Amy – 1996

Name: Amy

Conceived: 1996

Where Conceived: Coventry, UK

In March 2026, I went back home for the weekend and my whole life changed. My Mum sat me down and dropped a huge bombshell on me. She said my Dad was not my biological father. I had actually been conceived through IVF using donor sperm. 

To say this information hit me like a ton of bricks is an understatement – finding this out age 29. The months since then have been an absolute emotional rollercoaster – it’s a very overwhelming journey to be on, and even now is still very hard for me to comprehend. Despite bringing up a million questions about my life, this news actually answered a lot of questions for me about my relationship with the man I thought was my Dad. Growing up, I was never close with him – I have no happy memories with him and I don’t recall ever feeling love or affection from him. I haven’t seen or spoken to him in about 10-15 years.

I was immediately curious – I ordered a DNA test from Ancestry and started researching sperm donation – I found out that I could request information from the HFEA about my donor and about how many half-siblings I potentially had, so I sent off the forms right away. Prior to 2005, sperm donation in the UK was anonymous, so I would only be able to find out non-identifying information about my donor (such as height, eye colour, hair colour etc) unless he had lifted his anonymity, which is relatively unusual.

Whilst waiting for my results, I did as much research as possible – I read books, listened to podcasts, watched documentaries and also found and joined the Donor Conceived UK Facebook group. This group was a massive support to me. Finding out you are donor conceived is an incredibly isolating place to be – I didn’t know anyone else (to my knowledge) in real life who was in the same situation and could relate. Within this group, I read so many emotional posts and stories of other people’s situations. I posted my own situation on there and so many people came to me with support and advice, for which I am hugely grateful. 

In April, I received my DNA results from Ancestry and was disappointed to have no close matches – I thought this was the end of the road. However, 2 days later, I received an email from the HFEA (far earlier than I was expecting – I was originally given a wait time of 5 months). The email said I was one of 6 children born from this donor – I have 3 half sisters and 2 half brothers. Having grown up as an only child, this news was very overwhelming – I wondered what they looked like, if we shared any personality traits, had they grown up in the same city as me, had we ever even crossed paths without knowing?

I was also unbelievably shocked to read that my donor had lifted his anonymity – right infront of me I had his full name, address, email and phone number. I went straight onto Facebook to find him. It’s a very strange feeling to look at a photo of the man who shares half of your DNA, after 29 years of thinking it was someone else. I was even more shocked to see that we went to the same secondary school and that we both had the same hometown, Coventry. Having lifted his anonymity, this suggested he was open to contact. I drafted an email, introducing myself, as well as saying why I was contacting him and asking if he would be willing to share any information about himself. I was crying pretty much through writing the whole thing – it is one of the strangest and most emotional emails I have ever written. I clicked “send” and hoped for the best. I wasn’t sure what to expect – would he even see the email? Would he want to reply? How long would it be before I heard back, if ever?

Just 3 hours later, I had a new WhatsApp message. It was from him. He had sent me the most kind and comprehensive message that I could have hoped for, explaining a bit about his donor journey and his life now. He has 2 children with his wife, taking my total number of half-siblings to 7. He also suggested that we could meet up, if I was open to it, which I absolutely was. We agreed to meet just 2 weeks later.

9th May 2026 will go down as one of the most emotional and surreal days of my life – the day I met my biological Dad for the first time. I struggled to hold back the tears when we met. We spoke for 6 hours, telling each other everything about our lives. He shared photos of his family – people I am biologically related to. It was surreal to see aspects of myself in photos of his Mother. The day couldn’t have gone any better.

I have also been in contact with one of my half brothers – he has always known he is donor conceived and has been waiting for over 9 years for a sibling match. I can’t imagine having to wait so long for answers. He has been so kind to me, especially knowing how new I am on this journey. He has been in contact with our biological Dad for 9 years. The 3 of us are due to meet up together in the coming weeks, which will be surreal for us all.

I know I have been extremely lucky, to have found these matches in such a short space of time and to have had such a positive response. I am beyond appreciative of how open and welcoming they have both been to me and I hope that in the future we can find the other half siblings.