September 2021 Newsletter
75,700 Members with 21,100 Matched
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The Donor Sibling Registry regularly conducts research on all members of the donor family, including egg and sperm donors, bio and non-bio parents, donor-conceived people, and even donor grandparents. We've conducted and published 26 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals on many donor family issues.
2021: Egg Donor Research, a collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago Dept. of Population Health Nursing Science/ Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynecology
"The purpose of this dissertation study is to explore what medical and psychosocial problems oocyte donors have experienced post-initial donation and to understand if these women have disclosed to family, friends, or offspring. These findings will serve to illuminate foundational knowledge about areas for improving medical health and needed education and counseling for psychological well-being and disclosure for former and future oocyte donors. This study yielded 345 completed surveys and a paper is underway, "The Psychosocial and Physical Experiences of Egg Donors Across the Lifespan."
2021: Donor-Conceived Adult Research, a collaboration with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility Department: themes surrounding family building in donor-conceived offspring.
"The purpose of this study is to explore the opinions about family building among people that were conceived via donor-assisted reproduction. We additionally intend to analyze how their experience of connecting with half-siblings shape these opinions. We hypothesize that offspring of donor gametes who have positive and open relationships with their donors and/or half-siblings would be more willing to use donor gametes themselves if unable to conceive spontaneously and would be more willing to donate gametes compared to those who have a negative or no relationship with their donor or half-siblings." This study yielded 529 completed surveys and two abstracts will be presented at the October 2021 American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Annual Scientific Congress: 1. Where are the donors: do donor-conceived people become donors themselves? 2. The age and by whom a donor-conceived person receives information significantly affects their experience.
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UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
October 2021: American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Annual Scientific Congress: A Panel: "Open-Identity Sperm Donation: What Are the Children Saying?", an interactive session (with no actual donor-conceived people on the panel). "This interactive session will include an interdisciplinary panel of speakers who will bring their unique expertise/knowledge to the table." Our presentation will be: "The Ambiguity of Open Gamete Donation"
October 2021: American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Annual Scientific Congress: A Poster: "The age and by whom a donor-conceived person receives information significantly affects their experience."
October 2021: American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Annual Scientific Congress: A Poster: "Where are the donors: do donor-conceived people become donors themselves”?
February 2021: University of Colorado Advanced Reproductive Medicine IVF Clinic
January 2021: The British Fertility Society Annual Conference (virtual this year)
January 2021: ASRC's Adoption Wellness, Advocacy, Knowledge and Experience (AWAKE) Influencer Forum. Ryan and Wendy Kramer participated on the panel.
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July: WBNS
"McKenzie Cooper remembers being roughly 12 years old and sitting atop the school monkey bars, as the ‘cool kids’ did, and explaining how artificial insemination works.
“It’s been a very normal part of my life, a very normal part of my childhood,” she said. After all, she grew up with two moms. As she puts it, the math would not have added up if a sperm donor were not involved.
But it wasn’t until high school when her journey of sibling discovery truly began. After an Oprah episode, she says her mom signed her up for the Donor Sibling Registry, and soon after, she found her first two half-siblings."
May: Women's Health
“You’re playing Russian roulette with this,” says Cassandra Bach, a fertility coach and mother of a donor-conceived child. When she decided to get pregnant on her own via a sperm bank donor in 2010, she was told that sperm from the donor she chose wouldn’t be given to more than 40 families. But when her daughter was 2 years old, Bach joined the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR), a nonprofit that helps connect donor-conceived people with biological relatives (many parents join so there’s no chance of their child dating an unknown half-sibling). Over time, she discovered her daughter had 114 half-siblings spanning four countries on three continents. “The sperm bank was tracking siblings via self-reporting, and not everyone reports when they’ve had a child,” says Bach.
These are the reasons the industry needs massive reform, says Wendy Kramer, director and cofounder of DSR. Many parents of donor-conceived children are pushing for mandatory background checks on donors, as well as mandatory reporting about where else they’re donating and accurate tracking of the number of children created by donors. Clinics “need to enforce reporting from donors if their health history has changed,” says Kramer. “Many of the people who donate to these banks are 19-year-old kids, so you’re getting a snapshot of one day in the life of a healthy young person. His father could die of a heart attack the next year, or he could develop cancer later in life, and you wouldn’t know.” She’s been pushing for change for years now, but progress has been slow. “The thing is, it costs money to keep accurate records and to do proper vetting,” says Kramer.
