Sperm Sisters's Podcast

Ep2 Your Guess Is As Good As Ours

• Sperm Sisters • Season 1 • Episode 2

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What does it actually mean to belong?

In this episode, we dive into the very human need to be part of something - a family, a team, a clan. Because at our core, we’re wired for connection, for safety, for knowing where we come from… even when the answers aren’t what we expected.

We talk about identity, DNA, and the stories we told ourselves about where we were from - and how wildly wrong we turned out to be.

From imagined roots to surprising truths, this one is a mix of curiosity, chaos, and the ongoing question of who even are we?

🧬 Expect laughs, a few identity crises, and the reality of being donor conceived.



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Intro

SPEAKER_03

Doobida ba ba ba doobida doobita spon sisters This is a story about sisters.

SPEAKER_02

Just not the kind that you're expecting.

SPEAKER_00

Three years ago we were strangers, living separate lives.

SPEAKER_01

Now we know we're biological sisters, connected by the same sperm donor. And that's just the beginning.

SPEAKER_00

This podcast dives headfirst into the how, the why, and the uncomfortable questions no one seems to want to answer.

SPEAKER_01

Uncovering secrets the medical world would rather keep buried.

SPEAKER_02

How many donor-conceived people are there really? No one can give a straight answer. Not the clinics, not the system, no one. So, how many siblings could be walking past us every day without a clue?

SPEAKER_01

It's messy, it's shocking. At times it's almost impossible to believe.

SPEAKER_02

And somehow, it's also really funny.

SPEAKER_00

Come with us as we dig deeper, ask the uncomfortable questions, and laugh our way through the chaos of discovering who we really are. And just how many of us there might be.

SPEAKER_01

Coming up on this week's episode of Sperm Sisters.

SPEAKER_02

Helen shares her teenage identity complex. I don't want to offend anybody, but Swedish would have been better. I think I just basically heavily bleached my hair at that time as well, which gave me a sort of like identity dysmorphia.

SPEAKER_01

And we chat about our donors' DNA. The difference is huge for me. I grew up thinking that I was, you know, half Welsh, a little bit of Irish in there on my dad's side and English on my mum's side, and the results came back, and I was biologically the donor is Welsh with a little bit of Irish. So Welcome back

Who Are We

SPEAKER_01

everybody to the next episode of Sperm Sisters. Last week we introduced ourselves, but we thought this time it might be better or just have a bit of fun with it to introduce each other. So I'm Gemma and I'm going to be introducing my sister to the right of me. Nat. Okay. I have the honour of introducing Nat. She is absolutely gorgeous. She's getting married this year, by the way. We've got the Hendoo in a couple of weeks, and we're absolutely buzzing about it. She is one of the funniest, kindest people you will ever meet, and you would really want her on your team. She has a background of professional dance and ballet, and she oversees the healthcare plans for professional ballerinas today. She is a bright cookie. She is a wonderful person. And it's a it's an honour to call her, my supposed. Thank you. Helen's panicking.

SPEAKER_02

Mine's just quite short, but short and sweet, nonetheless. Okay. I'm introducing Gemma. Gemma is the most incredibly talented artist in all of Surrey with a flair for all things colour and florals. Mum to two hilarious toddlers and one giant fluffy golden retriever Albus. A fun fact about Gemma is that she spent years of her childhood wearing a bow in her hair as she actually thought she was Matilda.

SPEAKER_00

You don't know that I stopped. And that isn't it's me now. And I'm Natasha, and I'm introducing Helen. Now, Helen is a piano teacher, a very talented singer, partner to Jack, and mum to Oscar, dog mama to Bella, and I'm wavering in her devotion to fantasy by Britney Spears and blessed with an uncanny ability to inject hilarity and lightness into absolutely any situation.

SPEAKER_02

It's a Helen Hicks, everyone! Woo! Lovely. I have nothing wrong said about the fantasy perfume from Britney Spears. So I've got to say, no one wears it anymore. Get it for like 15 quid from Superdog. Earlier, Helen went, it doesn't go off. It doesn't. I think it's so chemically based and it will never go off. I can't actually remember the last time I bought fresh on. It's still going strong. Delicious. On last week's episode, we took a deep dive into the UK's history around donor conception. We covered all things laws, regulations, and even just some crazy facts that we may not have known before. In terms of our story, it just showed that myself, Natasha, and Gemma were all created at a time which we now like to call the wild west of the donor conception years. If you want to go and check that out, give us a follow and you can listen to last week's episode. Now, on with the

Roots, Identity & DNA

SPEAKER_02

pod.

