Search Results

This chapter describes how parents use the number assigned to the donor to begin locating others who purchased vials from the same donor. It explains the steps parents make to form connections with others: signing up on a registry at a bank or an independent registry; providing information allowing someone else to make contact; reaching out to someone who has left identifying information; creating or joining an existing Facebook group; participating actively by making posts or commenting on the posts of others; engaging in private communications with network members (e.g., by text or phone); and meeting others in person once or more. The chapter discusses the motivations parents have for making this contact and the strategies they develop to cope with the experience of being pioneers in a land populated by genetic strangers. It also discusses serendipitous encounters among parents who have relied on the same donor.

This chapter introduces the concept of networks of strangers linked by reliance on the same sperm donor. It draws on participants’ use of the language of genes and the language of choice to explain how these networks develop. Because the relationships within these networks are unprecedented, the members have to decide for themselves naming conventions and social norms. The introduction suggests the importance of these relationships at a time when family size is shrinking. It includes a discussion of research methods, describing how the authors located respondents and the characteristics of respondents (212 parents and 154 donor-conceived children). It also explains how the authors chose to feature particular networks that reflected different eras, different age groups of children, and different internal dynamics.

This chapter describes how children respond to learning that they have donor siblings. Children who learn about donor siblings when they are in middle school are more likely to be surprised than those who learn about them as younger children. The chapter also describes how they react to meeting them. One consequence of meeting donor siblings is that children come to believe that traits they share with others might have their origins in the genetic material inherited from an unknown donor. The chapter discusses differences between boys and girls in learning about donor siblings and how children differentiate between their understanding of the meaning of donor siblings and their understanding of the significance of siblings who live with them.