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No donor siblings

fischfisch Posts: 570 ✭✭
edited November -1 in Parenting and Life
Anyone have an older child with no donor siblings? We are quite baffled that there are no donor siblings for our daughter. Our son will be 7 soon and we connected with two other donor families back when they were babies (all about 6 months apart). We exchange xmas cards and facebook friends, and have met one family and are thinking about meeting the other family soon. I had hoped by now we would have similar opportunities with our daughter, who has a different donor. We did connect with one family who was pregnant at the time, but lost the baby mid-way through the pregnancy. Since it was likely very difficult for them, they stopped communicating with us, understandably. I don't know how many vials they had, but I know they had some left. We sold our vials back about a year ago, and they were scooped up pretty quickly. We think perhaps there are none! Which just seems crazy.

We are also registered on the Donor Sibling Registry site. No one has connected with us there, but I guess I hope one day that the kids might connect through there if they want to. I am surprised that more parents do not use that site.
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    hortonhorton Posts: 67
    edited November -1
    When Willow was your daughter's age, i did not know of any donor siblings. I'd registered on NW's sibling registry and also on the DSR site. Like you, I felt like there had to be someone out there with a vested interest in her donor because when they "found" more vials while doing inventory a few years after he retired, they were scooped up very quickly. The donor already had at least one reported pregnancy when I conceived willow, but of course I don't know if that resulted in a live birth. Anyway, when I was pregnant with Judah (so willow was 4), another mom contacted me. She had just registered on the sibling registry here and emailed me from there. Her son is about 1.5 years younger than willow. Then within a few months, I randomly did a search for their donor number here on the boards and found someone on the "searching for vials" thread who was looking for vials to give their son a full sibling. That boy is almost exactly the same age as the first one I found out about. They've since gone on to have twins with the same donor (and I think they were the ones who bought up the vials that were "found"). Of course that still doesn't solve the mystery of whether or not there is a sibling older than willow out there somewhere. I just stay visible in the various registry sites and trust that if the parents, or eventually the kids themselves, want contact, they will be able to find me.

    Anyway, if you'd have asked me when Willow was your daughter's age, I'd have said that I didn't think there were any donor sibs either. I wouldn't count the possibility out yet! Both of the other families in my donor group are hetero couples, and I kind of wonder if that is a subset of people who are generally less likely to seek contact...
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    MNmommasMNmommas Posts: 1,081 ✭
    edited November -1
    horton wrote:
    Both of the other families in my donor group are hetero couples, and I kind of wonder if that is a subset of people who are generally less likely to seek contact...

    Good call, Horton. We know of 7 or 8 other families who have children from our donor, and they are all either lesbian, queer, or SMBC. Plus a bunch of his vials were apparently sent to an RE in Europe, and we have no clue about donor siblings resulting from that. But I wonder if there are also donor siblings living in hetero families running around stateside too.
    Donor 7070, births 2012 & 2013
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    palegreenpalegreen Posts: 1,478
    edited November -1
    We only know of 2 families and it took a year or so to discover the first one. One family with B/G twins 10 days older than G that we have FB contact with. And the other on the NW sibling registry that provides only the birth date from 2005. Our vials are from 2003, I think, so I would venture to guess that there would be a lot more kiddos from our donor.
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    friendamyfriendamy Posts: 588
    edited November -1
    I only know of two families (one with a daughter, one with a son) both my sons age. I was in contact with one of those families from pregnancy on - the other located me about 2 years ago (when they were 5ish).

    I'm curious to know if there are more! :)
    Amy (39)
    DS (7) - d#470
    Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it.

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    merilungmerilung Posts: 1,177
    edited November -1
    MNmommas wrote:
    horton wrote:
    Both of the other families in my donor group are hetero couples, and I kind of wonder if that is a subset of people who are generally less likely to seek contact...