SPEAKER_01

Today's episode is going to be about roots, identity, and DNA. You're right there, darling.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry, I've got a cat here in my tee. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01

Carry on wanting to join in. So on today's episode, we are going to be uh focusing on roots, identity, and DNA and why it is an issue for everybody. Not just the likes of Aslot, who are donor-conceived. It prompted the idea, it was a spark, and now it's grown. But basically, we think that this is an issue for every single person walking this earth. Whether you're donor-conceived, adopted, or fortunate enough to know your biological parents, knowing where you are from based on your DNA should be one of the core foundations of what builds you as a person. Like building blocks, our roots and identity are the foundation of everything we are and why we are the way we are. Humans have a yearning to know where they are from. We're really primal creatures. We have this herd mentality, we have this need to be part of a clan or a family, a sense of belonging. And it's going back to the primal thing, I think it's probably because we feel stronger as a group and we're not going to be picked off by predators or you know, we're not going to be the weakest ones or anything like that. But we don't survive alone. Like we we need to be with people. And I think when you are growing up, elements of your childhood and everything shape you as who you are, whether that's culturally or family traditions. Lots of things happen in your life that form you and build you up. But personally, I grew up thinking I was from a typical 2.4 English family, you know, a little bit Welsh, but very proud to be Welsh. Learned the Welsh national anthem, went to rugby matches, die hard whales, had the rugby shirts, everything. And yeah, and I and I was like, okay, cool. That's who I am as a person. I mean, it's not that exciting, I guess, because you know, we moved down the M4 to where I grew up, but it those types of things do form you. And you know, when you're driving back to Wales and you're seeing the Rolling Hills and the sheep, and you're like, ah, I'm coming back back to the fatherland. That's the paternal side that I grew up knowing. And there was always something quite um, I don't know why it felt like there was like a pride when it was St. David's Day or anything like that, but there was, and something in me really hammed it up as well. But I think it was also pushed on to me. I was taught how to do family DNA and do the ancestry stuff when I was in my teens. Like it was like, this is where you're from. This is these are your grandparents, great grandparents. Here's a picture of your great grandparents. There it is. And then it was different with my mum's side because she was much calmer about it, but all incredibly musical and creative. And I thought, well, that's where I get my creativity from as an artist. But I was a bit like, is that enough creativity? Is that enough

DC Discovery Day

SPEAKER_01

creativity to make you an artist? Because I, yeah, I eat, sleep, and breathe it. I'm rambling now, but you know what I mean. Like that was before, before we should do what I think I think we should coin the term the day that we found out that we were donor conceived. DC Discovery Day, or something like that. The day you discovered that you were donor-conceived. Because it's a big day.

SPEAKER_02

It's it's huge. Your whole life changes on that one day, massively. I know that sounds really overly dramatic. It's not. It's actually not. Because you question your entire identity. Yeah. Which I guess is what you're Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because all of that spending the time, I'm not being funny, learning Welsh, you know, the Welsh national anthem, rugby's on, we need to go and watch this, go into the pub, gonna wear red, and everything like that. And then you're sort of like, well, I don't what am I gonna wear now when the when the match is on? That's a lie, isn't it? It's just a colour, it's just a rugby top, but it was such an important part of who I was, and then I felt like that was taken away from me when I found out it was so weird, but I mean, that is like I feel when I say that, I'm like, I can't wear the large rugby shirt anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Like it's a real first world problem, isn't it? Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01

Like, my life was a lie, fantastic! So I've had three decades on this planet, muggins, you know, you do feel like a bit of a I felt a bit of like a fraud. And completely lost. Like the other half of me was like, what are you, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00

But let me open it up to you guys. We know other people who are also donor conceived, right? Yes. And I think for some of the other people that we know, being donor-conceived

Not Everyone Cares

SPEAKER_00

is not a it it hasn't um it hasn't not impacted them. It's very much it hasn't impacted them in the same way as perhaps it impacted the three of us. Whereby being like, you know, we were quite invested in wanting to get to know each other quite quickly, we wanted to learn about the sperm donor, we wanted to try and discover who they were and you know what made up the other half of us. Whereas I think not everybody does feel that way. I don't think so. I don't think some people do feel lost. I don't think some people do feel like they've been cheated.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I would love to meet someone who doesn't feel cheated. I haven't met them yet. But they clearly are out there. Yeah. So if you are donor conceived and you're like, I'm cool with it, I don't care.

