DonorChildren

Is my email address secure?

Yes.  Your email address is not given out or sold to anyone.

How do I delete my account?

First we’re sorry to hear you have a change of heart.  Please contact the Admin through the Contact Us page.  Explain the reasoning for canceling your account and it will be taken care of quickly.

I can’t login from my mobile device.

Go to the Home page.  The login link is included in the body message.  If it says you don’t have Admin permissions just click on the page you want to navigate to and you will be logged in.  The mobile format for the site is not perfect.  It is a simple solution for now until we can afford to invest in more mobile development.

Tips for Navigating the Site

Profiles:

The most important feature on the site aside from the Groups page is completing your Profile Fields with as much detail as you can.  When viewing anyone’s profile you can click on the field data and it will search the site and filter any other member with that same field selection.  This is why selecting your Donor and Clinic/University/Doctor is a powerful tool.  The easiest way to communicate with someone publicly is to create a public message through your Profile or you can always comment anywhere on the site and tag someone using @username in your post.  You can also upload picture galleries.

How to Find Matches:

1. Go to the Members page.  Click on the Find Matches button.  Select your search criteria based on the profile field data you are searching (i.e. Donor ID, University, Doctor, Location, Known Donor Health Information, etc.) and click Search at the bottom of the page.  The results should populate near the bottom of the page.
2. View your Profile.  Your Clinic/University/Doctor/Bank and Donor ID should be hyperlinked so that it will search the site for other members with those characters on their Profile.  This sometimes will give you extra people, for example, if your Donor ID is ‘503’ and someone put their zip code that has ‘503’ in it they will show up.  This is why we recommend the Advanced Search Form on the Members page.
3. Join/Create specific Groups for your identifiable search criteria.  Invite other members with that same data.  If none exist, just wait.  Quickly the Group page will be indexed on all the major internet search engines and you could start seeing new members joining because they found your Group while actively seeking matches online.

Common Questions regarding the Field selections:

• “What do you mean by number of known donor children?” – How many DCP from the donor’s perspective or how many DCP do you have by using a donor.
• “What do you mean by number of donor siblings?” – How many donor siblings do your kids have/know about or for a DCP how many do they know about.
• “What do you mean by naturally conceived?” – If a donor has naturally conceived kids his kids are your kids siblings so this is an important field for a donor.
• “Why are you calling them ‘social parents’?” – You can read our terminology on this page but a social parent in the DCP world is someone who raised them.  Technically speaking a social parent is a non-biological parent but really more like a “Growing up, who were your parents” type thing.
• “What do you mean by spouse to a donor child?” – the spouse of a DCP…sometimes the spouse is looking on behalf of the other.  This field accommodates awesome spouses.
• “What do you mean by sperm donor?” – Are you a Sperm Donor?
• “What do you mean by age discovered donor conception?” – This is for DCP’s…when did they discover their donor conception.
• “What do you mean by sperm donor child?” – Are you a Sperm Donor Child?
• “What do you mean by Clinic/Bank/University/Doctor?” – Where and/or who, you can select a doctor and a University if you wanted.  Example: University of Kansas Medical Center & Dr. Cameron and for Donor ID – Anonymous.  To select multiple clinics, etc. just hold CTRL in the data field and make your selections.  Some donors may have donated at multiple clinics as another example.
• “What do you mean by birth date and birth place?  Are you asking for my child’s info or mine?” – After you register you can Edit your Profile and change the privacy settings if you like.  You could also just put “-” in your birth place if you don’t want to populate that.  As a DCP it’s their bday. As a donor it’s their bday. As a parent it would be their bday. If you are making a profile for your child I would suggest putting their birthday and answer all the questions from their perspective.
• “What do you mean by name and sex?  Are you asking for my info or my child’s?” – Depends on how you are filling out the entire profile as you or your child.
• “My site is not working properly on my mobile device.” – We have focused very little on the mobile development applications at this point.  A computer would work best.  You can always check to make sure your cookies are working.

*Note:  The intention for this community is to have parents on here talking to one another too as themselves…not just a plain registry for parents for their minor children.  We don’t have an age requirement to be on the site. Anyone of any age is welcome at the sole discretion of the minor’s parent’s permission and supervision.

How to create a Group:

Click these Parent Group Links to Create Member Groups.

• Sperm & Egg Banks/Clinics
• Meetups
• Universities
• Doctors
• Donor ID’s
• Miscellaneous
• Success Stories

Important Settings:

• Set Default Email Options to “All Email” so members are notified of Activity.  Create a Welcome Email for New Members to receive when they join.
• Make the Group Private (except for Success Stories, keep those Public)to protect against spamming and also keep information shared confidential to the group members.
• Allow All Members to Create Member Groups and Send Invites.

OR

Several ways.  Go to the Groups menu tab.  Select “Create a Group”.  Another way is to navigate to the Groups page (www.donorchildren.com/groups).  Select one of the Parent Groups (Donor ID’s, Doctors, Universities, etc.), select the sub-tab Groups, select Create a Member Group.  The last method is through your member Profile.  Click on the Groups sub-tab and select One of the Parent Groups and Create a Member Group.  In the  “Hierarchy” sub-tab choose the appropriate Parent Group.  Make sure you make your group Private so only members of the group can see the content and post comments/images/videos/files.  This will also help mitigate spammer activity.  Make sure the Upload Permissions are set so that All Members have permissions.  Add an Avatar and Group Description.  The admin may make minor edits to keep formatting among all the groups similar.  Enjoy!

How to create an Event:

One way.  Navigate to your Profile – Events – My Events and create an Event!  You can assign the event to a Group that you’re a member.  Make sure when you create an Event that the ‘Price’ says ‘Free’ and the ‘Seats’ is set to 1,000 or some arbitrary high value number so the group is not limited to how many people can ‘Book a ticket’ (aka RSVP).  This is our goal with the Meetups parent group to create a place for you to meet in person with local DCP’s, donors, or parents.  Create a City/Town Group for your local area and see who you can connect with!

Terminology:

• Donor Conceived Person (DCP):  a donor offspring conceived via the donation of sperm (sperm donation) or ova (egg donation), or both, either from two separate donors or from a couple.  The two common methods are IVF and AI.  In the case of embryo donation, the conceiving parents are a couple.  Donor conceived people may never learn of their true birth origins as information about their true biological parent(s) is not recorded on the birth certificate. Donor conceived people may have many half siblings as a result of the same person’s donations.  Other less politically-correct names: donor child, donor kid, donor offspring.
• Social Parent (SP):  a parent of a DCP, either biologically related or not, that raised the DCP from birth.
• Artificial Insemination (AI):  the deliberate introduction of semen into a female’s vagina or oviduct for the purpose of achieving a pregnancy through fertilization by means other than copulation. It is the medical alternative to sexual intercouse, or natural insemination; the “turkey baster method”.
• In Vitro Fertiliization (IVF):  a process by which an egg is fertilized by sperm outside the body: in vitro. IVF is a major treatment for infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman’s ovulatory process through horomone treatments, harvesting ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from the woman’s ovaries and letting sperm fertilize them in a fluid medium in a laboratory. The fertilized egg (zygote) cultured for 2–6 days in a growth medium and is then transferred to the patient’s uterus with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy.  In the DCP community IVF and AI do not make the couple more fertile and that reference is seen as a misnomer.

For a good blog post on Politically Correct terminology please check out Lindsay Greenawalt’s blog post:

http://cryokidconfessions.blogspot.com/2010/11/rose-by-any-other-name.html

Please let us know if we can add any more terminology or help instructions on this page.  Thanks!

Admin