Sperm Sisters's Podcast

Ep 3 Let's Bust Some Myths

• Sperm Sisters • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode, Nat puts the big questions on the table while Gemma and Helen do their best to separate fact from fiction - with a few surprises along the way. 

What starts as myth-busting quickly turns into something more, as we share our own donor discovery story and the moments that changed everything.

And just when you think you’ve got your head around it… we dig into the murkier side of sperm donation happening right now - yes, today.

Expect honesty, a bit of chaos, and the truths people don’t always talk about.

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Get in touch and share your story with us, we're looking to interview people on upcoming episodes! 

Email us at: spermsisterspod@gmail.com

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SPEAKER_00

Doobita ba ba ba do-da ba ba ba dooba ba ba sperm sisters

Intro

SPEAKER_00

This is a story about sisters. Just not the kind that you're expecting. Three years ago we were strangers, living separate lives.

SPEAKER_02

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

SPEAKER_03

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

SPEAKER_02

Uncovering secrets the medical world would rather keep buried. How many donor-conceived people are there really?

SPEAKER_00

No one can give a straight answer. Not the clinics, not the system, no one.

SPEAKER_01

So, how many siblings could be walking past us every day without a clue?

SPEAKER_02

It's messy, it's shocking. At times it's almost impossible to believe. And somehow, it's also really funny.

SPEAKER_03

Come with us as we dig deeper, ask the uncomfortable questions, and laugh our way through the chaos of discovering who we really

Coming Up

SPEAKER_03

are. And just how many of us there might be.

SPEAKER_02

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

SPEAKER_03

Today we are gonna be debunking the myths around donut conception. Are we excited? Yeah. Can I get a fun, fan, fan? It's gonna be fun, fun, fun! Here we go.

SPEAKER_01

Ellen and Gemma share their discovery story. Oh, I was hi as a kite, like so off my tits. Which I think is a blessing to be honest, because I wasn't sure whether it was

Quick Recap

SPEAKER_01

actually happening or not. We expose a darker side of sperm donation happening today.

SPEAKER_00

Kind of a black market of Facebook sperm, where then you are gonna get someone who is doing it with a bit of a God complex. Hello everybody, and welcome back to our sperm sisters podcast. My name's Helen. I'm the youngest out of these three donor-conceived sisters.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, and I am Natasha, and I'm the oldest with just two weeks apart from our middle sister, Gemma.

SPEAKER_01

And that would be little old me. My name's Gemma, and I am the middle one. I like being a middle child. I've only been a middle child for a couple of years when I met you for the first time now, but this is an absolute dream, I must say. Last episode, we looked at the concept of identity, why there's a yearning to feel like you need to know where you're from, and perhaps all the little weird things that form your identity, you know, whether it's mannerisms or just kind of stories from your past or little bread crumbs that have been trickled throughout your life to date. We touched on how we found out through trauma that we're donor-conceived. That's how we found out in our adulthood lives. And bombshell, Helen and I are full sisters because we share the same donor, which is a beautiful turning point in the ethics of being donor conceived. We like to mark it as that. So hopefully you're all caught up. If you haven't listened to it, give it a listen on Spotify and YouTube. And I'm gonna hand you over to my big sister now.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so

Myths Begin

SPEAKER_03

are you ready, girls? I'm so ready. Right. I'm gonna do it like myth by myth. So I'm gonna be like myth one. Da-da-da. Okay. All right. Myth one. God strip. Donor conception is rare. So lots and lots of people still think that this is some sort of like weird fringe type of thing, donor conception. But it is much, much more common than a lot of people realise. I'm gonna throw you a fact. There is a study that's been published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynacology by the fantastic researchers at King's. And this study is the first systematic review of studies investigating the psychological experiences of donor-conceived people through both childhood and adulthood, and is the largest body of evidence for this group of people. Okay. So you're ready for this? More than actually, no, you guys tell me, how many donor-conceived people do you think have been born in the UK since 1991 when records began?

SPEAKER_00

How many? Yeah. Well, if I'm going full math head, yeah. Per donor is limited to 10 families. They each probably will have two children. That's 20 children per donor in the UK. How many donors do you have?

SPEAKER_03

Sweating a course.