One long-touted pro of using a sperm bank was the promise of donor anonymity. But the idea isn’t realistic anymore with at-home DNA testing kits, and, some experts argue, total anonymity is harmful for donor-conceived people anyway. In fact, 94 percent of donor-conceived people strongly support the option to access info about how many siblings they have and the identity of their donor, and 99 percent want details about the medical history of their donor, per a recent survey. “Kids will ideally find out they are donor-conceived early in life, or they will find out later through a DNA test or family member,” says Kramer. “Either way, they’ll have questions and may want to make contact, and all parties should understand and be open to that.”
April: NY Times
"Donor anonymity and a lack of comprehensive and accurate record-keeping have deprived donor-conceived people of access to their identifying information for too long. We need to do better for adoptees and the donor-conceived communities."
March: USA Today
March: The Economist
"Besides health concerns, there is another important reason for limiting donor’s fecundity. The children of sperm and egg donors, like those who are adopted, often want to trace their blood relations. But it is difficult to forge strong relationships when vast numbers of children are involved. Wendy Kramer of the Donor Sibling Registry, which helps connect members of donor families, says this is an example of how the contract between clinics and would-be parents has ignored the interests of the children it produces. She established the group in 2000 when her then ten-year-old son, conceived using donor sperm, became curious about his wider family. Last month he learned of the existence of two new half-siblings, bringing the tally to 22. Ms. Kramer had been told her sperm donor would father no more than ten children, a limit she considers sensible."
February: The Guardian
“We created the DSR so parents, donors, and offspring could make mutual consent contact,” says founder Wendy Kramer, herself the mother of a donor-conceived son. “And there are many good reasons – medical and psychological – to connect while children are young.” Sperm banks, Kramer says, can’t be relied on to notify recipient families about medical issues, which could be vital information for offspring. She adds: “It’s also an innate human desire to want to know where and who we come from; it helps with identity formation.”
February: New York Times
One man, hundreds of children, and a burning question: Why?
“There’s nothing in the U.S. or anywhere that would keep a donor from donating at more than one sperm bank,” said Wendy Kramer, a co-founder and the executive director of the Donor Sibling Registry, an organization in the United States that supports donor families. “The sperm banks claim that they ask the donor if they’ve donated anywhere else, but nobody knows if they really do.”
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NEW PUBLICATION & NEW DSR WEBPAGE
The Ambiguity of Open Gamete Donation, A White Paper can be found
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Many egg donor agencies and clinics write the Donor Sibling Registry right into their contracts/agreements so that recipient parents and donors have access to each other right from pregnancy/birth.
●CONTACT: The issue of contact between the donor and the recipient is removed from the hands and focus of the agency/clinic.
●CONSENT: Since the DSR relies on mutual consent contact; the agency/clinic doesn’t need to be worried about protecting anyone’s privacy or incur the costs of tracking communication between donors and parents.
●CHOICE: Each party can remain private if they choose, so the decision is ultimately in the hands of those involved. Each party can decide the depth and breadth of the information they’re comfortable sharing.
●CURRENT: The sharing and updating of current medical information happens on the DSR, so the agency/clinic has less work since they have provided a tool for medical updates.
●EMPOWER: Parents and donors are empowered to set the parameters of their own relationships, without a middleman, and without having to wait18 years. Donor-conceived people have the opportunity to establish relationships with their genetic mothers/fathers while they are developing, not having to wait until they are adults.
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Your Family: A Donor Kid’s Story is a sweet and light-hearted picture book that answers the question "where did I come from?” and then gently introduces the concepts of half siblings and donors in an open and honest way. The book starts with the parent’s desire to have a baby, the use of a donor, and then broaches the topic of half siblings and biological parents/donors. A perfect book for (the millions of) donor-conceived children to learn about how they were conceived and for understanding that being curious about their unknown genetic origins and relatives is natural.
Just as there are many family types, there are also many ways to define a child’s family and their donor relatives. Reading this book with your young donor-conceived child can initiate or supplement important and ongoing dialog about these genetic connections. These early conversations are integral for creating a happy and healthy donor child and family.
"Your Family gives children born from egg or sperm donation a chance to see themselves reflected in a positive informative and accessible story. Most importantly this book will help families who have used reproductive technology to explain complex concepts to their children while giving them vital information about themselves and how they came to be. Here’s a book that is relatable and will allow children to feel proud of their special story."
