How I found a Detroit donor and the mind-blowing things he told me...
Remember that 1993 was when my mom first told us about our sperm donor. There weren't many resources for Sperm Donor Offspring. Internet resources were in their infancy. I searched and found one support group...amazing! Candace Turner was the leader of the group. I joined their monthly conference calls, with a few other donor offspring, nationwide, and one donor. The donor was from Detroit...also amazing! He was a year younger than me, not my donor, but he was aware of Dr. Trythall and he donated sperm for Dr. T's medical heirs.
The Detroit donor...let's call him John Doe Donor, not his real name of course. The stories he told were incredible, frightening and perhaps true. John DD started calling me individually too. I remember trying to cook dinner, take care of my three young kids and talk to John, while writing notes about what he told me on any little scrap of paper I could find. Why would he join a group like this and keep calling me anyway? I think he really had a need to talk, to tell others what he was doing. He had to keep his sperm donor activities secret from everyone else in his life. Who else could he talk to?
According to John Doe Donor from Detroit:
(1) As of 1993, in Detroit, there was one donor who donated for 30 years and had over 3,000 offspring. There were also 15 donors with over 1,000 offspring. Yes, thousands!
(2) At times, John DD would put on a white medical coat, pretend he was a medical intern and attend the births of the babies that his sperm created. The parents did not know he was their donor. How intrusive and unethical!! Obviously, the attending doctors had to assist him in doing this.
(3) At times, when women were having trouble getting pregnant with donor insemination, he would perform "Natural Insemination" or "NI". He would have intercourse with the women, in the doctor's office, to get them pregnant.
I spoke with John Doe Donor again in the summer of 2018. He confirmed all of the above. He stated that he was still donating sperm, but only to families that already had his offspring and wanted to use his sperm again. He has donated for close to 40 years, as he started as a college student and is now in his late 50's. With frozen sperm and splitting semen samples, one can only imagine how many offspring he has. How many other donors are there like him?
(3) John DD again confirmed doing "NI". He said there were 2 rooms for this "procedure", one like a medical setting and one a bedroom setting. The women select which setting is more comfortable for them.
(4) John DD said that he now works with the sperm bank helping new donors get acclimated to the work of donating sperm. International Cryogenics is the only sperm bank in the Detroit area. Dr. Stephens, one of the doctors who purchased Dr. Trythall's practice, was the Medical Director there for a long time, and has recently retired.
What are your thoughts about these medical practices? I totally understand the desire to have children. It is life changing, instinctive, part of the human drive to survive and flourish. But...what about these practices? Thousands of offspring from one person? I could have 3,000 half-siblings ....two offspring born each week for 30 years, from one man. My donor half-sibling group was born 1955-1984 (so far). We would be that largest group...3,000 half-siblings! Already at 41 DNA-confirmed half-siblings, it is hard to keep track of my relations.