SPEAKER_01

I think there would be 8,000. No. Way more. 18,000. 18,000. 18,000. 1991.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah. You reckon 18,000, Jen? Oh yeah. 50K. 50k? 70,000. Since 1991. Yeah, well, since 1991 when records first began. Quick interruption. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That stat only goes through people who have done it in the regulated sense. So have gone through the regulated medical channels of donor conception, as in going to proper sperm banks and clinics and everything. Correct. Obviously, the very murky world of sperm donor concepts. Underground sperm donors. And the black market of Facebook sperm. Because some people can do that. What? Yeah, you can like buy sperm off Facebook, I believe. Sorry, that's. Have you been looking? I wrote

Facebook Sperm

SPEAKER_00

for my own. Yes, I watched a documentary on it on charity. Like some guy that drives to people's houses and sits in a little van, does his donation and gives it to the people. And that's completely unregulated. So yes, 70,000 regulated.

SPEAKER_03

Well, look, with that stat in mind and with the the the dark underworld of Facebook sperm donations going on, um, have well, did either of you ever meet a donor-conceived person before you ever found out that you were donor-conceived?

SPEAKER_01

No, no. I didn't even know what it was. Yeah. Until recording the first episode, I only really learnt what it was.

SPEAKER_03

So you might like to report myself. Still got Google open.

SPEAKER_01

She's like No, I hadn't. I hadn't. I've obviously I mean, I met people who were adopted and had gone through all of that, but no one who was donor conceived. But I think maybe growing up that's because they probably didn't even know themselves. Yeah. Like I didn't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well that that leads on quite nicely, actually, to myth number two. Okay. Which is the donor will be registered as your legal parent. So some people think that if you are, well, if your DNA came from someone, then they're basically going to be your dad. Um, but that is really not how it works. In fact, in the UK, donors are not legal parents, as the three of us know very, very well. They have absolutely no rights or responsibilities like custody or financial support. And that is defined in the donor regulation by the HFEA, which stands for the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority. You said the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority. I said authoritarian. Yeah. Which is the world we're living in.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um, but I was thinking about this as I was like writing down these myths and trying to find good ones to sort of like go through in this episode. And I wrote a little note to say, like, how do you refer to our donor? Because when we Daddy. Daddy. We don't refer to him like that. Um, because like I think sometimes it's quite when I'm talking about my dad, some people go, which one? Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or they go, and I go, sperm dad. Or the sperm dad. Yeah. But it's just funny with the wording, right? Because it's like, well, sperm donor, really. Lest he's he's not my dad. He didn't bring me up.

SPEAKER_00

But you could say biological father.

SPEAKER_03

Well, that would be a good way of doing it, yes.

SPEAKER_01

I never think of it in that moment though. I always just go, donor dad. I say donor dad.

What do you call the donor?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I say sperm dad.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I think the uh language that donor-conceived people formally use is like your social dad is who brought you up, so the one that's not non-biologically related to you, and then your donor is actually your dad. Well it was actually your dad. But obviously, dad has different connotations of what that word means. Well, what is that? What does dad mean to you? Helen? What does dad mean to me? Wow. It's a very conf for me, that's like what uh glasses are falling off. She's got tips. What does it mean to me? Don't know, don't know. Someone who would be in the like cultural home sense supposed to be like a protector um or a provider, which is very much not what a donor's job is to do, or what they would ever sign up for.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly. Generally.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I think um like a unity, like a a bond, just you know, I think I think just like the safety net of just love and support. That's what a dad to me, that's what a dad is. Yeah. But obviously, as you say, that is absolutely not what a donor does. They need to pay for their um meal deal.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, myth number three is I can't say it's about love. Donor conceive people struggle emotionally. Some people assume that we all have deep identity crises, but the research actually says something else, which I think is what I've mentioned in an earlier episode. One of the largest reviews ever done, now, this was 50 studies with over over 4,500 participants, all donor-conceived, found that donor-conceived adults and children have equal or even better well-being and relationship warmth, which is quite lovely, um, than people conceive traditionally.

SPEAKER_01

Really? Oh my god. I always knew I was great.

SPEAKER_03

Uh that's what I've got, by the way, I've got all of the links to this research, and I'm not pulling it out my arse. Like, I've got all of the links to this.

SPEAKER_00

Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01

Maybe because we've gone full circle. Maybe because we've gone through pretty harrowing stuff like finding out potentially a bit of like a world, like, what am I or or it's just made you contemplate what makes you happy.

SPEAKER_03

But also I wonder when this research was done, because when we were all donor conceived, as we have learnt from previous episodes, the general advice was don't tell your children. But I wonder if you know individuals' well-being is actually better if they're told earlier on in life. I wonder if that's

To Know or Not to Know

SPEAKER_03

post-91. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it's like a recent because that's a lot of people to interview.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I would say, do you think at all processes of this donor conceived uh world have you been emotionally stable throughout the whole process? Negative, hard?