SPEAKER_02

I think a lot of the relevance is in how you find out. So if you've always grown up knowing you're donor-conceived, it probably doesn't bear a lot of relevance on your life because you've already known. But when you find out much later in life, invariably, probably from a source of trauma is when it tends to come out statistically. It's either through divorces, death, or I don't I can't think of any other trauma now, but trauma. Pretty big traumas.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

That's normally where it would rear its head. And I think it's also happening in conjunction of a time that's always going to be difficult in somebody's life anyway. So it sort of amalgamates itself with lots of different emotions. Yeah. So I think that's why it truly affects people because then they start to think if they found out later in life that actually their life was a lie. And also another way to think about it is if somebody said to you that they were adopted and they found out much later in life that they were adopted, you would of course think, Oh my god, how horrific to then find out how that much later in your life. That must be awful. There seems to be a level of understanding about adoption and I guess like a lack

Is It Similar to Adoption?

SPEAKER_02

of identity awareness of where you're from. But bec I don't know whether it's only because it's one half, but with donor-conceived uh revelations, probably not that much level of maybe empathy.

SPEAKER_00

I've never thought of it like that, to be to be honest, but but I think you've just really opened up a tin of worms here. Yeah, yeah, because I have never even considered like thinking that we might be in the same a similar boat. I think it's a super similar boat.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But admittedly, being adopted is both sets of parents, right? Yeah. Being donor conceived traditionally would be one set of parent that you then don't know. But you're still dealing with a loss of identity, a loss of knowing where you're from, even if it's just one half of you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god, I think she's the smarter sister. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know Arkansas was Arkansas. So I don't think we can say that. But I think you're right though. You're so right. Because we found out in trauma, you found out in trauma, and yeah, maybe the people that are cool with it are the ones who grew up in a home where they were where they spoke about it. But we were from the era where when we were conceived, the advice for our parents was don't tell them, raise them as your own. You don't know whether it's like the dad sperm or the or the donor sperm because we're not even gonna tell you. Are we all okay to say how we found out? Yes. In trauma?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Yes, yes, pairs with the t-shirt.

SPEAKER_01

Here we go.

Share the Trauma

SPEAKER_02

Here who's who's going first? Who would like to revisit their childhood trauma?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, okay, okay, I'll get over and done with. Um key. So when I was 21, I think, 21 or 22, and my mum had just passed away. And um my father, who brought me up, um yeah, told me the day before my mum's funeral that um he wasn't my father, and that was like his exact words. He was like, I I have something to tell you. Sat me down on the kitchen table, and he just said, Um, yeah, I'm not I'm not your father. Jesus. Why do you on next week's episode?

SPEAKER_02

Why do you think that he thought that was the right time? Because he clearly thought that was the correct time to broach it with you. Do you think that it's because it was related to such like a life-changing event for for him and you?

SPEAKER_00

I think it is really, really complex, and I don't think I will ever really understand or know the real answer, to be honest. Like, it's not like I haven't tried to work that out between now and then and now, but I I think I think honestly, it is trauma. I think that maybe he had wanted me to know for a while. Um, and I think that when my mum was alive, she wanted to protect me and do what she thought was the right thing because that's obviously what medical professionals had advised. Yeah. Like, don't don't tell them. Um mum would only have ever, you know, her only ever intentions were to protect me. Um, and yeah, like the day before your mum's funeral, like not the best timing. No, not the best timing, but also on reflection, maybe it was the right time. Because I parked it. I parked it for 12 years. Like I didn't do anything with that information until I felt like sane enough to to want to, or or feel not sane enough, well no, yeah, sane enough, but also um the need or want for connection again, or you know, the the want or need to feel whole. Oh my god, do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, or or like the the craving, the craving for yeah, like not not fan not not family, but like the craving to to feel I don't know a sense of belonging, yeah. To find a plan and to find like something to not replace the love of a mother, but to I don't know, just fix something that didn't feel whole. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You're such a loving person, like you just ooze love for people and you just take care of people, it's just who you are naturally, and I think you had so much love to give, and you're like, this needs to be put out there in the world because that's how it feels being sisters with you.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know, I thought I like it's really strange to talk about, like it's really weird, and I feel yeah. I and I don't know about you you girls, but I I feel like I only really talk about this as a situation if I'm like laughing my way through it, or like if I I don't know, like it's like we're all word vomiters, like aren't we? Like the three of us are just like the massive, like the biggest oversharers in on the planet, and it's like I feel like I just do it sometimes to I don't know, like fill a silence, or you know, but I'm like, I don't know, I find it really strange to just talk to talk about in I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_02

Like I'm happy to talk about it on a surface level where it's like an interesting story that you know sounds almost uh in a way, it actually sounds super fictional. Yeah. Like we went to Nat's wedding dress fitting this morning, and I was very happy to almost tell Jeanette about the story. But if someone asks me how do I actually feel about it, I feel quite hot and clammy, really opening up about it. Really strange. Yeah. But I'm happy to say it on a night out. Yeah. It's like a fun fact, yeah. But not to delve in too properly because it does feel a little bit Pandora's boxy.

