Monday, April 13, 2015

Donor Sibling Registry

The Donor Sibling Registry was originally created by Wendy Kramer in 2000 to be the go-to resources for donor offspring to establish mutually-desired contact with their biological half-siblings and/or donors. The premise of the website is that clinics will release non-identifying information (such as donor numbers) to offspring which would be shared with other donor offspring and those who matched are related (e.g. both offspring were conceived using egg donor 1628 share a biological mother and are biological siblings). Ideally, the clinics would be responsible enough to confidently release donor numbers to offspring.

As it stands, many clinics in the fertility industry are sloppy with donations (they may inseminate using donations from different donors on consecutive days, creating a situation in which it is impossible to determine from notes which donation resulted in a viable pregnancy), or refuse to release the numbers to offspring entirely. The clinic my parents used to conceive me used to release donor numbers, but have since sealed all information and no longer release numbers to offspring.

Advantages:


  • Can purchase yearly or lifetime membership (I purchased yearly first and when it expired, I purchased a lifetime membership)
  • Users may be able to determine matches without paying for a DNA test
  • Users can contact Wendy Kramer directly for help
  • Website administrators respond quickly to questions
  • Pictures and full profiles are private
Disadvantages: 
  • Cost, $75 yearly or $175 for a lifetime membership (I recommend the lifetime membership)
  • If donors donated at more than one clinic and had different numbers, the offspring from the second clinic cannot determine who came from the first
  • Anyone can pose as a donor or donor offspring, use discretion
  • Some parts of the website are public
  • If the clinics do not release donor numbers, it is impossible to use




My story: I used the Donor Sibling Registry last. After joining all of the genetic registries and databases I could find, I posted here as a last-ditch effort explaining my situation and that the clinic was not releasing any information about my donor to me. My biological half-sister had only used the Donor Sibling Registry and was not yet on any genetic registries. She saw my post and joined one of the genetic registries I had listed and that was when we made a match. It would be worth it if the clinic is not releasing information to you to post here once you have joined a genetic registry, it certainly was worth it to me!

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