Woman who discovered she has at least 77 siblings calls for sperm donor reform

When Lyndal found out she was donor-conceived, she started doing a little digging. What she found left her floored.

A donor-conceived Brisbane woman who has 77 confirmed siblings has called for the urgent creation of a national framework to regulate the fertility industry that allowed her biological father to donate more than 300 times.

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Mail, Lyndal Bubke opened up about discovering she had dozens of brothers and sisters across Queensland, NSW, Victoria and internationally after she ordered DNA testing through a genealogy company in 2022.

Ms Bubke, 33, said her parents revealed she and her brother were donor-conceived at Queensland Fertility Group after she told them she was looking into her ancestry.

Just weeks later, finalised genealogy results revealed Ms Bubke also had 11 half-siblings.

That number has since surged to 77, with five of those confirmed within the past two months, including one who died in infancy. Unregulated practices meant her biological father donated sperm 325 times and was paid for doing so, despite claims that donors were not compensated at the time.

“That’s a staggering number, but it’s very likely a significant under representation of the true number of siblings I have, which is well and truly likely into the hundreds. It could theoretically be thousands,” she said.

Lyndal Bubke who could have upwards of 80 siblings, because of a sperm donation bungle. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Records of Ms Bubke’s donor conception and details about the donor were destroyed, with QFG explaining to her parents they were lost to a flood.

Ms Bubke said she had to inform the clinic that she was the biological daughter of the prolific donor and that she was connected to the growing list of half-siblings.

“When I open my phone and see I have a new sibling, that is (my) mental state for the rest of the day,” she said.

“It’s the wondering, it’s the anxiety, it’s the stress of making sure their needs are met and that they can get the information they need. The stress of, do they know?

“It was just this waking horror as the weeks went on and as I found more and more information about the practices of Queensland Fertility Group in particular, but also just the clinics more broadly across the entire country.”

Ms Bubke said learning she was donor-conceived has reframed her relationships and social interactions – she constantly wonders whether the next person she meets could be related to her.

“I go around and I look at people on the street and I think, I wonder if you could be my sibling, you look like my sister, you look like my brother,” she said.

“I can confirm my husband and I are not related … but in those (first) few weeks, there were the horrible thoughts of, what if my husband is donor conceived and we didn’t know? What if one of my ex-boyfriends is a sibling? I’ll only be happy once I know all of my siblings, and I’ll die unhappy then, because I’ll never get that. There’s just no way for me to ever find them all because the records were … destroyed.”

Lyndal Bubke and her brother were donor-conceived at Queensland Fertility Group.

Ms Bubke said her story may sound unique but it “is true for at least 77 other people”.

She said her parents felt betrayed by the clinic, having originally been told each donation would only be used for a small number of families.

While Ms Bubke wished she had known earlier, she did not blame her parents, who were never told who the donor was either.

“They didn’t sign up for this. They would never have signed up for this. Who would?” she said. “They don’t want me to be unhappy. They don’t want me to have a lifetime of uncertainty ahead of me in terms of who I’m related to. This isn’t what they signed up for.”

A Queensland Fertility Group spokesperson said they were aware of Ms Bubke’s circumstances and strongly supported establishing a national donor conception registry.

“Queensland Fertility Group supports ongoing IVF reforms that focus on continually improving safety and transparency, including the move to national IVF laws,” they said. “Three decades ago, there was no legal limit on the number of donations made by a sperm donor and emphasis was placed on the donor’s right to anonymity.

“Today’s donor conception legislation prohibits anonymous donation, and newly introduced Queensland legislation now includes a 10-family limit for sperm donors.”

The spokesperson said they managed fertility clinics’ donor programs under state-based laws, and record keeping was modern and digital.

Ms Bubke has called for the urgent creation of a national framework to regulate the fertility industry. Picture: iStock

Ms Bubke has been advocating for a national framework to regulate fertility clinics across Australia and to create a national record database for donor conceived people, donors, and recipient parents.

“I am working with a wonderful group of people,” she said. “We’re not formally associated, we are just a bunch of donor-conceived people, great advocate recipient parents and even donors who want to see change … What we really want is for the states and the territories to come together with the federal government and to enforce legislation, create a national body that has oversight and control of this. We want … one single source of truth so that there’s no difference between someone in Queensland and someone in the Northern Territory.”

Ms Bubke said she appreciated the recently-passed Queensland legislation that would require assisted reproductive technology providers to be licensed and comply with new standards, including establishing donor conception information registries.

Tim Nicholls MP, the Minister for Health and Ambulance Services. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“States are slowly implementing positive reform,” she said. “Queensland legislation was passed last year, which was wonderful. That has made the big first step of regulating the industry in Queensland. But it can only do as much as state legislation can. A national framework is the only thing that’s going to stop dodgy providers from doing wrong by people, because a sibling in NSW is still a sibling.”

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the country’s health ministers agreed a rapid review into the “regulatory and accreditation environment for the ART and IVF sectors” was needed, including options for “implementation of an independent accreditation body”.

Originally published as Woman who discovered she has at least 77 siblings calls for sperm donor reform