‘A jolt of disbelief’: the long road to finding my donor dad

At 27, I learnt that my father was not my father. Instead, I am donor-conceived. My world was blown apart. But that seismic discovery would pale in comparison to what happened next. I went on a 10-year journey to discover the truth of my own existence, and what I found out about the fertility industry was truly shocking.

I discovered that the fertility clinic of the public Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) in Sydney, which made me, deliberately destroyed donor conception codes: the vital information about which children, and how many, had been made from whom. This included my own donor code. RNSH’s fertility clinic later became part of the huge, private IVF Australia. In 2014, I blew the whistle on this in Good Weekend. I would spend years trying to hold those
responsible to account, in vain. And I would realise that RNSH wasn’t the only one.

I discovered sperm-mixing, egg-swapping, vast batches of siblings and dead women, killed by venereal disease transmitted through donor sperm. I was born in the 1980s, but found studies – including one published as recently as 2013 – showing that up to 90 per cent of donor-conceived children in heterosexual families are not even told they are donor-conceived. For many years in Australia, and still to this day in some countries, heterosexual couples were the only ones allowed to use donor conception.

In the end, after years of sleuthing, I realised that one of my friends was actually my sister. Rebecca Ronan had first emailed me after she saw me on Australian Story, saying she was also donor-conceived, made at RNSH. She then found out that her donor code, too, was destroyed. We became friends. She’s half Italian. I’m half Malaysian Chinese. We look absolutely nothing alike. Two years later, science delivered a truth I would not have otherwise believed: DNA results proved we were half-sisters. Together, Bec and I tracked down the man we thought was our biological father. In 2016, we sent him a letter introducing ourselves and asking him if he was our parent. At the end, we left our email addresses.

Sarah Dingle with her half-sister Rebecca Ronan.Credit: Courtesy of Sarah Dingle.

That August, an email dropped for Bec and me. It was a reply, a polite, curious mix of the mundane and the earth-shattering.

“Dear Rebecca and Sarah, Thank you for your recent letter … Sarah, I’ve just read the piece about you in Good Weekend in 2014, and was appalled. Not just at the loss of your father, but also at the runaround you got from RNSH.”

He mentioned that his donor code at RNSH was AKH. And he revealed that he’d written a letter to his donor children, which he gave to our clinic to pass on years ago, in 1997. It was him. It had to be.

I’ll call him Steven McKenzie. His donor code was almost the same as the one a former RNSH nurse I’d found had dredged from a three-decade-old memory: AKH, not AFH. And – there was a letter? Supposedly waiting for us, for two decades, with IVF Australia?

“Sarah and Rebecca, I am willing to take a DNA test to determine whether I am your natural father … if the test result is ‘yes’, then I’ll tell you everything you would like to know.”

All I could think was: holy shit.

Late in 2016, he sent us an email: at 4.30am. “Hi Sarah and Rebecca, The DNA test results have arrived. They confirm that I am your natural father. Would you like to meet me?”

At the bottom of that email was an attachment. It was the letter Steven McKenzie had written to his donor-conceived children. To us. There was even a copy of the photo he’d left with the letter.

“Yes, half of you came from me: your father wanted you but couldn’t get you, and it was I who did him the favour he needed most. Yes, I will let you know where that half of you came from. Yes, I will gladly meet you if that’s what you want. Yes, I will show you my life, and I will tell you about myself and my relatives. And I will always let you have any medical information you may need …”

That promise of anonymity, so fiercely and maliciously protected by the fertility industry, collapsed. For at least two decades, our biological father had been happy to be identified. He had wanted to meet us, and tell us about our ancestry, his life, our family medical history. He had explicitly consented to all of this, and we had never been told.

The problem was not with our donor. The problem was with the gatekeepers, profiteering from our existence, keeping us apart from our own biological parent by dubious means – against both his wishes and ours.

In 2020, I would discover that Steven McKenzie’s original letter to us had been hiding in plain sight. He’d provided a copy to the Donor Conception Support Group, a volunteer-run organisation set up in 1993 which lobbied governments to pass laws protecting donor conception records and to grant donor-conceived people the right to know their biological family.

In 2010, the group had included the letter in its lengthy submission to the Australian Senate inquiry into donor conception. (The Senate inquiry came up with some quite good recommendations, none of which were adopted by the federal government. Today there are no federal laws around donor conception, or, in fact, the fertility industry.)

My biological father’s personal letter to me, about my own origins, had been on the website of the Parliament of Australia for years. The rest of the goddamn country had received it before I had.

I asked IVF Australia and its parent company, ASX-listed Virtus Health, about Steven McKenzie’s letter and photo, and why he wasn’t told that donor-code destruction would make them undeliverable. “For reasons of privacy, we cannot make any comment on [Steven McKenzie’s] specific case,” a spokesperson replied.