SPEAKER_01

No. Absolutely not. Yeah, right. Yeah. To the point that I think it's interesting, we've all developed the same coping strategy. If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Yes. I'm fine with it. I'll have a great time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'm fine, but yeah, maybe that's right then. Yeah, quite possibly. I quite like the bit where it said relationship warmth. I definitely got that. Yeah. Okay, so my question to you both is when you first learned that you were donor conceived, did you feel like it shifted your identity in any way, or was it just more of a curiosity?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think when we found out, there needs to be a little caveat there. Gemma and I both found out at exactly the same time, as I think we've briefly touched on before, in a moment of trauma for multiple reasons. We were in a garden centre. Traumatic place to be. Tucking into a quiche, haven't been able to eat quiche since. But Gemma, you've just had a wisdom tooth operation.

SPEAKER_01

I had this impacted wisdom tooth, and they had to get it out. So I was hi as a kite, like so off my tits, which I think is a blessing. To be honest, because I wasn't sure whether it was actually happening or not. So when we found out, I was like, wow, the colours in this room are amazing.

SPEAKER_03

Look at all the flowers.

High as a Kite

SPEAKER_01

Look at all the flowers. Um, but I do remember like a weird feeling of sort of like the ground opening up, or you know, in films where there's like the double lens thing where the person's getting closer to you, but also the background zooming away, you know, like one of those out-of-body things. That's how I felt when I when I heard, and I think I just kind of just sat there.

SPEAKER_00

You laughed, I remember. Yeah, but that is my go-to to anything serious or uncomfortable. I will just laugh. Funerals, anything terrible. Yeah. But just because I don't want to deal with any emotion at all. So I was so perfectly healthy. But um, it was just one of those things when you say, Did it what was your question?

SPEAKER_03

Did it change Did did it feel like it shifted your identity or or was it more for you just like curiosity to be like, I wonder who he is?

SPEAKER_00

I think it hugely shifted the identity because it was so left field, didn't have any sort of time to comprehend it whatsoever. It felt like the rug was just completely pulled from underneath our feet. So it felt like a necessary, quick urge to find out what what on earth is going on.

SPEAKER_01

It was definitely like what I think it just felt like the deceit. Like, why did you lie to us for so long? Like, why? What was what were you achieving, really? And then so if this isn't true, what else isn't true? And I remember when we said to mum, like, okay, like you say you're a mum, but are you? You know, do you remember? Like, we asked Mum to do a

Mandy Did a DNA Test

SPEAKER_01

DNA test to be like, prove it. I do remember that, and then I remember just like to me. It wasn't like in like a mean way, but Prove it! Prove it, bitch! Yeah, but we just kind of thought, well, accidents happen. Do we trust these people in the clinics to have put the right egg in the right pot?

SPEAKER_00

But that's also the right whisk, you know. But is that also not where we were really confused at the beginning, which we kind of touched on on the history side of things, that I don't think we were mixed in a dish at all. It was just that the sperm is then artificially inseminated.

SPEAKER_01

I know that that's what mum was telling us, but I still didn't believe it. I don't think I'm over it, actually, clearly. Um next question.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so we've sort of we've gone a little bit around that question, I think. So I'm gonna I'm gonna present with a new myth. Everyone wants to find their donor. That is a really big myth that every donor conceived person really must want to find their donor. But wanting information and wanting a relationship with your donor are two very, very different things. So slamming you with a big fact here. In the UK, donor anonymity was removed for donations after April 2005, meaning people born from those donations can in fact now request identifying information from the age of 18, though. So they can ask for the name of their donor as well as the date of birth if they want. But not everyone is going to do that. Even those who request that information aren't always guaranteed contact or a relationship. So when you both discovered that you were donor-conceived when you were in the garden centre and you were high as a kite, did you have an immediate want to try to find him? And if yes, why? What for?

SPEAKER_01

I don't think it was immediate. I wanted to know after a week or two of finding out when the dust had settled. Um I definitely it was like I definitely couldn't think of anything else,

Did We Want to Find Him?

