Ep 18 Sperm Down Under

What would you do if you discovered you had an estimated 700 half-siblings?
And what if it became your mission to warn them about your inherited genetic health risks?

In this week's episode of Sperm Sisters, we're joined by Australian donor-conceived advocate Katherine Dawson, also known in the music industry as Evie Lucas, whose story is almost impossible to believe.

After years of searching, Katherine discovered her sperm donor had used multiple aliases to donate at numerous fertility clinics and hospitals between 1983 and 1989, bypassing donor limits and creating an estimated 700 donor-conceived children.

As Katherine connected with more and more of her half-siblings, she uncovered inherited health conditions affecting several of them, including a genetic bowel cancer risk and a family history of schizophrenia. Today, she's made it her mission to help her siblings access potentially life-saving medical information, information that every donor-conceived person should (but doesn't) have the right to know.

We talk about Australia's decision to end anonymous sperm donation, the importance of medical transparency, what happens when fertility clinic regulations fail, and why donor-conceived people should have access to accurate family health information.

Katherine's story is extraordinary, but the questions it raises about donor conception, sperm donation, DNA discovery, genetic health, and the future of the fertility industry affect families all over the world.

A huge thank you to Katherine for sharing her story with us and for the incredible work she's doing to support the donor-conceived community.

You can also follow Katherine (Evie Lucas) and her advocacy work on Instagram at @Origin.Archives.

🎙️ Sperm Sisters Podcast – Sperm Sisters Down Under

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Doobida Doob Sisters.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

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 0:25

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

SPEAKER_01 0:32

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

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Uncovering secrets the medical world would rather keep buried.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

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_02 0:54

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

SPEAKER_03 0:59

And somehow, it's also really funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

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_02 1:12

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

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Sperm Sisters. In this week's episode, we were incredibly lucky to interview Catherine Dawson. Now, who is Catherine? Well, she's an Australian donor-conceived person, activist, and the creator of Origin Archives. She advocates for strict medical transparency in the IVF industry after discovering her biological father was a prolific sperm donor who used multiple fake identities and names, leaving her with an estimated 700 half siblings across Australia. Now, Catherine learned at age 11 that she was conceived via donor sperm. Her advocacy is heavily driven by vital health information. Because of undisclosed or unshared medical histories, she and her half siblings are navigating genetic risks, including a history of bowel cancer and schizophrenia in the donors' family. She is actively campaigning for a national donor conception register in Australia. She works to push state and federal health bodies to share genetic and health information, eliminate fragmented regulations across states, and hold fertility clinics accountable for poor vetting and record keeping. We hope that you love this episode and join us again next week for another episode of Spurb Sisters.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Let's roll the bloody type.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

We're digging into the Australian side of owner conception. Yeah. Because for us, the laws were introduced in 1991. Before that, we call it, as you know, the Wild West era. Anything went, still kind of does now, but we pretend.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

Because I thought that's like that over here. We pretend Australians are like, we're so regulated. And I was like, no, we're not.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

How does it work over over there for you guys?

SPEAKER_04 3:16

In say in Victoria. So it's like you said with Sven donating everywhere. In Australia, it's per state. So you could still end up with a hundred siblings in Australia because there's ten in each state, maybe. Wow. Yeah. So New South Wales is starting to try and interpret the legislation as being worldwide, but I don't know how to be. But in our in our legislation, the it the way it's set up is the states regulate health. So that's the main reason that it it can't be a federally legislated thing. But if you have all of the states agreeing to the same standards and then putting that into their legislation and then having a register which speaks like all of the states speaking to each other and working together. And you know, if a clinic had to legally verify a donor's identification and legally verify a donor's health information, that would be great. But that is not in legislation. It's all taken in good faith. So he could say, I'm an actor, I have a beard and I have green eyes. And he could be none of those, like, do none of that, have none of that. Um and the clinic won't check it with anybody. Um that's happening today. Yeah. If if and there is about a $9,000 fine, something like that, if a donor lies, but there's nothing on the the clinics to verify anything. It's all taken in good faith. So that's with yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

And that's interesting about the fine though, because there's nothing of well, I guess you probably No, I don't think there is any equivalent in the UK.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

I don't think so, but I think people are vetted and then it's like ID checks and So there can't there can't be the proper vetting process then in Australia if they have to The clinics like to say, oh, we check IDs and it's sort of like, well, yeah, you also said that you never sent gametes interstate and you always respected the family limits. Like, why have I got 50 siblings plus that I've got documented? Like you can say you do anything, but they don't follow guidelines, they follow laws because they'll get in trouble with laws.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

So are donors screened, like for health problems, genetic conditions? They ask them, Do you have any health conditions?

