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History and Mission
The Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) was founded in 2000 to assist individuals conceived as a result of sperm, egg, or embryo donation who are seeking to make mutually desired contact with others with whom they share genetic ties. Donor siblings, donor offspring, parents of half-siblings, biological parents: all donor family connections. Without any outside support, the DSR has pioneered an international discussion about the donor conception industry and donor families, through research, media appearances, speaking engagements, and interviews. The DSR advocates for the right to honesty and transparency for donor-conceived people, promotes social acceptance and legal rights, and values the diversity of all families.
Sperm Banks: Educating and counseling prospective parents and donors about the Donor Sibling Registry is important. It's an idea whose time has come.
The donor conception industry is largely a for-profit enterprise. After the “product” has been purchased, most doctors, clinics, egg donation agencies, and cryobanks do not engage in discussions or activities that acknowledge the humanity and rights of the donor-conceived people.
Parents are sometimes unprepared for their children's curiosity and desire to know more about their genetic background. To move out of the secrecy and shame that has for so long shrouded donor conception, the DSR will continue to educate parents and the general public on the importance of honoring and supporting children's natural drive to know more about their identity.
The DSR works hard to ensure that donor-conceived people have a safe place to search for their biological identities and make these connections with their half-siblings/donors. When matching on the DSR, ask for a few pieces of information from the donor profile that have not been posted and that only the donor or someone with the donor's profile would know.
It might be hard to understand the value of the DSR if you've never used our website to connect with your own or your child's genetic relatives or if you've never had an urgent medical issue to share with your donor family. Or if you've never been notified of an urgent medical issue that warranted medical screenings or preventative medicine. Or if you've not yet created life-long relationships with a group of people that you or your child is related to, including donors- right from pregnancy or birth. There is now an entire generation of donor-conceived people who have been able to grow up knowing their half-siblings and biological parents.
We send adult donor-conceived people (DCP) to the DNA sites all the time. But think about it: if all parents were educated about the importance of connecting right from the start, many of those people would have had the opportunity to grow up knowing their half-siblings and biological parents instead of having to wait until they were adults to try and find each other via other methods. Same for donors- if they were properly educated, more would connect earlier on the DSR with families.
Too many facilities instill fears about parents wanting money, donors wanting to parent, or donor-conceived people looking for an active parent, in attempts to keep these folks from connecting. Too many DCP ask their parents, “If I could have grown up knowing my half-siblings (and donor) why didn’t you let me?” All too often, fear is the reason.
Sperm banks could consider what is in the best interests of the children they're helping to create and properly educate prospective donors and parents about the importance of connecting early on (not waiting 18 years). Dozens of egg facilities write the DSR into their donor-parent agreements, allowing parents and donors to connect right from pregnancy/birth. Sperm banks could do the same. It would just take one to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
Looking Ahead: Our Goals for 2025
Continue to educate mental health and reproductive medicine professionals about the need for adequate counseling for all donor family members.
Continue facilitating donor family connections.
Further expand media coverage of the donor-conceived community's issues.
Initiate and continue academic partnerships for research.
Continue outreach programs to the reproductive medicine industry, universities, legal organizations, LGBTQ organizations, mental health professionals, and the public.
Reach the milestones of 100,000 DSR members and 28,000 people matched.
Continue to encourage oversight and regulation of the infertility industry.
We will continue to think and dialog deeply, rigorously, and critically about how to move this industry forward more ethically and responsibly — considering the needs and rights of all stakeholders, but most importantly the needs and rights of donor-conceived people.
Testimonials
We are also so thankful for your website and while I was hesitant to reach out to half-siblings initially, I can now say, that contact to all the other moms and half-siblings is nothing but joy and enrichment for all of us. One of the other moms is actually one of my best friends now.
Thank you very much for this and for your incredible efforts. Truly, without the DSR, we would have much emotional upset in this house. New England Cryo is incredibly obstructionist –they refuse to give the information they promised about my son’s open-identity donor. This entire donor world is so difficult! Fortunately, we have the DSR to help fill in holes about my son’s genetic history.
A quick update on the wonderful enduring relationships you created through your brilliant registry. My son has a deep and enduring relationship with many of his half siblings, because of you. They are located in different parts of the country, but attend each other's special occasions, travel together, and in general have on-going communication and a sense of family. While my son was an "only child" he has a deep and meaningful relationship with his other siblings.
We are thankful to you every day for how you have helped enhance our lives. You are making such a difference and the world a better place.
Gratitude post to Wendy and the DSR. Despite being an open ID at 18 Donor, we made contact a while ago and I am eternally grateful to witness moments like this. Without her courage and vision for this opportunity and a mechanism available to us all to make it happen, our world would be smaller. Thank you.
Thank you for having this idea, for taking action on your idea, and for continuing with it despite the huge number of hours and amount of difficulty it took. You have provided an indescribably important resource for so many: Thank you!!
Absolutely amazing. We went from thinking we wouldn’t have the opportunity to make connections until our kiddo turned 18, and then I found your website last weekend. Our minds have been blown, we are pinching ourselves to see if we are dreaming, or if this is really happening, LOL. Thank you so much to everyone involved in this registry.
I am a previous egg donor to several different families, and I have come to feel that anonymous donation is unethical. I sincerely regret the anonymity on my end, and it weighs heavy on my heart. I was young and didn’t understand my options. I still absolutely respect the privacy and autonomy of the parents and children. I defer to whatever is best for the children that resulted from my donations and would like to make myself available to any and all families looking for information or connection.
My son has met 5 of his donor siblings, the donor, the donor's mom and dad and we have plans to have a big reunion and hopefully so far, it looks like we may have about 25 or so of the donor siblings prepared to meet. I wouldn't change these meet-ups for anything. The connection they have is pretty awesome to see unfold.
Thank you so much for creating the DSR! I’m sure you know how much of a positive impact you’ve had on thousands of people like me, but I wanted to remind you again. Thanks to you I will be meeting my brother!
Thank you so much for everything that you’ve done. Your work has opened doors for my family. It’s incredible.
Thank you so much for all your hard work and thank you for connecting my families together! What a blessing this site is.
Thank you for having an awesome idea, and then doing all the work to make it a huge benefit for all of us who didn’t even know we needed it!
So grateful for the DSR! Thanks to you, my 7-year-old DC son will be meeting more of his half-siblings this October!
You guys are life-changing (for me) and inspiring. You have my eternal gratitude.
Thanks to you, my 19-year-old son knows his 20-year-old sister and his 18-year-old brother. In fact, my son and his sister are now in college in the same city! Thank you for expanding our family!
The DSR is such a valuable resource, source of support, and safe place to explore our diverse family structures, trials, conflicts, joy, and sorrow inherent to pioneering these human relations.
I have been deeply moved by Wendy and Ryan’s vision of greater openness regarding gamete donation, and the ingenuity of the new pathways they have developed for donor-conceived offspring, gamete donors, and their family members to find each other. I...