow up with Grainger and others to see what’s been done since then.
Limit the number of births from the sperm or eggs of any given donor. Can’t you see this one playing out on an episode of The Good Wife? A strident donor goes into court to fight for her right to generate as many offspring as her ovaries will allow? And she’s represented in court by Michelle Duggar (star of 19 Kids and Counting). Kramer and Cahn note that the U.S. fertility industry recommends that the number of offspring per donor by kept to 25 pregnancies from one donor within a given population of 800,000. There are two problems with that, they write. One is that in New York City, for example, “this would allow for almost 300 donor-conceived children to be born from the same donor, which is approximately one child per square mile.” The other problem is that the limits are just suggestions. “Mandated limits would ensure that one donor does not spread diseases to dozens of offspring and would also protect children from the psychological consequences of learning that they are 150th in a ‘herd’ of other children.”