SPEAKER_04 5:45

But they don't do any checks. Not with a GP or a doctor, or it's all given, yeah, in good faith. If he says, I'm so fit, and that's it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I haven't got a history of cancer in my family, all go off you go. Yeah.

unknown 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

It's just wild, isn't it? Like you could literally say anything and get away with anything.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Yeah, it's just because the trust like each clinic too, each clinic can do what they want to. They've got their own um standards and guidelines and stuff that that that are best practices. But in Australia, they say they're so heavily regulated, but the regulators, um, if you you could Google it, um RTAC um is the regulator in Australia. The health ministers have just found that that has huge conflicts of interest, which like people have been saying for for ages. In the 2001 inquiry, previous CEOs, employees of clinics work as the people who do the licensing, like the auditing for the clinics to get their licenses. They're all um previous employees and stuff of clinics. So it's sort of like they know these people and their mates giving mates licenses to then take in Medicare funds. So it's all yeah, like Monash hasn't lost their license for doing the two mix-ups, I think it was last year of embryo mix-ups. There's no fines. RTAC still hasn't released their um yearly report from that year, which should say those mix-ups in there, but they still haven't released that. So the health ministers have finally acknowledged because of those mix-ups coming out, it needs to be totally independent of the clinics for the clinics to have their licenses and to be actually regulated.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Because you had said earlier that your donor had also given fake names. Yeah. Why was that just so that he could donate as many times as possible? Do you think? What's the reasoning behind that?

SPEAKER_04 7:39

Yeah, so it was still paid. Because when I I grew up in the Riverland, very country, um, like 12,000 people in the town I grew up in. And then I watched this show Will and Grace. Have you ever seen Will and Grace? Yes, right? Love, love. So, like Megan Maleley and Sean Hayes, I was like, oh, you know, I grew up like knowing I was donor conceived, and I was like, oh man, when I try and find this guy, he's just gonna be a Jack McFarland. It's gonna be sweet, it's gonna be like singing. This like awesome gay guy. I was like, so I was like that. I was convinced that my donor was a gay man because he wrote singles. So my mum did try and get the non-identifying information. So that said no medical history on it. Of course. Um yeah. Next to um psychiatric illnesses, there was an S C H and it was scribbled out and then stuff was written underneath it, but it that was never sort of checked. Um, and yeah, it said he was single, like however tall, green eyes. Um, mum didn't choose him, they just sort of matched the donor to be like my legal father's features so that I would pass as his in case they didn't want to tell me. In Australia, it's very much like she'll be right. Have you heard of that saying? Uh she'll be right.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

