Woman shares wild family saga; 'My mom told me my dad was dead, but he's actually ALIVE and I have over 50 siblings.' UPDATED 2X

"My mom told me for 20 years my dad was dead, later I found he was alive and I have 50+ siblings"

Growing up I always remember my mom being a single mom. I don’t remember the exact moment she told me my dad was dead because I was so young. I have kind of always known.

My mom told me that my dad died in a car accident 2 months before I was born. She said he was hit by a drunk semi driver and was killed instantly on impact. Obviously no one questions their own mother especially at a young age, you believe their every word.

This is what I always told people growing up if they asked about my dad. I would say I don’t have a dad because he was killed. My mom even on financial aid papers claimed to be a widower.

Whenever I asked questions my mom said things that just made sense to me. like “mom why don’t you have any photos of dad”. She told me they all burned in a house fire started by the dryer right after I was born.

This made sense because we had moved to a new house when I was very young. Also again why would you question your mom?

I tried to research my dad and his death but nothing ever came of it. I assumed bc back in the day they didn’t have computers or internet. If they didn't it wasn't much. I later found out his name was “Donald” according to my birth certificate.

The only reason I found this out was because I had to force my mom to give to me so I could get my license at 16. A lot of the times I tried to ask more questions when I got older but my mom became visibly angry when I did this.

Eventually I just stopped because I didn’t want to get yelled at anymore. This strained our relationship growing up. My mom and I were never really close. I tried asking family members questions and literally no one even my grandma knew.

My mom and grandma are super close so this was VERY odd to me. The last time I asked my grandma before I finally asked my mom for the last time my grandma said "I don't know who or where your dad is but I know your mother loves you." Holy crap when my grandma said that I got goosebumps and knew something was very wrong.

Fast forward to when I was 19 I started to see a therapist after being a victim of attempted kidnapping and diagnosed with PTSD. My therapist told me to take a DNA test to possible find out more about my dad's side.

This way I could still find out info without having to ask my mom and making her angry again. I asked my mom to pay for the DNA test because I was a poor college student at the time.

She right away got so mad and yelled at me. She claimed that the government was going to clone my DNA and sell it. So I never ended up taking it. After that I didn't bring it up again.

Fast forward to when I was 20 years old around thanksgiving time. My 3 friends and I had a fun day of baking cookies and talking all day long. Until I brought up the stories of my past and my dead father. I had a conspiracy theory I made up about my life totally as a joke. I told my therapist once and now my friends.

The Theory: What if my mom had a one night stand with a rock star / musician and got pregnant with me. She never was able to find him again so she couldn’t tell him. My mom is considered the "golden child" in her siblings.

So in order to remain in the good graces of my grandparents she told them she eloped and got married. Then got pregnant with me and shortly after my dad died in a car accident right before I was born. Would make total sense why none of my family met him or knew him if it was a short relationship.

My theory wasn’t too off. BUT THIS IS WHAT REALLY WENT DOWN. My friends all told me that all my stories didn't really add up. A lot of them said they seemed odd but never said anything. My friends paid for me to take a DNA test finally. I took a DNA test and then confronted my mom about it.

She finally confessed that she always wanted to have a child but never wanted to get married. She found a clinic that would do sperm donor babies. She had 2 miscarriages before me all with different donors. The 3rd time she got pregnant with me. The name donald came from donor. There was no dad that died in a car accident, all lies.

With my results from the DNA test I mostly just had first cousin matches and didn't think anything of it. But what I didn't know was the first cousins and half siblings share a similar amount of DNA. A few weeks later a girl messaged me claiming to be my half sister.

She was able to answer all my questions I always had. The reason my mom never could answer those questions weren't because she was upset he died, but because she truly didn't know. The girl who messages was correct that she was my half sister. She introduced in a group chat to the other siblings.

This was 3 years ago and we only had 30 half siblings at the time. Now we are up to 50 and expecting more to still pop up. We are from all over the country. We will never truly know how many of us there is because of how messed up the donor industry is.

As for my “dad” being alive we found this out recently. After years of research and sloothing my sisters found our donor through leads from the DNA test. We have reached out to him and he is grateful to know about us.

We have limited contact due to his family and his horrible wife. His wife wants to keep her good “reputation”. Like helping families get pregnant is a bad thing. Partly I think his wife is homophobic.

