Increasing numbers of children are born each year using sperm or eggs from donors. Dr Petra Nordqvist, Lecturer in Sociology at the University has previously done research with parents who used donated sperm or eggs to conceive their children. She found that many donor-conceived children and their parents felt a connection with their donor, and she became intrigued to know what the donor thought: did they also feel a connection? And what about their parents, brothers, sisters and children?

Her project, with Dr Leah Gilman a Research Associate at the University, is the first major study of egg and sperm donors since the move to identity-release donation in UK clinics.

Petra and Leah interviewed donors, their parents, siblings and fertility counsellors working with donors.

Experiences of donation vary hugely from person to person. Egg donation is done at a clinic and most women do not know the identity of the person who receives their eggs, though any children born from their eggs can apply to find out their donor’s identity when they are sixteen. These donors can feel a strong connection to the child even though they have never met, and may never meet.

Other people arrange sperm donation themselves, often so that the donor and recipients can meet before the donation, and have the option to keep in contact after the child is born. Being a donor was a responsibility that donors took seriously. It wasn’t always possible to predict the part that donation would play in family life over the years that followed, and donors’ parents or other relations might have different ideas about what the connections meant.

As a first-of-a-kind study the team, working with Hazel Burke a Communications Officer at the University, wanted to share their insights with donors, families and counsellors in easily accessible resources.

They used feedback from the Project Advisory Group to create videos, leaflets, event recordings and even a collection of short stories.

All the resources are free to access on this website.