She'll be right. No.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Like she will be alright. Yeah. So um, oh cut like your car's broken down. Oh, she'll be right. Like you could you'll you'll be alright in the end, she'll be right. So I think that's a big part of maybe donor conception now. It's like, oh, she'll be right. Like that, any bad stuff won't happen to you, kind of thing. So and this is why I've probably related so hard to the podcast is that my mum died when I was 18. So she was sick during my year 11 and 12, and I think that was like the hardest thing I've ever dealt with in my life. Took like a good 10 years of like in the grief trenches. Um yeah, like flea bags so relatable. Um that can be like a comfort show as dark as that is. Um but like so um, yeah, it was it was really hard. And so when I moved to Melbourne, like mum had tried to find this information, I knew the truth about that, but I think I was kind of like quite stunted in some ways. Like I'd never uh pictured my wedding day or like thought about any of this adult stuff because I was too much dealing with everything that happened to Mum and stuff. So when I got to Melbourne, I had to present her death certificate to Monash because they were like, no, we can't give you her treating files. And I said, Well, she's not a like natural person anymore in legal terms, so there's no privacy that you're breaking by giving her documents to me because she legally doesn't have um an existence kind of thing anymore. So I know you can give them to me. So they had to black out my legal father's signatures and name, even though I know who he is. And they gave me those documents. Yeah, and then they while also saying um you can't know who your siblings are, but there's and there was a discrepancy with this too. They sent me a letter saying there were like eight boys and four girls, but when I got the list, there were only there were four girls and seven boys, and I was like, why is that someone missing off of there? And I was like, that must just be human error. Don't think that if something happens, like the other donor, it's not human error, it's the clinics trying to hide something. Um, and they were actually hiding a sibling that was was born with some um illness that his parents didn't want him being kind of known by us. Yeah, so but instead of warning the families, hey, this child has been born with particular illness or whatever it was, they just kind of took him quietly took him off the list. So I was up to 14, I think it was at that point. Yeah, while Monash were kind of giving me the runaround, I was also doing some morning talks for them on Saturday mornings, being the example of a well-adjusted donor-conceive person for like a $50 grocery card. And I was a struggling student, so I was like, okay. Um so yeah, like it's it's pretty horrid. You've got to respect the hustle of that though. I think I was I was like, I'm doing okay. Um, but yeah, an advertisement of the product um on a Saturday morning. I am really sorry to the people I convinced to go through with it. Um I feel a bit negligent now. Um because I've since had to come out in media. Yeah, because of the mess that they've created now. So I was still an advertisement for them at like 23, not knowing anything, like being an advertisement for them, but still being told I wasn't allowed to know the full truth of who he was or anything. But um around that time as well, there were a bunch of donor-conceived people that were really fighting for the legislation to change, so to get retrospective removal of donor anonymity, um, which was pretty controversial because it's like a world first. So I just happened to be conceived in the place where these people were doing this, and there was this person called Norelle Gretsch, and she had an early onset bow cancer condition, and she passed away at 30 years old, and she was granted by the premier at the time to open the records and meet her donor. Um, and they got to spend, I think it was something like a few weeks together, knowing each other. He's just an awesome person. So we call that that legislation that came in in 2017, we call that Norel's Law, and that just says there's just a section that says clinics may communicate medical information to donor-conceived people. So I've been trying to use that, but because that says may and not must, so big loophole right at the end saying you guys don't have to. In 2016, I did a DNA test and I matched with a girl who had a totally different donor code, was born in a different state, and I'd met her a year prior at a donor conceived conference.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Whoa.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

And she sussed me out and thought that we looked similar, and I just completely wrote her off because again, stupidly, I was like, well, we're different codes, there's no way, different state, there's no way. Um yeah, so naive just to think and blindly trust clinic records.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Because you just do like of course you were told to do.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

You would trust a doctor, right? Yeah. So you you found the sister a year before not realising it. Yeah. And you got your DNA results back, and was she the only sibling that showed up for you?