—Susan Frankel, MFT, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and mother to a donor-conceived daughter
"A lovely book for children who were conceived with donor sperm or egg. Parents in all kinds of families will find it very helpful in explaining their child’s conception story in a gentle simple and positive way."
—Jane Mattes, L.C.S.W., psychotherapist and Founder/Director of Single Mothers by Choice
"Having worked with Wendy Kramer for many years I know her organization Donor Sibling Registry (DSR) is valuable to the LGBTQ parenting community. We’ve published family stories that talk about how DSR has brought joy to not just the half siblings discovering each other but to their gay parents as well. Kramer’s children’s book Your Family: A Donor Kid’s Story is an important contribution to the LGBTQ community and a great addition to the homes of all parents with donor-conceived children."
—Angeline Acain, publisher and editor, Gay Parent Magazine
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Donor Family Matters: My Story of Raising a Profoundly Gifted Donor-Conceived Child, Redefining Family, and Building the Donor Sibling Registry
The story of Wendy Kramer and her donor-conceived child, Ryan, who eventually found his biological father and 19 half-siblings. Wendy and Ryan created the Donor Sibling Registry, the world’s largest platform for mutual-consent contact of sperm, egg, and embryo donors, donor-conceived children and adults, and their parents.
Educate the child. Raise him or her without biases of any kind. Teach him or her to trust in others but to rely on self. Instill in him or her a sense of humor and the ability to enjoy life.”
Penned on a sperm bank intake form, these words of advice from Donor 1058 to the future recipients of his donations became a parental motto for one particular recipient, Wendy Kramer, who would go on to found the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR). With almost 75,000 members in 105 countries, the DSR is the world’s largest platform for sperm, egg, and embryo donors, donor-conceived children and adults, and their parents to connect and share information through mutual-consent contact. In her role with the DSR, Wendy has become a leading advocate for donor families and for reformation of the modern profit-driven donor conception industry.
This is the story of Wendy’s journey as the mother of a donor-conceived profoundly gifted child, Ryan, whose relentless curiosity — under the tenacious guidance and support of his mother — eventually led to his reunion against all odds not only with his biological father, Donor 1058, but also with 19 of his donor-conceived half-siblings scattered across the continent. Their experience — like the experience of so many of the Donor Sibling Registry’s members — illustrates how this brave new world of donor conception is stretching our understanding of the evolving nature and possibilities of “family.” This memoir, written with warmth and humor by Wendy herself, reminds us with story after story that there are few things more fundamental than the human need to know where we come from, nor more beautiful than the triumph of truth over shame.
"Wendy Kramer’s memoir — like Wendy Kramer herself — is invaluable, lucid, engaging, and full of wisdom. This book is a gift." —Dani Shapiro, donor-conceived offspring and author of Inheritance
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Finding Our Families: A First of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and their Families
Millions of people have been born with the help of donor sperm or eggs, including Wendy Kramer’s son. Realizing the unique concerns of being or parenting a donor-conceived child, Kramer launched what would become the world’s largest database for connecting donor-conceived people, the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR).
Finding Our Families provides additional support for this growing community. With compassion and insight, the authors draw on extensive research to address situations families face throughout a donor-conceived child’s development, including the search for a biological parent or half-sibling and how to forge a healthy self-image.
"Finding Our Families is a treasure trove of compassionate advice designed to help those raising the more than an estimated million people who were conceived using so-called donor* sperm, the tens of thousands whose lives began with eggs of contributors, and thousands who were "adopted" frozen embryos, as well as the donors.
The 258-page book compiled by Wendy Kramer, the mother of a donor-conceived son, and Naomi Cahn, family and reproductive law professor, helps blood-related kin navigate relationships unthought-of generations ago. The book offers how-to search assistance and suggests ways for the legal, social, and nurturing family to open their hearts and minds to those who contributed eggs, sperm, or embryos in addition to welcoming siblings who share the same or half genealogy." —March 2015 Huffington Post book review by Mirah Riben
"The book successfully honors its promise to deliver the tools necessary to help donor-conceived children discover and explore their genetic legacies.” —October 2013 Publishers Weekly review
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LGBTQ FAMILIES
The DSR welcomes and supports all those in the LGBTQ community as you make up around a third of all DSR families and are represented in the DSR's Board of Directors.
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Donor Sibling Registry www.donorsiblingregistry.com
wendy@donorsiblingregistry.com
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