    Good call, Horton. We know of 7 or 8 other families who have children from our donor, and they are all either lesbian, queer, or SMBC. Plus a bunch of his vials were apparently sent to an RE in Europe, and we have no clue about donor siblings resulting from that. But I wonder if there are also donor siblings living in hetero families running around stateside too.

    This seems so strange to me. When DH and I were still TTC with donor sperm the thought of having this cool connection to other families was one of the perks for us!
    TTC since September 2007 - 8 donor insems in 2012, all BFN. DH had varicocele repair #2 1/3/14.
    It worked! Two clomid cycles and two IUI's with injectables all BFN, on to IVF! 3dt of 2 perfect embryos on 12/15/14, BFP 7dp3dt! Frederick Lars born at 37 weeks on 8/15/15!! FET for #2 on 9/29/16 - BFP 5dp5dt!! Bertram Wilder and Mabel Moon born at 28.4 weeks on 3/29/17!
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    MNmommasMNmommas Posts: 1,081 ✭
    edited November -1
    merilung wrote:
    This seems so strange to me. When DH and I were still TTC with donor sperm the thought of having this cool connection to other families was one of the perks for us!

    Well duh, that's because you two are awesome! :D

    But the main reason it's more likely is because it's actually possible for a hetero couple to pretend that their donor-sperm-conceptions instead happened the "good ol'fashioned way". Which is not at all possible for clearly non-traditional queer/lesbian family and SMBC family, so we are more likely to at least look for the donor-sibling connections.
    Donor 7070, births 2012 & 2013
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    katookatoo Posts: 324 ✭
    edited November -1
    We are the first reported pregnancy for our donor. His IUI vials sold out quickly after the site was updated to show a reported pregnancy. There were a few IUI/IVF vials left that I thought would hang around forever, but when I went to buy them a few weeks ago they were gone. I'm really, really hoping that someone else has a baby with our donor and registers. I'd like for my son to be able to connect with a donor sibling when he is older.
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    coryandamandacoryandamanda Posts: 1,527
    edited November -1
    We have no interest in donor siblings, but in case that ever changes for whatever reason, I randomly have done searches and found nothing. I am pretty sure our donor was not around long and I know we bought a good amount of what he had. There was at least one other pregnancy reported for our donor, per NW, but who knows if a child/ren came out of it.
    There may be lurkers out there like I am, who do not share donor #s and do not register, but could at any point in time for any sort of reason. I would just keep checking periodically if you desire to find them.
    July 4, 2015
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    ZenZen Posts: 2,942
    edited November -1
    Had I been successful in conceiving using products from Northwest, I probably would have been very interested in knowing about donor siblings. I would not have raise my child to think that she had brothers and sisters out there somewhere; however, I might have welcomed a cousin-like relationship.
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    tc0104tc0104 Posts: 579 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    When I was pregnant with Laney, I was in touch with another mom but it memory serves me right she and her husband did not plan to tell their child that they are donor conceived. When I was pregnant with the boys, I noticed that someone else was on the nw sibling registry. I occasionally do a search for our donor number on the boards but never find anything. When I got pregnant with the boys he only had 1 vial left anyway.
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    erica.ciszekerica.ciszek Posts: 3
    edited November -1
    Fisch- we share a donor (368g) with your daughter Emerson! Our daughter Quinn was born on 12/3/13 in Eugene, Oregon. We now live in Houston, Texas. We'd love to connect with you guys- send us an email if you're interested in connecting as well (erica.ciszek@gmail.com).

    Looking forward to hearing from you!
    Erica, Christina, & Quinn
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    fischfisch Posts: 570 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    This is amazing news! I will email you!
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    pricejudi59pricejudi59 Posts: 3
    edited November 2016
    Zen wrote:
    Had I been successful in conceiving using products from Northwest, I probably would have been very interested in knowing about donor siblings. I would not have raise my child to think that she had brothers and sisters out there somewhere; however, I might have welcomed a cousin-like relationship.

    Yeah somehow you have been successful for conceiving to use product from Northwest. Great work
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