SPEAKER_04 14:17

Yeah, she was the only sibling had known from an early age as well. Um and really wanted to find siblings, and I think as well, was not expecting to find one from another state. So we really quickly met and clicked, and then I was sort of like, Well, I'm gonna be applying for this when it comes out, we're gonna find his name. She was on this camp working with horses, and um, I just picture her being like this horse whisperer, and then she could get to a a phone that I'm thinking is like a a landline phone on the wall. This must sound so Aussie too, being at a horse camp. Um in the middle of nowhere, she just went on this camp, and um I remember ringing her and being like, I'm opening the envelope, here's his name, and we were like, huh. And then we were trying to look him up, and it came up with like some accountant somewhere, and we're like, that's that's not it. He was really hard to find, like super elusive. We actually found his family fighting in court over an estate, and that's how we found our grandfather's like death certificate. Yeah, so they're kind of litigious. Then when I approached this family member, they offered me an NDA. So yeah, and then I got um this amazing, amazing lawyer and legal force. Um, her name was Sonia Allen, and she did all of the reviews for for the government and was not donor-conceived, but just fought so hard for us in Victoria and in South Australia. And I showed it to her and she said, This is really uh how'd she describe it? This is really vague and restrictive. So I and yeah, any of my family and friends were like, don't sign this. Yeah, it was very cryptic communication from paternal family. Like, I just thought once we found an actual family member, we would we would click and we would be able to find our answers. Like, is he okay? We knew on his non-identifying information that he was a pilot. I thought that was really cool. I was sad I didn't get his eyesight because I was like, he must have rates vision. And I'm like, I I probably like I wouldn't be able to I can't see you guys without my glasses. And so um yeah, I was just really excited he was a pilot. And maybe, and I thought he did uh donating for the money for his flying lessons. So I thought that was a bit more noble than beer money, but one of his non-identifying information sheets was dated in the end when we got his name and date of birth on his 21st birthday. So pretty sure one of them is beer money, because I don't know what you go in there and donate and get paid for. Yeah, we found out that he has schizophrenia and he did when he was donating. There was already like a well, I don't know what that means. Like, does that mean anything for us? Um, and yeah, there's a genetic predisposition, like then it's like you what you do with your environment and illicit substances, or like I'm not gonna go to Brazil and do an ayahuasca ceremony. Um like all the rest of my siblings who don't even know they're donor conceived, like they'll go, there's no family history of mental illness um and proceed. So it was pretty scary finding out. Um yeah, so then I had to tell my sister, and she was really pretty distraught because she'd sort of suspected this as a possibility, and it was like her worst case scenario. So yeah, and then also in the meantime, we had another sister pop up, um, and she was a totally different donor code as well. Uh so you know. Um then we were able to connect her list. Vada did a DNA test with me and another couple of siblings who were on that list and confirm we were also siblings with it with a NATO-accredited DNA test. And so that list had uh 33 siblings to 22 different families on it. So instantly jumped. Fuck now. Yeah, so the guideline limits of 10 families with the families were being created from 1984 to 2003. So 20 over 20 years, they'd created double the family limits at the same clinic. That was Melbourne IVF. Jesus Lord. Yeah, so he definitely did donate at multiple clinics under a couple of different names at least, and then the clinic sent gametes from Melbourne into South Australia, and that's that's why I have a sibling in South Australia. More gametes were sent from Melbourne into Queensland, and they've only just put limits in family, legal family limits in 2026, April 2026. So there's gonna be a whole wave of Queenslanders, yeah. There's gonna be a whole wave of Queenslanders who are in the same situation as me.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

She'll be right. She'll be right. Yeah, she'll be all right. So this is such a mental question to us. What's your total now? Do you think? We're up to like 53 on record, but I have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

So this is still unfolding, like you know, continuous cycle of yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

And yeah, and from the sort of 50 plus siblings that you are aware of on paper, how many of those siblings have you formed sort of a quite a close bond with or relationship with?

SPEAKER_04 19:57

Yeah. It's it's really tricky because there's this like slow burn. I don't I think I guess I don't know, did you guys jump straight in and and things for?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yes, I think we did.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

I think clicking, yeah. I mean, I I was on like a pretty quick plane to go meet my sister where she lived. Um, and we were like wrapped up wearing the same, like had a maxi skirt on and a black tank top, and it was like this is so weird that we just picked the similar thing to wear, and and like her um maternal ancestry is Baltic, and so is mine, and so there's this extra little thing. We've had our decade like anniversary of the DNA test in like April, so and in that time we've like clicked together. Um expectations got really difficult um with what she wanted and what I wanted, and I couldn't, you know, be with her all the time or things like that. Like I get told that we're being sisters correctly, but it's still like a learning process.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

But also like, what does that mean? Yeah, I have no idea like what what does that mean? Like it's just I think it's just about like meeting strangers who you happen to be donor you know, who you happen to be biologically related to, yeah. And you know, l learning about each other and through learning about each other, discovering that you know you you have similarities, or maybe you don't. We totally know it's just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do. Yeah. We can say that for sure.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

So we just like yeah, and things you're not expecting. Like, she'll say some of the most dramatic stuff with such a straight face, and I'll be like, Oh, I do that too. I need to like it makes me it's like a mirror of I go, Oh, I'm really I should tone that down or like work on that. Because I see it in her and I go, that's intense. I need to raise that in.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

