I remember thinking: 'God, they want a lot of spit.'
I saw my results
and they were really unexpected.
So this is the book my mum made me
for my second birthday:
'Natasha and her mummy live in a single parent family.'
'After a long time mummy went to see a special doctor,
who helped put Natasha in mummy’s tummy.'
I describe myself as a donor-conceived person.
Donor conception is when you use somebody
else’s sperm, egg, or embryos
to conceive a child that you’re going to carry.
I thought about who my donor was a lot when I was growing up.
It varied from if I'd watched a film,
and I liked the actor in the film
and thought: 'Oh, I wonder if my donor has eyes like his?'
Or: 'I wonder if he's got dark hair like I do?'
So I think the curiosity came from a really natural place
and it's still there now for me.
That was when the
was set up and began recording people
who were born through donor conception.
I’m lucky that I’m kind of even on the system.
It was very much just kind of this nice piece of information
but it didn’t answer any questions
and I found that probably quite difficult.
What did make him feel more tangible to me
was the characteristics and his interests,
especially the chatty and extrovert part
because I think that's how I...
well I would like to think that's how I come across to people sometimes.
These small bits of information you can make a connection from
and you can feel some sense of warmth.
So in 2005, I was 13
and I had a lot of emotions and a lot of feelings.
I saw as a 13-year-old, they’ve got it easier than I did.
They’re going to have this information that I have been
trying to access for decades.
What the law did allow,
was that if you had donated between 1991 and 2005,
you can come forward and you can say:
The reason it’s disappointingly low is because
there hasn’t been an awareness raising campaign about it.
You know people aren't told that you have
this new right now that you didn't have before,
and you're free to use it if you wish.
The lack of power to do anything about satisfying the curiosity
sometimes really got to me.
It also kind of made me keep going, because I’m like:
'the information’s out there, I just don’t know it.'
When I first heard about DNA testing, I was a little bit sceptical.
I remember thinking: 'God, they want a lot of spit.'
It was funny, but it was also kind of exciting
because you're like: 'goodness, what could come of this?'
What I remember just crossing my fingers for was
maybe some really distant cousin on my donor’s side
and then just trying my very best to forget about it
and not think too much.
In all of my working life I have never known anything
that has exploded like this,
it is quite phenomenal.
You yourself don’t have to have taken a DNA test
and have a bit of your DNA in that database
for you to be found
I'm sat on my bed and
I am like ferociously clicking.
and it said my mum’s name and the DNA match we were,
which was 50%,
and below it said
somebody, half sister.
and I just remember staring at the screen
and then laughing, like joyfully laughing.
The conversation quickly turned to, well:
While I grew in a kind of very open and fiercely proud way
of our circumstances, a lot of people didn’t
I felt like a responsibility to start on the right foot,
to make sure that first initial contact was done in the right way.
The fact that, as an only child,
someone right in front of me, was right there
and they said they were my half sister.
I... yes, flabbergasted, and ecstatic.
I mean I’ve got 1,230 relatives on here.
The rights of my donor don’t…
they are in my mind.
You’ve got to be respectful of the fact that donors,
in all good faith, were given information
that their identity would never be known.
But looking back, it's an assurance that
they should really never have been given.
So I think that we have to now
engage with the fact that we have conflicting rights here.
I think it’s not about what’s fair
what’s not in terms of anonymity,
it’s about what do we do to safeguard
and what do we do to ensure we have responsibility to both sides.
Obviously with the increase of DNA websites,
you could get an unexpected email
We must be saying to parents, please, please,
Some people are learning that they’re donor conceived
as a result of them or a genetic relative
taking one of these tests for completely different reasons.
There is no obvious place for them to go for professional support.
I think the DNA testing companies have to
take more responsibility than they are doing.
They are putting these tests out there,
and there is a consequence to them.
For professional support services,
somebody needs to pay for them.
I think the young me…
Yes, I would have said I have the right to know,
it’s not fair that I don’t know.
Theoretically, yes, I think people do have a right to know
basic information about their heritage.
The practicalities now, that we have about making that a reality,
I think is a very complex circumstance.
Knowing that my donor is out there,
I just don’t know anything.
I know it sounds weird but I got used to that feeling
because you get used to knowing nothing
apart from the fact that something does exist
but that’s it.