His wife is very religious and most of our siblings parents are same se% couples. Our donor never told his family about being a sperm donor in college because of his extremely catholic family. I wish he would tell them and we could meet our cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

But it’s unlikely he ever will. He talks to us on rarely to say happy birthday or merry Christmas but that is mostly it. Thankfully he was able to give us updated correct medical information.

There has been a few donor child stories on the THT podcast but my story is a bit different from what I have heard before on the pod. Sadly this is common in the donor children community. Many parents lie to their children with no planning to tell their kids. In the 90s no one ever expected that DNA tests would be what it is today.

EDIT / UPDATE: as of 1/24/23 we have just found 3 more siblings. we now have 53 siblings and counting!

Update 1:

OOP: I am in USA. All that I am about to state goes for my country. If you are in another country you would need to do your own research on laws. but one thing to note is that the USA is the LEAST strict and does the least amount of testing. most other countries actually banned anonymous donations now.

There are bills currently going around to ban anonymous donations in the USA, but they are still be voted on.

If his wife doesn’t want to met us that is 100% fine with me. siblings have asked to meet our donor not her. she shouldn’t be controlling his every move if he can meet his offspring or not. it should be HIS choice.

A lot of what you are saying is what society has taught you to believe about sperm / egg donations. many DC children are very against that way of thinking. No it is not just donating and saying bye.

you are CREATING HUMAN LIFE! no matter if you directly or through someone else it is still creating life. it is 100% natural to want to know where you come from. ask any DC child or people who are adopted will say the same thing.

even children with 2 loving amazing parents still say they want to know more about their bio mom or dad. it should NEVER be something you just do to make some quick cash and then forgot about.

sperm / egg donation companies advertise that way bc they know college aged students need quick money and are too naive to think it fully though. offspring will and can search for you and there is nothing illegal about that, especially after turning 18.

legally speaking fertility / donation clinics are supposed to give off spring medical information/ updated medical information whenever they want. if the clinic doesn’t have up to date info they are supposed to contact the donor to get that info to give to the offspring.

like i said before the industry is very sketch and many do not follow the laws / rules put in place. we contacted our clinic many different times as off spring and even our parents and the clinic would not give us updated medical info that we deserve to have and have a right to.

The donor also have the right to ask / know how many live births there has been using their sperm. live births would mean how many babies made it to term and were born into the world and lived.

Some clinics will give identifying info and some won’t. but again they are sketch and did not do this. our donor wanted to know and ask them many times. our clinic went so far to tell the parents not to report back live births (this is technically illegal) because they wanted to sell more sperm from our donor.

he was a very popular donor so the clinic wanted him to keep donating so they could make more money. even after he wanted to stop they kept asking him for more.

most parents of my siblings did confirm that in the contracts it said that after 3 live births the rest of the sperm would be “retired” / destructed so that there wouldn’t be too many from each donor. obviously this was a lie and did not happen. because the live births weren’t be reported accurately we will never truly know how many of us there is.

the main reason we needed to find our donor was because our sister (now 27) at 22 years old had cancer. thankfully she lived and is in remission now, but the kind she had most people die from. we needed to find out if it came from his side.

if it did it would be necessary to know what kind of screenings / regular test / check ups we should be doing to prevent or catch the cancer early enough to treat it. also we could be actively be doing things as preventatives.

the biggest reason to find him was for medical updates information not to met him and have him as a father figure. none of us expected him to be a father figure to us. some of my siblings don’t even want to talk or meet him.

because the USA is the least strict there has been many cases of criminals donating when they legally shouldn’t have been able to. other case included people with auto immune diseases, mental health issues, or other diseases. in our case our donor should have been deferred (denied) bc he has ADHD.

he has passed this on to many of us and now we have to suffer with it because he was not put though the correct testing he should have been by law. by law all potential donors are to be screened for STDs, STIs, mental disabilities, physical disabilities...

background check for criminal history, they have to be 21+ and seeking a college degree or have graduated with a college degree. most clinics here in the USA are sketch af and only screen for STDs and sometimes mental illnesses like DID, downs, or bipolar disorder.

Our donor never had to answer us when we contacted him because he was originally anonymous, but he did so obviously that means he wants to talk to us and keep in contact.

he was very happy to find out about us he even cried. legally there is nothing that says we can’t try to find him or contact him. him being anonymous just means that the clinic will not give out any identity information like his name and address. we are allow to do DNA test to try to find the donor and reach out to them. if he didn’t want to have contact us he could have left us on read / not respond.