But um I'm like I'm really interested to and sorry, this might be a bit of a personal question, so please don't feel like you need to um answer it. But just as like obviously somebody who also lost their mum at like a really young age. Um and obviously I didn't find out that I was donor conceived until after she had passed away. And so I think sometimes that's something that I battle with is whether or not um like she would have eventually told me or which I I actually do think that she would have. I think that she was just pr protecting me because that's what she was always told, you know. Yeah, that was the only thing that she ever wanted to do was to like protect me. So I think uh I do think that she would have told me. But do you ever think about like what, you know, do you think your obviously your mum would be so incredibly proud of like the work that you're doing for the like these cases, but do you ever think about that yourself? Like, you know, what I wonder what your mum would say about this.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

I think like especially with everything I've found out, and I've found out over such a long time, I'm so glad that she doesn't know everything that I know now. And and my situation isn't even the most terrible that I know about. But this terror like the terrible parts of this, she would have now, I think, been really beating herself up about it. I don't think she would have expected the numbers. I think she would have expected that of course it was a nice, healthy, altruistic man, and of course they would have checked his medical history, and of course they would have just like what you would believe about a doctor, because that should be the case. She was on some kind of like like experimental kind of chemo. It was that advanced that she was like, give me the stuff you're testing, let's let's do this so that she is sort of part of more research, and they kind of didn't tell me how serious it was.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

She sounds like an incredibly brave lady, and I fit I can see quite obviously without knowing her, and only just starting to talk to you. There's clearly such a close link between you two. The fact that she was gutsy and she went for it. That's brave, and so you are so brave with everything that you've done for donor-conceived people. Thank you. You definitely get get that from her. Well, I hope we don't so proud.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Thank you. I hope I don't um like she was really bad for putting her foot in it and saying like the wrong things to the wrong people. So it's actually just really cool to speak with you about her when she hasn't, you know, been around for like it's like 17 years. So and you're you're on the other side of the world. Like it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Um what I was gonna ask is because obviously you've had quite I mean, I hate this word of like a journey, but a journey. It actually has been a journey for you to go through. Yeah, quite. But for you to have to, you know, battle against these clinics, find legal help, have the donors' family basically threaten you legally too. Your story is is so dramatic with what's happened to you. Which that like will have such a lasting impact on you. Have you got any sort of advice for if anyone else was coming to find out that they were donor conceived? Where would you start them off on advice?

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Yeah, see, this is why we want the registers in all the states, any of the donor conception registers to have counselling. Um, and so when like VATA kind of actually got um disbanded by the health minister's um office and absorbed into the health department, and for like a year there was no counselling. So I was like, you know, please no more siblings appear, please no more siblings to appear because there was nowhere I could send them that had counselling. Um because if if one of my siblings finds out they they're donor conceived, they've got a predisposition oh my gosh, predisposition to develop schizophrenia. And also now some siblings have found a pre-cancerous condition. That's the main reason that I want um the siblings to be notified because I've had three checks in the space of eight years, no symptoms, but I have to continue checking. They told me it wouldn't be good news by the time I was 40. So I'm essentially trying to use Norel's law. I fully kind of accept that it like parts of it really do suck, but there are parts that are awesome. Like, imagine connecting with like three Brits across the way from like this strange situation. Like, we're all in this community together as well, and there's a really strong sense of just understanding, like, there's so much you don't need to say when you meet up with a donor-conceive person, and that side of like feeling understood is like to me the greatest feeling because it's been so hard to find it elsewhere. A lot of people, it feels like they're almost allergic to the reality of it and just can't go there and can't look at it. And I have siblings like that, and that is so fair when this is like a crazy chain of events that have unfolded, like there's even stuff that I haven't even, like I I wouldn't even necessarily mention until you know, I won't get sued and people have passed away and things like that. So there's like from this litigious family. Um, but there are things that like I don't kind of mention and and things that I don't want my siblings to learn in one day. Like if they do a DNA test now, it's sort of like, okay, get linked up with a counsellor and be able to process this with someone who's maybe not a family member telling them that this doesn't matter, this doesn't change anything about you. Because those things, of course, it change, it changes everything. And it changes everything when a new sibling pops up. And like you just get the cards you're dealt and they're face down when you get them, um, as a donor-conceive person. So if you want to pick them up, that's a good way of putting it, by the way. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Yeah, I love you. Yeah. That should be like a new one.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

I think you guys have really done an amazing job with like humanizing us all, even though that shouldn't be a thing you have to do. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Thank you so much. Human connects our right there we go.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