“We have never been able to establish with certainty,” I wrote to Steven, “at what point so many codes were destroyed. The RNSH conducted a somewhat weak investigation and concluded that they were destroyed before March 1984 ... Which would mean that at the time you gave them your letter, they would have known it could never reach anyone.”

My sister, my biological father and me. The three of us arranged to meet in person for the very first time at noon on a sunny spring day. I walked into the Sydney Rowing Club, perched on the Parramatta River, and in the foyer a man stood up. He was formally dressed in a suit and was carrying a briefcase. He had a longish, oval face, a moustache, and wire glasses perched on his nose. Despite all the photos I’d seen, I still felt a jolt of disbelief; I saw nothing of me in him.

Steven and I sat and made awkwardly pleasant conversation until Bec arrived. Steven was definitely a talker. When Bec walked in, I heaved a sigh of relief: now I could stop trying to hold back the tide.

What followed, in fact, turned out to be a tsunami. Steven ricocheted from Brisbane property prices, to medieval history across several countries, to Royal North Shore Hospital and back. It wasn’t a free-ranging conversation: it was a free-ranging lecture. Bec and I sat. Around once every half hour or so, one of us would manage a word or two; that would set him off again. He didn’t ask us anything about ourselves. I started to get annoyed. Who, upon meeting two of their own children for the very first time, asks them zero questions? Who looks at two of their newly surfaced adult offspring and decides there’s nothing to discover?

One of the few times he slowed down was when I got a word in and asked him, point-blank, if he was gay. Bec and I had naturally already googled the hell out of him, and I’d come across a few hints. I was being provocative, maybe, but I wanted something real, not an unrelenting stream of consciousness. The question made him stop and regard me for a second. Then he spoke more carefully than he had before.

“Yes,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you grew up in a country town,” I said. “Was that difficult?”

He relaxed slightly. “Yes,” he said. “I wasn’t really open about it until I left.” He told us more about that: about his relationship with his parents and his brother. About how he felt upon arrival in Sydney’s Kings Cross, a place where nobody asked any questions. And it was good. It was really interesting. He spoke naturally. But gradually he got onto other subjects, the tide rose again, and soon we were riding another impenetrable wave of words.

After more than three hours, I made my excuses and left. I went home and shook myself.

Later, that night, I spoke to Bec. “How long did you stay for?” I asked.

“Oh, probably about eight hours,” she replied, in her pleasant way.

“Eight hours? What on earth did you talk about?”

Bec said there had been a potted history of France, among other things. I couldn’t believe it.

“Did he ask you anything about yourself?”

“Not really,” she said lightly.

I decided that that was enough. I’d found him, met him, there had been no animosity. Mission accomplished. I don’t write this to be deliberately nasty. I write it to explain, to be truthful – and to make space for what I think might be a common experience among donor- conceived people. Part of that truth is: this is no fairy tale.

Sarah Dingle displaying the donor code, AFH, that she had first thought was correct.Credit: Steven Siewert

For me and Bec, and probably others, there was no sudden understanding when we met our biological parent for the first time. No dazzling ray of light. But real people are imperfect. Instead of transcendental highs and crushing lows, the most likely reaction you’ll have to meeting a stranger for the first time is somewhere in the middle. It was an afternoon I’d worked towards for years. Afterwards, the sense of anticlimax was extreme.

I maintained some distance for a while. I processed what had happened. I began to see that maybe it had been a pretty intimidating experience for him, facing not one but two of us at once. And, sitting there, mired in disbelief, I probably gave off quite a stony vibe. I thought about that.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised it was probably true: I hadn’t been so nice myself. Maybe he was feeling raw about the abrupt way in which I’d asked if he was gay. I could easily have been much nicer about it, more gentle. So I decided to say sorry. I wrote him another email.

“I asked if you were gay because I wanted to know more about you, but I didn’t say the usual disclaimer that it means absolutely nothing to me whether you’re gay, straight, a unicorn, etc ... So just so you know: it really doesn’t matter to me ... I’m proud to be related to someone who has contributed to a shift in attitudes throughout their life by being who they really are.”

He appreciated my note. He replied the next day. It was a nice email, sincere and heartfelt: “When you asked me whether I was gay, I immediately gave you an honest answer, and not only because in our joint situation I couldn’t tell you any lies (you’d both had quite enough of those already). I was also as confident of both of you as I had been of my family; regardless of how much or little time it might take, I never thought that either of you would end up any different from them.”

It felt good to read that email. We exchanged a few more over the new year. Each message was conversational, pleasant, something nice to see drop in your inbox. I started to think writing, not talking, might be the best foundation for our relationship.

After a few months I had a sudden realisation. I knew what had been going on that day. My god, I thought, Steven was nervous. He was nervous, and then I
eyeballed him the whole time like a hostile seagull. So he talked more. He talked to cover the silence. And so it got worse. I’d made it worse.