SPEAKER_01

but I think once the anger and the rage had simmered down and there was a bit more clarity, then that's when I wanted to find out because I was just fascinated. Fascinated about what though? And I like there's this bloke walking around, and he has no idea that he's got that he's got a daughter. At that point, we didn't know that we had the same sperm donor, but then it was also kind of like I think the weird thing for me is I found it really hard thinking, well, then we're not full sisters, and I really struggled with that because I didn't know any different. Because there's only 16 months between us, we've never known life without each other. Not that it matters whether you're a full sister or a half sister, like I doesn't matter to me in the slightest. It was just like the connection had been fractured a little bit, like it had been taken away from us, and I just remember thinking, like, well, we've got to get answers because where the hell are you from? Where the hell am I from? What is going on here? And I think it would be fascinating to find out where we're from because it might answer some things like, you know, why do you sleep with your eyes open? I do do that.

SPEAKER_00

I I wanted to know pretty much immediately, I'd say, because in my head I was thinking, stats-wise, have I walked past him before? I mean, one of the stats in life, right? You walk past three murderers in your lifetime without knowing it. So is that an actual stat? Yeah, that's a true well, I mean, don't quote me right, but I've definitely read that. You walk past three murderers

You Walk Past 3 Murderers

SPEAKER_00

in your lifetime without knowing it. So if that if that's a stat potentially walked past him and not known it, that's really strange to me. And then I had a moment where I was thinking, you know, anytime I was walking anywhere, is that him? Does he look a bit like me? I would look in the mirror and try and I would try and recognise like facial features. And then even, sorry, even looking at actors on TV. I would then be like In your dream. Does he know Robbie Williams? Daddy? Daddy? Like anybody. I would be like, Does he resemble me a little bit or no? Because that is really, really wild.

SPEAKER_03

Sorry to interject, but I remember um and this just yeah, I I I still find it like really mad that this even was a thing, but I remember the day that I was told by my dad who brought me up, I remember looking at his hands. Like he was sat on the sofa next to me, and I remember looking at his hands and thinking, I don't really like have any like what do I have from you? Wow. And then it just so happened that I think it was on the same day or the day after that he he actually told me. But I but but isn't that like weird? That it was just like at that period of time that I was like, what if I like our hands like I don't have any you know similarities, similarities, yeah. I don't know. That was always a bit of a strange one for me. Oh, we have touched upon this in earlier episodes, and telling children later is the best approach,

What About the Kiiiids

SPEAKER_03

that's the myth. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, don't get it twisted. Um, and that is a myth that keeping it sort of a secret really protects donor-conceived children. But research actually shows that really, really early openness about this tends to help, obviously. Um, so according to a new major review published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynacology, says that studies showed donor conceived people were told early in life about their conception tend to have better psychological outcomes than those. Who learnt later? Looking back though on kind of when you were told, how how do you think the timing of when you were told shaped your experience of discovering that your donut conceived?

SPEAKER_00

Really difficult one to answer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and um again, because it happened in trauma, so that wasn't good, but but if we are looking at finding out later on in life versus younger, I wish, obviously, I wish I knew when I was younger, before my teens, I think. Because had I, although arguably, I think I would have had an easier time in my teens, because I wouldn't have questioned so much. Why am I so into art? Why am I dyslexic? And no one else in my family is, I wouldn't have struggled mentally so much with that had I thought that there was a possibility that someone out there would have been a genetic reason for it, because I'd be like, oh, that makes sense, probably because it's from there, and I probably would have gone about my day fine. So I wish I knew. Um it's tricky finding out in your 30s because I feel like the longer you leave it, the more deceit there is.

SPEAKER_03

You keep saying about the word deceit. You do you

Deceit

SPEAKER_03

you bring it up a lot. And it's really yeah, and it's really, really interesting because like I see it more the more and more we dig into this, and the more we each individually do research, like that word is comes up a lot for you when you talk about it. And yeah, I wonder like if we can throw that. Yeah, yeah, you know it's interesting to just hear how different people feel because I think that I don't feel like that. Like I'm actually I'm not angry, I don't hold like I don't feel like it was deceit. I think that actually, like, let's just talk about our mums here. Yeah, okay. Like, I think that they were doing everything that they were being told to do in order to protect us, and I think like I I just think of it like that. My mum would have done anything for me, and she she only didn't tell me because she wanted to protect me, because that's what she was told was the right thing to do, and I think like as I kind of reflect on it, and you know, like life is difficult, you know. Some some shit has happened for all three of us in like our own separate ways, but I'm like, I'm not angry, even like at my father that brought me up, I'm not angry with him. Like, I actually think you know, what a brave for mum, what a fucking bro our mum's what a fucking brave thing to have done, like in that especially in like the early 80s, like this was this wasn't a common thing, and the worst thing about it is that they wouldn't have even told some of their closest friends or some of their closest family members because literally they were told to not tell anybody. So, if anything, I feel really sad for her, like I wish that I'd had the opportunity. The only reason why I feel angry or sad about it is actually like I wish that I had had the opportunity to say to her, like, Mum, like what a fucking amazing thing you did. Like, I'm so proud of you, and I hope that you know like that like this was the best thing that you could have ever done for me, like you know, I'm so I'm still here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, do you know what I mean? And we and we are really lucky with how it's panned out for us. We are the three of us, yeah, yeah. Like we're lucky with the outcome of everything, but I think maybe if

