Where did we come from:
(Sister Katy)
DonorChildren.com was started in 2013 by a sperm ‘donor’ conceived adult, Matt Doran, who realized that ‘donor’ conceived people along with their social & biological-genetic parents/’donors’ needed better community and resources to make connections. By day DonorChildren’s founder is a aerospace engineer and real estate investor. Matt discovered the truth of his conception at the age of 25 and it rocked his world. He finds pleasure/healing in helping others find support and their missing biological family. Matt was born out of the 1980’s when ‘donors’ were often university medical students and anonymity was the standard practice across the board. Through DNA and two years of research Matt was able to find his biological father and family. He also discovered he is one of rumored 500+ siblings from a man whose alias was “Dr. Papa” according to a 1990’s author John Enwright who wrote the book “The Weird World of Sex”. In 1992 Hard Copy national news show featured a story that he was featured in called Offspring of Sperm Donors produced by KNBC in Los Angeles, CA and airing on April 6, 1992. Wendler sold his sperm at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Inseminations were performed by Dr. William J. Cameron. Matt will continue searching for his half-siblings the rest of his life, but in the meantime has since begun to form a relationship with his father who has refuted all claims of being “Dr. Papa” and says only 30 deposits were made for $5 each and found out later possibly divided to use for multiple inseminations so the Hard Copy rumors may have been a news media hype. Matt has a full-blooded sister, Katy, who is 4 years younger and is also conceived via artificial insemination at KUMC. Katy now speaks around the world on ‘donor’ conception and third party reproductive technologies including the United Nations in 2016. Matt and Katy have shared their journey with each other and are both excited to see what the future holds for their new found relationship with their father, two half-siblings from their father’s second marriage, and any other DC half-siblings they may match on DNA database websites including 23andMe, Ancestry, FTDNA, and GEDmatch.
The motivation behind DonorChildren stems from the limited online groups and registries that existed were either very costly or very scattered across the internet. Expiring memberships create a community where people cannot connect because of financial strain and communication breakdown. Why should meeting other people in the ‘donor’ community cost someone anything? ‘Donor’ conceived people or sperm/egg/embryo/surrogate ‘donors’ should not be charged money to know their biological family…we believe that is a basic human right! Despite what is lacking in regards to resources for the ‘donor’ community we believe everyone should exhaust every group, registry, and database that exists on the web. It is important that as ‘donors’ and ‘donor’ conceived people that we make ourselves easily searchable which unfortunately means being a bit scattered. We hope to change that some with our central focus to create a worldwide organized community. It is our goal to provide you with a home and community as well as resources that help you connect quickly with your biological parents/children, fellow DCP’s, fellow parents of DCP’s, and/or fellow ‘donors’. We also believe this should be a free resource to it’s members. Some of us are tired of being profited on by the third party assisted reproduction technology (3PR/ART) industry. A way you can support us is by putting up with some advertisements, purchase your DNA tests through our links, buy our products from our Store, and choosing to donate to our project to help support the maintenance & development of this member driven community.
Prior to finding his paternal family and launching DonorChildren he was featured on a pilot TV series on VH1 called Swab Stories. Here are a couple clips from the show featuring Matt as well as half-brother members dbrow231 and ishould.
Where are we going:
Our mission statement:
The first worldwide social network for ‘donor’ conceived people, sperm/egg/embryo/surrogate ‘donors’, and social parents of DC people connecting biological family and the DC community for support and to create a demographic body that can have a voice in the media, academic research, and create legislative change.
There are registry-like functions within your profile fields and on our Members page using the Find Matches button that you will want to check out. In addition to basic matching via Profile data you will want to take advantage of all our modern social networking tools including creating Groups (where you can privately or publicly share posts, pictures, documents and other media with other members), posting public updates on our Activity Feed to share with other members, posting and commenting on our public Forums page, and finding your local Meetup group to meet other members face to face for real community off the web.
Our goals include: offering Resources and educating members of external resources; connecting DCP’s to each other and their biological-genetic relatives; connecting DCP parents to one another; and building a sperm/egg/embryo/surrogate ‘donor’ community.
We are centralizing information that each member gathers in their search for family and building an active and changing community. There are so many scattered resources online making the search process diluted…we want to be a resource hub to simplify things. Please check out our Resources page where you’ll find all the known available ‘donor’ community resources that exist. We have donor conceived centered surveys and petitions that will be useful demographic information for publication and research. We will not exile or sensor our members. You can expect a democratic community, voice, and safe place to share your unique story and perspective.
WE DO NOT WANT TO BE AN INACTIVE REGISTRY…in fact we are not simply a registry we are a modern Social Network. We believe connections can be made exponentially faster by utilizing modern social networking tools putting the power of connection into members hands and believe if we abstain from expiring subscription-based memberships that build communication walls and limit accessibility due to finances more people will connect and find biological family matches. We hope to be a vibrant community partnering with others in the ‘donor’ community abroad. Please join and get involved in the Groups and Forums!
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