SPEAKER_01

What was in that tea you gave her? Because you're so right, that is it, that's exactly it. I don't want to take up space, like telling people, but if we don't, then no one will understand what being donor-conceived is, and there are a hell of a lot of people that are. And I think we owe it to the next lot who are gonna be donor conceived. I mean, luckily for them, the laws changed and stuff, but it should, we shouldn't be, you can't hide me away, you know. Like we should be a taboo subject of how we came about. Yeah. How would you have liked to have found out?

SPEAKER_00

Oh I don't, but this is the wild thing. Like, I don't know. Like, I mean, if my mum was still alive and like she's sort of sat down with me and said the same thing. Yeah. But I probably would have felt the same way. When I did the that DNA test, it was not to I never in a million years thought that I would discover the two of you. Like, that wasn't why I did that test. Like I did it. You wish you had done it now. I did that DNA test because I literally, you know, grew up thinking that I was half Hungarian and like no, like a quarter Hungarian and a quarter Polish. And you know, have all these like actually to be honest, like quite I feel like quite deeply connected to both of those places, like through my childhood and spending time there, and you know, from like my father who brought me up, like hearing all of his childhood stories, etc. etc. And yeah, like I I just wanted to find out where I was from, where the other half of me was from, in all honesty.

SPEAKER_02

Like, I was like, Yeah, yeah, which I think is a normal thing when you're trying to seek some form of like confirmation on identity. Is this a good time for us to say when we took the tests, what did you expect to come back and what actually came back?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you go first, Jen.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so this is I mean, guys, it's really big. The difference is is huge for me. I grew up thinking that I was, you know, half Welsh with a little bit of Irish in there on English on my mum's side, and the results came back, and I was biologically the donor is Welsh

Same Same but Not

SPEAKER_01

with a little bit of Irish.

SPEAKER_00

But those eight weeks sponsored spam.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Also, in those eight weeks when you didn't know, when you're waiting for the results to come back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Were you nervous during that period of cycles? I I wasn't. I was. But then again, like maybe the two of you were seeking something other than just like knowing what what our thing is.

SPEAKER_02

I think ours is ever so slightly different because. Gemma and I Gemma and I did grow up together in the same household. Our mum and dad, we believed to be the same parents.

Drumroll...

SPEAKER_02

We also found out in a moment of trauma. Our parents were getting divorced, and that's how it got broached to us. And so for eight weeks we had a situation where we didn't know if we would be conceived from the same donor. Or actually if we were even donor conceived at all. Because obviously the information given to parents going through that in during the 80s or 90s was plausible deniability. Never say that you've used donor sperm. Um and the doctors would mix supposedly they actually didn't, but they would tell their clients that they would mix the father's sperm and the donor sperm together, so you would never know. What? Yeah, wild, right? But but obviously they never would have done that because it would have really ruined the quality of the sperm. Yeah. But that's what that's what mum was told.

SPEAKER_01

That's the BS that was spun. Helen and I, just to recap, found out we were donor-conceived at the same time. And then we lived a life well for eight whole weeks that felt like a very long time, thinking that we had different donors. Because the chances, the chances of being from the same donor were so unlikely. Helen got her results in before mine, which is so unfair because I we sent them off at the same time. But Helen got hers back early,

When Helen & Gemma Got Their Results

SPEAKER_01

and it said who, you know, like where you were from.

SPEAKER_02

But it was clear that it was no names that I originally would have thought would have been on there. So it was clear that I was a product of a donor or of a donation, even.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I got my results the week later a week later. Yeah. And I was like, we're getting all the same people popping up.

SPEAKER_02

Well, like CNA back. That we were sisters. That's the way.

SPEAKER_00

Helen, that was my next line. Sorry. But not the most obvious thing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh. It says here that you're my sister. Coolest thing is that we have got the same donor because I it marked a point in donor conceiving history at that funny time, that grey area where people were starting to think about it ethically.

Helen Started the Ethical Revolution

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So the doctor who we're not going to name on here, because for legal reasons, and it's not fair to probably, because we haven't asked him. Um so he whether he wrote it on a post-it note, put Helen in the in the freezer, you know, said they're gonna come back in a bit and they're gonna try and have another baby. Keep a bit. Have you asked your mum about this?

SPEAKER_02

She didn't know. She didn't know she had no idea that they had frozen some. And and they'd kept some aside. For her?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. They didn't know.

