It’s been a while since we updated everyone on the goings-on here at the DSR.  A quick update:

1.  We are currently putting together research papers on the 759 donor offspring, 154 sperm donors and 109 egg donor parents, that we surveyed earlier this year. This research will be peer reviewed and (hopefully!) published in academic journals.

2. We have submitted two abstracts to ASRM for presentation at their October meeting: “Anonymity, Disclosure and Contact with Donors: How Experiences of Donor Conceived Offspring Vary by Family Type” and  “Semen Donors who are Open to Contact with their Offspring”. We should know by early July if the abstracts have been accepted.

3. We are about to launch a very exciting new research project in collaboration with UCSF’s Institute for Human Genetics- on nature/nurture. This study will investigate the hereditary and environmental factors that influence physical, behavioral and medical traits among relatives in the DSR. We will be sending out invitations to participate in the study within the next few days. We hope that all donors, donor conceived people and all parents (both bio and non-bio) will participate.

4. The DSR will have booths at this weekend’s Capital Pride in Washington DC and the next weekend’s Denver Pride in Colorado We will be taking to prospective parents, parents, donor conceived people and anyone who is interested in hearing about the DSR and what we do.

5. We will be speaking at July’s Genetics and Society meeting in Tarrytown NY.

6. We will be making a presentation at November’s National Council on Family Relations meeting in Minneapolis. The meeting is entitled: “Families and Innovation”.

7. We passed the 7,300 mark for people matched on the DSR. We currently have more than 27,425 donors, donor conceived people and parents on the DSR.

It has recently been reported to the Donor Sibling Registry that a sperm donor who has donated at several clinics, (some of these clinics have then also sold the sperm on to other clinics), has some medical issues that require that any subsequent donor conceived children born from this donor be medically tested immediately. This sperm is still being sold at at least one of the clinics.

The clinics and donor numbers are as follows:

Pacific Reproductive Services #143

The Sperm Bank of California #832

Dr. Russell, Delaware Institute for Reproductive Medicine, donor #530

Please contact Wendy at the Donor Sibling Registry for more information and to be directed to the doctors who are currently investigating the case.

Please pass this along to any “donor-grandparents” that you know.

Hello Parents of Donors,

The Donor Sibling Registry now has a survey for the parents of sperm and egg donors.

Here is the link to the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KY5XQGY.

The survey contains 41 questions, and should take between 10-15 minutes to complete. We have spent the past few months collecting surveys from the donor conceived, the donors and the recipient parents, (and are busy working on these papers!) but it’s the parents of the donors that we have not heard from yet- and we think they have an important
voice in these new family connections. You can take the survey anonymously.

When the survey is closed, we will randomly select two winners for a $50 prize!

Thanks so much for your participation.

Wendy