At Cryos, we let you decide yourself if you wish to be an ID Release, Early ID Release or Non-ID Release Donor – in short, whether you want to give children conceived with your sperm donation and their parents the opportunity to request access to your identifying information - or not.
The difference between being an ID Release, Early ID Release, or a Non-ID Release Donor
When you become a sperm donor at Cryos, we ask you to decide whether you want to be ID Release, Early ID Release or Non-ID Release. This is a decision that requires some consideration. If you choose to be an ID Release Donor, children born with help from your sperm donation can contact Cryos after turning 18 and receive identifying information about you. They can use this information to try and contact you if they would like to learn more about their origins.
As a donor, you will not be able to get identifying information about potential donor-conceived children, so it is up to the child to decide whether to try to initiate contact. If contacted, it is up to you what level of contact – if any – you want to engage in. If you are a Non-ID Release Donor, it means that Cryos will never reveal identifying information about you to children born from your donations.
If you choose to be an Early ID Release Donor, you authorise Cryos to disclose your identifying information to parents who have had a child through your donations. This allows the parents to share information about you with the child before the child turns 18.
Can donor-conceived children find their donor?
No matter whether you decide to become a Non-ID Release or ID Release/Early ID Release Donor, there is a possibility that a child conceived with your donation may try to reach you in the future.
New possibilities to find genetic relatives
Even though information about Non-ID Release Donors is never released by Cryos to any donor-conceived children or their parents, there are ways for these children to potentially learn more about their donors. The advances of DNA search, heritage research, and new technologies have given donor-conceived children new opportunities to learn more about their genetic origin.
Cryos safeguards your personal data
At Cryos, we do not help or encourage any donor-conceived children or their parents to seek out information about donor. Furthermore, when receiving treatment with donor sperm from a donor at Cryos, the patients sign an agreement not to seek information about the donor in the future. In short, we take every possible step to ensure the safety of your personal information and confidentiality and to safeguard your anonymity as a donor. Still, for some donor-conceived children, the desire to know more about their genetic origin is so strong that they take steps to learn more about their donor, even if she is a Non-ID Release Donor.
Remember to talk to your partner about being a donor
A thing to consider when choosing to be a sperm donor is to inform your current and/or future partners about the fact that you are a donor. This will keep matters less complicated if you are contacted by a donor-conceived child in the future.
In the following, we provide some advice on what to do if you are contacted by a child conceived with your donation.
What should I do if a donor-conceived child or the parents contact me?
We have made a list with some advice to help make it the best possible experience:
- If a donor-conceived child - ot the child's parents, if you are an Early ID Release donor - contacts you, you should consider what type of relationship you would want to have with the child going forward. Are you open to a close relationship, or do you prefer a casual relation? Perhaps you only want to meet the child once – or not at all?
- Listen to what they have to say before making any decisions on your future relationship or replying to them.
- Tell they how you feel about being contacted and that it may or may not have come as a surprise for you that your identity is now known to them.
- Even though it might be surprising and unexpected to you, remember that the child (or its parents) most likely has/have given it a lot of thought before contacting you.
- Tell them about your wishes and expectations regarding future contact and a possible relationship between the two of you.
Why some children seek contact with their donor
Research shows that a donor-conceived child who wants to contact his or her donor is rarely looking to invade the donor’s privacy. Nor is the child looking for an active parent. Instead, most donor-conceived children are:
- Curious to know more about their genetic heritage.
- Interested in knowing what their biological origin looks like.
- Looking to establish a casual relation or hoping to form a closer bond.
- Interested in asking a few questions.
In any case, many donor-conceived children and their parents are advised to let the donor set the terms and decide the level of commitment to the relationship.
It is also worth noting that far from all donor-conceived children (and parents) have the need or desire to know more about their sperm donor. For many donor-conceived children and their parents, knowing that a nice man once helped to give the greatest gift by donating his sperm is enough to satisfy their needs.