SPEAKER_00

Because no one spoke to each other. So then when your mum was like when when your mum was like, No, we'll I want to have another child with your dad. Yeah. Well they they were like, oh, we'll go back to the clinic.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And then the guy was like, I think it had already been discussed that they would want to try for a second one.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, so then they were like, okay, well, we'll just save a bit.

SPEAKER_02

But they never let them know that they put a bit to the side. And I mean, I think it that's probably a good time for us to say that that is fairly rare, but again, as Gemma said, it was on the grey area of where ethics was starting to creep in.

SPEAKER_01

Helen was born in 1991. February 1991. Correct. And uh the law changed later that year. In August, yes. So just missed the boat. Just missed the boat. Um, but it was, I think it's just lovely. I think it's lovely to know that with your immaculate conception, that you were really considered and you were planned and thought about. Whereas they popped the shops for us. And what is bad? What is bad? Hold on, what's what's our age gap? Oh my god, it's like what, like two weeks or something? Two weeks. It's the the age difference between me and that. Yeah. So arguably, same donor, same same hospital, same doctor. I was two weeks late. You could have had the same birthday.

SPEAKER_00

Whoa, imagine.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'm the 20th. I'm the ninth. Okay. So statistically, it's it's not gonna be just you. There'll be loads of other people. Who was in the waiting room that day? Because he went from right though.

SPEAKER_02

It would have been who was there because that they would do it with what donation would have been most fresh, surely.

"Imagine the Waiting Room"

SPEAKER_02

Good grief. Lord, yummy.

SPEAKER_01

So during that awkward, weird eight-week period where we were both waiting for our results to come in, and we thought that we had like different donors, and it was like this sort of bearing in mind it was peak lockdown, and we could only get together, because we didn't live together at the time. No. Um we went for dog walks, didn't we? Because that was all all we could do. And do you remember the conversations that we had, like the flights of fancy?

SPEAKER_02

Sorry, it's not flights of fancy for me. It's what I should have had on results, and I was robbed for it. What? I was convinced I was gonna be Swedish. Yeah, I see it. Right? Love ABBA. I used to come home from school and chow down on roll mop herrings. Where's that coming from? I loved

Jag älskar Sverige

SPEAKER_02

the stuff, couldn't get enough. So I thought that's got to be a culturally, not c identity driven for me. It must be. Imagine how I felt when instead I wished, but that's sort of not what graced my screen. And absolutely nothing wrong with being Welsh or Irish. I was just really excited to have something uh interesting, is what I wanted. Because it was the narrative that you knew, and you were giving it back. Exactly what I'd grown up thinking. I was like, oh, cool. So yeah, really upsetting. I should say that's I don't want to offend anybody, but Swedish would have been better. I think I just basically heavily bleached my hair at that time as well, which gave me a sort of like identity dysmorphia.

SPEAKER_00

What did

Nat's Guess

SPEAKER_00

that? What did you expect to see? I thought I was gonna be Greek. Why? Well, I've got, you know, I've got like a Jewish nose. That obviously came from my mother, I've got dark hair, it's quite curly. And then, you know, I was like, well, obviously, you know, they would have picked a donor, obviously at this time not knowing how other that they wouldn't have even fucking known who the donor was or anything about him. But like I was like, clearly they chose a Greek man. Look at me. And then obviously it came back and you know, what is it, Irish and Welsh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But great. Very happy, yeah, very happy with that.

SPEAKER_01

More more Irish than Helen and I were raised thinking. So we thought that the Irish originally before Discover Donor Conceived Discovery Day, um, which would become a national holiday after this episode goes out. Um the uh we were like a fraction Irish, but now we're more Irish, it's more 50-50 on that side, isn't it? Helen just say yes, because yes, yes, sorry, sorry to happen. Right, so to conclude, I think we can safely say that we have a stronger

To Conclude

SPEAKER_01

sense of identity and belonging since finding out that we're donor-conceived, that we each had a bit of a void period of uncertainty and weirdness, but we all had this weird feeling like we had to know, and we think it all came from maybe how we found out, but we would love to know if other people who were donor-conceived or maybe found out that there was something going on in their upbringing, and they didn't feel like anything was quite right, it's something felt off, or they didn't connect properly, maybe in their childhood. Who knows? Anyway, we would love to hear from you. Our email address is spermsisterspodcast at gmail.com. So please email us because we gotta stick together, right? Right. Thank you so much for listening. Um, follow along on YouTube, Spotify, and we'll catch you next time. Have a lovely week.

unknown

Woo!

SPEAKER_01

Is that right?