Most siblings think it would be cool to meet him / his family. it isn’t a life or death thing. we will be okay not meeting him or his family. but it would be a cool thing to do to see what similarities we have or things in common with them.

OOP responds on the donor and if his family is okay with the new information developing

OOP: oh no i’m not making assumptions his wife IS a horrible person. he donated long before they even met. when they were dating she always knew about his past and how he donated.

when we found our donor she was still his fiancé. if she didn’t like this life or didn’t want it she could have backed out to marrying him. but she didn’t. when you marry someone you marry all of them, past, present, and future.

our donor always knew that he had children out there he just didn’t know how many because of how sketch the industry is and the clinics were lying to him. so before we even found him she knew about us. we never asked him for anything except for updated medical information because the clinics wouldn’t give it to us and we have a right to it legally.

we didn’t ask him to be a father to us, we just wanted to know about him to know more about yourselves. it’s natural to want to know your bio family, where you come from, and what traits come from where.

our donor actually wanted to meet us and he brought it up first not us. the reason we can’t meet him is bc his wife won’t let him. like i said in the post she doesn’t want to ruin her “reputation” and she doesn’t want his past getting out.

our donor did not tell his family and was wanting and willing to come out and tell the truth to them. mind he is in his 50s now so his parents are pretty old. but his wife is the one telling him no that he can’t tell anyone or she will divorce him.

that right there is a terrible person. keeping someone you love from meeting people they are related to when they want and are willing to.

our donor never had kids in his house he raised so he was very excited to find out there was so many of us and he was even a grand father. his wife on the other hand was very rude and mean about it. I know all this information because there are some of my sisters that talk to him more and they rely info / messages to the rest of us.

OOP on if she is checking to make sure that when she meets someone and it’s not one of her new siblings

OOP: actually a lot of us are checking. every time we see someone who look like us or our sibling we wonder if they could be related to us. all my siblings before getting into serious relationships make their partner take a DNA test. it’s not weird it’s protecting yourself. sadly that is what we have to do bc the industry is so terrible and unregulated.

Update 2:

I was 20 when I discovered that I had 30 siblings. I recently turned 25, and now we have 54 siblings! We are likely to find more during the holidays, as many people receive DNA tests as gifts or buy them on sale at that time.

Unfortunately, we will never truly know how many of us are out there. The donor industry is extremely sketchy and doesn’t keep accurate records of live births, allowing them to sell more.

I got married in September, and we just received our photos back. Four of my sisters were my bridesmaids, and one of my brothers attended as well! Most of them drove between 7 to 13 hours, and some even flew across the country to be there for the wedding weekend.

This experience was something I never dreamed of as a little girl, but I am so happy I got to share my wedding day with my siblings by my side. My friends, who bought me the DNA test (mentioned in the original post), were also at the wedding and met my siblings for the first time. It was a full-circle, surreal moment.

Now onto the real tea of the evening. My family members still had no idea about any of this. Literally none of them! My wedding was my “debut,” you could say, of my mom's long-held secrets. I was tired of bearing her burden because it was never mine to hold.

The wedding program included my siblings' names and labeled them as "Sister of the Bride" or "Brother of the Bride." My mom had refused to give a speech at the wedding for some reason. I told her that a parent typically does this and that the groom's father was giving one.

She still refused, so I told her my sisters would instead. She said that was fine, but I don't know what she expected them to say since they weren't going to lie for her too. They checked with me first to see if it was okay to talk about the siblings and how we found each other. I said, f it! Do it!

During the speeches, it felt like dropping a bomb and then walking away. I got to sit back, grab some popcorn (but no literally, because we had popcorn as a cocktail snack), and watched the show unfold. My three sisters gave a speech together, and it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

They talked about how we all took DNA tests and how I was found. The looks on my aunts’, uncles’, and older cousins’ faces were PRICELESS. I am so glad we have a videographer and should be getting those back soon too. They were in utter shock and disbelief.

Their reactions were almost as entertaining as the speech itself. It felt incredible to finally be able to speak openly about my life. Of course, I noticed a lot of whispering and strange glances afterward, but that was no longer my problem to fix.