Rare Outcome

SPEAKER_00

we were coming from a different angle of we tried to make contact with somebody and it'd been a a no or a door slammed in your face, maybe we would then start to feel angry.

SPEAKER_03

But I think only if you were seeking out a relationship, like you were seeking out further relationships, because I what I wasn't like I've said this before, but like I wasn't in it for finding sisters and like new best friends, like that's not what I was in it for, but oh my god, like how bloody lucky am I that it turned out that way?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I also don't feel angry about it really, but I uh instead now for me it just puts a lot of puzzle pieces together for me where I'm like, oh, that does make sense. So I think because I do feel like I've kind of always had an inkling that something wasn't quite right. I didn't know that it was that, but I definitely have always thought something wasn't quite right. So at least it kind of closed that chapter where I was like, that's what wasn't right. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01

That makes sense. I think um, I think with the whole angry thing, I'm not angry at I'm not angry at our parents for doing it. I get why, and and and you're told by medical professionals. I mean, they went to the top place in the world, apparently. I mean, I don't know if that's on the sign out side. It was one of the top places to go. I'm just angry

I'm Just Angry

SPEAKER_01

that someone had the audacity to play God and make money from it. Right. The bit that makes me angry is who decided who had the right to tell us that we were entitled to know where we're from, that we weren't entitled. Who was how dare they? That's where I'm angry. I'm angry at the system shock, and um I'm pissed off that people thought they could get away with it. That's just not fair. It's not fair, and it's not fair that we got to live, you know, we get to live our lives and be like, maybe I tried a brother, or you know, that kind of thing, or like I shouldn't have to go through my husband's ancestry results to double check that I'm not related to him.

SPEAKER_00

Well bad, well bad, well bad, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but these people are all fucking about in the glamorous retirement homes now, if they're still going, and they're living their best lives. Well, they took lots of people's money and left the debris behind. And I'm angry that also people are still trying to be hushed now. Like there are people who have tried to not anymore. Well, yeah. There are people who have tried to do clinics, everything, and because there's so much money behind these fertility clinics, they're like, we we could never do that. Oh, you we didn't, you know, there's so much cover-up that's going on behind.

SPEAKER_03

Sperm donorship doesn't happen in the NHS, does it not? I don't know, that's a question.

SPEAKER_00

So it says, yes, you can get a sperm donor through the NHS, but it's not universally guaranteed and depends heavily on your medical circumstances and your local

NHS Sperm

SPEAKER_00

care board. So the eligibility and criteria would be a medical need. So typically, if you're a heterosexual couple where the male partner's infertile, then you can qualify. If you're then a same-sex couple or a single woman, some NHS trusts indicate that they support same-sex couples and single women with donor sperm, but others suggest that it may not be fully funded. Um, but waiting times and availability, obviously, there is now a shortage of donors in the UK which will affect availability, probably because it's not anonymous anymore. Yeah. So that has like cut down, and that's another ethical thing that we kind of need to delve into later on in another episode. That it's like because all these laws and regulations have now come into place, that's complete it's all I'm not by the way, not saying it was better in the 70s or 80s at all, but because these laws and regulations have come into place, that's now made the pot or the banks much lower on sperm. So then if you're seeing a rise in actually super unsafe, unregulated things like kind of a black market of Facebook sperm, where then you are gonna get someone who is doing it with a bit of a god complex. Right. Oh my god. Whereas it's not, whereas before it was just for cash. Oh god, for cash. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so look, here's the bottom

Conclude

SPEAKER_03

line. According to science and lived experience, donors aren't parents in the legal or social sense. Wanting information and wanting a relationship with your donor, two very, very different things. We'll get into that in later episodes. Early openness that you are donor conceived generally definitely helps with one's well-being later on in life. And this whole subject, donor conception, is way more common than people actually think. So, on that note, send us your thoughts, your myth, your stories, because we are literally just getting started. We are real, unfiltered, and definitely not a myth. God I got chills that very good. Did you write that? Chat GPT. God bless.