That was our interview then with Evie from Origin Archives. I think it's safe to say that was fascinating. I really did enjoy it. Um I think we've learned so much anyway. And also, I totally had the wrong end of the stick on what all the rules and regulations were in Australia. I thought they were way ahead of the game, but I guess not. Um I guess they're busy playing reruns of neighbours. Summer High Thai. Classic.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Home in a way. Home in a bloody way. If anyone in Australia is going through anything similar to Evie, head over to Instagram and find her at Origin Archives. She is a wealth of knowledge, has lots of different podcasts, uh resources, books, the whole shebang. And she's lovely to chat to too, so I'm sure she won't mind if you drop her a message. And as promised, our new segment sperm sisters mailbag. Are we ready for Laura?

SPEAKER_03 29:46

Ready.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Hi everyone. My question for you is that you have mentioned before when growing up you kind of felt like you didn't belong uh with your parents. So do you have kind of some other examples of this that you can think of?

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Oh, that is a juicy question. Oh Laura! Yeah, what a can of worms. I can't remember if we've even addressed that Nat's not in this little bit. She's she's got a very important meeting that she couldn't get out of. And um the episode comes out tomorrow, so we really needed to just record this now because we're all last minute.com. But um so I would love to know what Nat's is, so I we'll ask her later. But I said one thing I think is you know when you're a child and you always daydream.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Without fail, my daydream was always that actually I had a famous dad who was gonna like knock on the door and then that was my dad, which is like a really weird daydream to have when you're quite young, I think. Like I genuinely always thought that my dad was gonna be Robbie Williams or Prince Charles.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Well oh oh yes. Oh, this is yeah, but but it was like a frequent thought.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Yes, like any time. So you know, like if okay, so you know if you were like at school or if you're just in your room or something and you start daydreaming if you're like looking out the window. Always my daydream would be that, which is really odd, I think, to have thought that. It's so particular. Uh there wasn't any like longing in it to be true. It just was the daydream.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

So do you think it was your body trying to tell you?

SPEAKER_03 31:44

I think I'm it like I must have picked up on stuff subconsciously as a child. Like I must have I must have somehow sort of known without understanding it.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Uh well I'm very, very dyslexic and I always, as Helen will know, obviously growing up with me, like I think that I can read a foreign language because it looks normal to me. And yet I can't speak that language because I'm so dyslexic. Um I always really, really struggled with that, the fact that our parents are such high flyers and they were very academic or good at maths and English, especially maths. I still am not good at all with that kind of stuff. So I always felt a massive shift in belonging because I did not share the same brain whatsoever with them. And I think they can they can agree to that. Because I I remember them thinking, like, what the hell are we gonna do with her? Like, what she why is she struggling so much? But that was before I was diagnosed being dyslexic. But I do wonder, I think probably for me it it's that the fact that none of my academic records or anything in school, even slightly matched mum and dad's. I was such I was so wildly different.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

I mean, you did think that you invented the word shenanigans.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

I'm raging at you for disagreeing with me. I did invent the word shenanigans. No, you didn't. I invented Helen, I invented the word shenanosaurus rex, okay? I was in year six, we were waiting to go in for lunch, and I said to someone, actually, who ended up being one of your ex-boyfriends, which is quite funny. Um I said to him, I was like, oh my god, it's shenanosaurus rex. And everyone laughed. And I then I made up the word shenanigans from that. And how did you used to say it?

SPEAKER_03 34:04

Shenanigans. We've managed to get shoehorn that into the podcast somehow.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Thank you so much, Laura, for that question. And thanks, Helen, for bringing that up. Great question. Next week, we'll ask Helen, what are pumbies? Okay. Okay. Thank you so much for listening. Please feel free to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening to your podcast. Give us a follow, share it with friends and things like that. It really, really helps us out. And if you've got any suggestions for any upcoming episodes, or if you do want to send us a voice note. Um, the number is 07507 834096. Ooh. That's quite good. I mean, as I said, I am dyslexic, so let's just double check that. But I'll put it in the show notes, whatever. I think that's the number. But yeah, we love to hear from you, so please feel free to ask us everything and anything. We're open books. Have a wonderful week, and we will catch you later. Bye.