Having a child or having been conceived with the help of a sperm donation is not a topic that is widely spoken about because it is often filled with fears, reservations and shame. But many of the people who are connected with the topic find: This should be the end! On the occasion of the opening of the German branch of the Danish seed bank "European sperm bank"In February 2019 in Hamburg, some people for whom sperm donation plays a very important role in their lives told their story.
One of them is Dina, a young Danish woman who was born by donating sperm. Dina is a lively, young woman with sparkling, happy eyes. She likes to talk openly about how she was born because she wants to make it easier for others with her story to deal with this topic openly. How she found out that her biological father is an anonymous sperm donor and how that knowledge changed her life – a log.
Sperm donation is not something to be ashamed of. My story is a positive one.
"My mother and father told my sister and me from the beginning that we were born with donated sperm. From the moment we were born, we were told that our parents needed some help to get us. At seven or eight or eight then I realized what that actually means and how it works. Today I'm 22 and my sister is 19. Our biological fathers are different donors, so my parents didn't think far enough ahead.
"My father couldn't father children"
My parents needed the sperm donation because my father could not father children. That is why they decided very quickly to donate sperm. My mother has always been very open about this topic. Whenever my sister and I have questions, she explains as much as she can. My father is rather embarrassed to talk about it, but I think it's natural.
Knowing that I was born with a sperm donation didn't change my life significantly. It's just that I now have an interesting story to tell when I run out of topics to talk about. I don't feel the desire to meet my sperm donor. He's the reason I'm here, but I'm not really interested in his personality. I have my father and mother, my sister and my friends. He would not fit into this life.
Knowledge has strengthened the relationship with my parents
My relationship with my parents did not deteriorate due to my knowledge of sperm donation. Maybe it would have been different if they only told me at 18 how I was born. But because they have always trusted that my sister and I are mature enough to deal with this knowledge, my relationship with them is even stronger.
I think the way families deal with sperm donation is very important because it's a big decision. I know of many people who have been traumatized because they were told very late that they were conceived through sperm donation. Do you tell your children about it openly or don't you tell them anything? It makes a big difference. I think it is very important to tell families and children openly about it, because experiencing something like this very late changes your whole life and your view of everything you have experienced up to now.
I am sure that I can handle it so well because my parents have been honest with us from the start. In my view, you should make the decision when to tell your children about it before you have a child in this way. I want to encourage that. Because there is nothing to be ashamed of. Many people use the opportunities of sperm donation and many people need help to have children.
If I ever needed help to have children, sperm donation would definitely be an option. I would rethink all possibilities, but the possibility of donating sperm seems to me as natural as many people. I think many women would prefer to have a child and be pregnant this way rather than adopting it.
I am not worried that personality traits of an unknown donor could be expressed in me or such a child. I may look like him, but he doesn't affect who I am. I don't think I have his character or personality. I believe that my mother and father shaped me, my friends and my surroundings. That is certainly a point on which there are different opinions. But I don't have to know anything about my donor.
I want to encourage parents of donor children
My story is a positive one. That's why I don't feel the need to change existing fertilization laws. This is not my struggle. I only tell my story in order to encourage other parents of donor children to deal with them as openly and well as my parents do with me. I am convinced that many people are donor children without knowing about it.
INFORMATION
The Sperm Donor Register Act
- With the law on the regulation of the right to knowledge of descent from heterologous use of semen from July 2018, every person who has been conceived by donating semen as part of a medically assisted artificial insemination after treatment from July 2018 has the right to experience who he is from This is done by asking a central sperm donor register at the German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information. In addition, the judicial determination of the legal paternity of the sperm donor is excluded: In this way, the sperm donor is exempted in particular from claims regarding custody, maintenance and inheritance law.
- Since the foundation of the European Sperm Bank from Copenhagen in 2004, the company says that more than 35,000 children in more than 100 countries around the world have been conceived with ESB sperm donation. The Donor Children Association estimates that there are around 100,000 people in Germany who are the result of sperm donation.
- According to information from the ESB, almost every tenth couple in Germany between the ages of 25 and 59 is unintentionally childless (source: Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Seniors, Women and Youth). There are many reasons for this: If the male partner is unable to produce or has an inherited disease, then medically supervised treatment with donor sperm is one way of making the wish for a family come true. Family formation through sperm donation is also an option for same-sex women or single women.
You can find more information on the Sperm Donor Register Act here: bundesgesundheitsministerium.de.
Would you like to read more about experiences with sperm donation? Here you can find the experience report of a mother who had a child through sperm donation without a partner: "Why I chose a sperm donor"