Resources

A panel of parents and their sons and daughters discuss how they told/were told that they became a family with the help of a donor or surrogate. Recorded at the 2016 Time to tell seminar.

Adam shows the film he and his wife, Rebecca made to explain how their journey to meet their daughter Rosie. They show the video not only to Rosie, but their family and friends too. This helps them all understand and connect with Rosie’s story. It includes footage of their clinic, the positive pregnancy test and follows Rebecca’s pregnancy and Rosie’s birth.

Brin describes herself as a “chronic scrap booker”. She has gathered information photos and mementos to document her twin boys’ beginnings. She also includes her son’s comments in the story e.g. “They were baby eggs not eating eggs!” She describes how her scrapbooks have been an easy way to tell the story and “We refer to it whenever they get confused.”

Not only did Sandra make a digital journal for her daughter, Eloise, but she also made a book for her 5 year old donor’s daughter, Hayden, to explain her mother’s help. Hayden then told the story in her own words and drew pictures to match. They describe “how their family became Sandra’s special donor friends and how Eloise became my special donor buddy”

Listen to Narelle talk about being a teenager and finding out she was donor-conceived.

Dinah finds out she's pregnant after four years of IVF treatment. Dinah and Ben's IVF treatment lasted four years until Dinah finally gave birth to their daughter Tallulah in 2010. In listening to this podcast series please bear in mind that Dinah and Ben's experience is not universal, it is their story. This podcast series is not intended to replace or replicate medical advice.

Donor Graham, and donor-conceived Kelly, met eight years ago once they both expressed interest in finding out information about their donor/offspring. They were matched with the help of VARTA. In this video, they share their story of how they linked, and explain their relationship today.

Hayley Smith, a donor-conceived woman shares her experiences of finding her donor through DNA detective work at VARTA's 2019 seminar, The Genie is out of the bottle: DNA testing and the end of donor anonymity.

Rose's story of how she found her donor through DNA testing

For Christmas, I treated myself to an Ancestry.com DNA test because I wanted to see if there was any interesting lineage in my history. Was I from Vikings? Or Scottish, maybe? I did the test and thought nothing of it. Long story short, I was contacted by someone who let me know I was donor-conceived after he had found out via a DNA test that he was donor-conceived.