Thankfully, my narcissistic mother managed to keep it together during the wedding—of course, because she has to maintain a front for the world. However, the following week, once we were back home, she was absolutely awful to me, and she still mostly is. Ultimately, I believe it was 1000%?worth it, and I would do it a million times over again. The truth always comes out.

Since we found our donor and have some contact with him, I sent him photos of the siblings and me from the wedding. He was thrilled for us, wished us the best, and said we all looked beautiful. I replied, “Thank you so much! I guess we have some good genes.”

My friend and I met Morgan and Lauren at a live show, and saying it was one of the best moments of my life is an understatement. For the photos you’ve all probably been waiting for (I know Morgan has!), I will attach them. It was a challenging journey to get here, but thank you all for the love and support along the way!

Additional Information from OOP:

OOP: One thing I forgot to mention! Not super important but just funny. Sister with black hair and I came from the same clinic! We are a few months apart so our moms likely crossed paths while at the clinic because it wasn't a big town. When I first met her it felt like I already knew her. I joked it’s because we had already met on the shelf at the clinic.

OOP on why her sperm donor should not be donating so much because of 50+siblings being found:

OOP: It isn't his fault at all! Like I said the industry is extremely sketchy.

Many of our siblings are twins or triplets too. When using IVF methods they implant a few to have a higher chance of at least one live birth.

Our donor did want to stop donating but the nurses almost in a threatening way told him he needed to come back because he was so popular. He was a young dumb college boy and likely didn't think of the repercussions.

So when there are signs up at college campuses for donating I hate it. Another reason there is so many of us is because our bank shut down.

It is unclear if the company went bankrupt or just closed down for another reason. When they closed all donations were kept and sent all over the country. So the “rules” basically went out the window when that happened.

There are not really any actual laws for the industry. There are “guidelines” I believe its around 15 live births for every 15,000 people.

But again, its not a law its just encouraged. Most banks don't follow because they only care about money. It is not an FDA-regulated industry even though it should be.

Did OOP’s sperm donor continue with donating or not

OOP: He stopped donating a very long time ago, but speem can stay frozen for a long time. There are some studies showing 3+ decades and it is still viable. We could have siblings that aren't even born yet even though he hasn't donated in probably 20+ years.

Commenter: I hope they have instant DNA tests soon, like on your phone instant. So people can make sure they are not siblings before hooking up.

OOP: My in laws are the most amazing and wonderful people - but I did make my husband take a DNA test just in case we happened to be long lost cousins or something after I found out. came back not related at all so no worries there!

OOP: Just wanted to share an update with the people. If you think I'm a bad person that is fine too. People on the internet only see a sliver of our life and our story. I wanted to go into my new life and marriage burden free. Most of my extended family members after the wedding I will never see again unless some dies or has another wedding.

Our grandma was holding the family together and once she passed shit hit the fan. Thankfully I was able to tell my grandma before she passed while she was still well enough to understand. She wasn't upset and was very accepting and happy I got to meet my siblings.

If you go back to the original post, most of the reason my mom came up with this was to stay in the good grace of my very catholic grandparents especially my grandma. Now that she had passed I thought it was the best time, and likely the only time ever in my life my siblings and extended family members wound ever be in the same room.

My sisters didn't go into detail about my mom lies. They kept the focus on the the good things like our siblings relationship and how they found me and my husband and I.

Basically said we are all here today because we decided to take a DNA test for fun and we found 54+ siblings. They never once said anything about donors, lying, or the dead dad story. But you can probably assume my family members were left to use their imagination.

Even before speeches happened my mother was not nice the entire day. She wouldn't smile in photos, she didn't show up to the mother first look she instead showed up 4 hours late, she never once complimented me or my husband about the wedding, my dress or how I looked.

Then to top it all off I reluctantly I agreed to a mother daughter dance after my maid of honor convinced me many months prior. Instead of using that as a special time between us to chat or say how happy she was for us, she used that time to yell at me (quiet enough you couldn't hear over the loud music, but loud enough to know it was rude yelling) and belittle me.

All while I had to stand there dancing with her smiling to make it look like it was all fine and dandy to our guest. So ya after all the awful things did that day and throughout my life, I wasn't going to let her ruin our wedding day. If you think what I did was wrong, I can live with that. I cannot live with a life of lies and secrets.