The computer spit back seven possibles – including one photo that looked an awful like her. So Virginia gave Dr. Todd Whitehurst a call. 

"I just want to know basic information that most people have access too," the girl said. As a physician, her "dad" could appreciate the importance of a medical history. He was even open to meeting her . . . and eventually nine other children born using his sperm banked at the San Francisco Bay area clinic. 

Virginia found her nine half-siblings on the Donor Sperm Registry Website, which she shared with Whitehurst. He then went on and posted information about the two kids he has from more traditional methods. He's since met several of his "kids," including a Gavin from Pennsylvania and Tyler from New York. Like Virginia's mom, the boy's mothers were involved in the process – they were there when their kids met Whitehurst. 

It's nice to see a sperm donor who cares about the kids. I've often wondered if the ease of "donation" makes it easier for men to forget about what can come out of the process. Egg donation is much more rare – and a more arduous process – but I can't honestly say that women care more for their progeny than men. We treat them differently, definitely, but I wouldn't say we "love them more." 

So why aren't there more donors like Whitehurst out there?

Image: KSV

Sally is a British citizen who gave birth to son Alex in 2004. Riikka Turunen gave birth to son Kasper in six weeks later in her home country – Finland. Their sons' father? A sperm donor identified only as "Jens," sperm sample 3001, a Dane who likes football and plays jazz piano. Since finding each other online via the Donor Sibling Registry, they've been e-mailing back and forth over the thousands of miles that separate their lives. They plan to meet – along with Turunen's partner, Satu Sorjonen – in 2012.

I was fascinated when I read up on the Donor Sibling Registry in May. But I was looking at it from the angle of sibilings meeting siblings, from the perspective of a number of adopted friends who've confided in me over the years about the curiosity they say has been simmering since they first learned they were adopted.

But a mum, looking for a sibling who isn't really a sibling? I understand – sort of. That same curiousity is there. They're seeking someone who shares their child's blood, who may share their ski slope nose or their oddly long pinky toe. They're looking for confirmation that traits they can't place in their own families have roots somewhere out there.

Still, I can't help wondering if they'd care about these kids if that information was there, in front of them. If a woman bears a child through the traditional insemination process, she (usually) knows something about the guy. If he goes on to father more children with someone else, she usually isn't jumping up and down to meet the kids. Even stepmothers often tell me their love for their stepchildren developed because this is the child of the man they love – the fact that their own biological children share the same genes is secondary.

So why bother?

Adopted kids who go searching for birth parents or siblings, children born thanks to sperm donation who are seeking their "father" and any other kids he may have helped produce, are usually raised in an environment where a shared blood line is limited to just one person or none at all. There are dozens of reasons why they might begin their search, but it comes back to one thing – finding someone with that common link.

What these mothers are finding isn't a link common to themselves but to their kids. Where no other answers are available for those kids' burning questions, it's a toe in the door. And for the mums, it's pretty incredible to open their hearts to another kid for the sake of their own.

Image: Science A Go Go

Source: Times Online