The only way to test this, I thought, was to have another conversation with him. He’d said he was coming to town again for the Anzac Day long weekend; I met him at a cafe.

A few months earlier, my life had been upended again, but in a good way: I’d had my first baby. I brought her along. Steven performed admirably. He’d bought her a soft toy, and looked quite chuffed to hold my child. He’d raised none of his own; perhaps being an instant grandparent was a good feeling. We ate lunch and chatted about any old thing. Steven still talked a lot, much more than me, but it was an exchange now. Maybe, I thought, it would always be like that. Maybe he was naturally garrulous. Maybe I was still wary. That was okay.

At the end of the lunch, I took a photo to record the moment with my ancient phone. It’s a terrible, grainy shot of quite a nice meeting, but I sent it to him
afterwards anyway: Steven in the cafe, holding his baby grandchild and a pink fluffy bunny on his knee. He’s smiling.

Today, I feel quite affectionate towards Steven. I think we understand (and like) each other perfectly well. He’s my bio dad, after all, although I suspect he might be horrified by that term, which is common parlance in donor-conceived circles. I just prefer truth in labelling, and “biological father” is too much of a mouthful.

Steven still needs to feel that there are boundaries between my dad – the man who raised me – and himself. Which makes me laugh: of course there are. My dad is still my dad, even though he died when I was 15. He and no other holds that place in my heart. But the truth is that I have two fathers of different kinds. To say otherwise – that one is not a father – feels wrong. It’s simply incorrect. “Donor” is an industry term, and not the right one: you’re not a donor if you get paid.

Once, he said to me on the phone, “I will always be an optional extra in your life. If you want me, I’m there. If not, not.” It was the best thing he could have come up with, and I know he meant it.

These days, like any annoying kid, I like to shock Steven a bit. I find his persistent quest for boundaries kind of amusing. Once, I rang him on Father’s Day to give him a mild heart attack. “Well, well,” he sputtered, after I wished him a happy Father’s Day, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we.”

“But Father’s Day celebrates all kinds of fathers,” I responded sweetly. “I thought, ‘Why shouldn’t I give you a call?’ ”

“Well, yes, uh,” he said. I think he was rather pleased. Then he hurriedly told me a long story about the last time he went to Turkey.

Once, he said to me on the phone, “I will always be an optional extra in your life. If you want me, I’m there. If not, not.” It was the best thing he could have come up with, and I know he meant it. If you are a donor reading this, copy those words. Here is the template for your relationships with your biological children.

Finding your biological father, in donor conception, is never just that. Your bio dad isn’t just your bio dad. Or your bio mum. You will probably share him or her with others – perhaps many others. Perhaps too many. It’s unlikely you’ll ever have the true number of all your brothers and sisters.

Finding Steven McKenzie also meant asking him for the answers no one else would give. How many half-siblings did I have? From when, from where? Why did he donate? What were the rules of this game? Were there, in fact, rules?

This is what Steven told me. In 1981, he donated sperm to Sydney’s public Royal Prince Alfred Hospital “about six times”. Soon afterwards, they told him no children were born of those donations. (After all I’ve found out, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take this at face value.) Then, Steven donated to the Royal Hospital for Women (RHW), a public hospital in Sydney’s east, for “a few months” in 1981. They paid him $10 a visit (around $40 in 2020 terms). He can’t remember how many times he did it.

Being part of a huge litter is something I can’t look full in the face. It is too disturbing.

I asked NSW Health’s South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, which oversees RHW, whether files at RHW were destroyed: if so, how many files and for what period, what were the reasons, when did that end, and why. I was told they were “unable to help out on this occasion”.

Steven says RHW told him that they would send some of his donations interstate. “The doctor interviewing me told me this to reassure me regarding any worries I might have about future unintentional incest between any of my natural relatives,” says Steven. He hadn’t even considered this. “It’s well and truly in my mind now, though.”

At either the end of 1981, or from early 1982, Steven began donating sperm at RNSH, which made me. Steven donated there for “about two years”, he told me. “From 1981 to 1983 it would have been between 150 and 200 times.”

I was shocked. My biological father had made up to 200 sperm donations at one fertility clinic alone? Each donation of sperm, depending on its quality, can make between five and 20 straws. Each straw is a potential baby. Clearly, Steven’s donations were of reasonable quality, because here I am. If Steven donated sperm only 150 times, over two years he made $2250 – or in 2020 terms, just under $9000.

For me, being part of a huge litter – probably most of us the same age – is something I can’t look full in the face. It is too disturbing. It takes me to a dark place. Mass manufacture will do that to a human being.

Steven says that in 1997, RNSH told him that only a handful of babies had been born from his donations.

“I was told that there was a total of seven: four boys and three girls,” he said.

Four boys, three girls. From the little I’ve found out already, this is far from the truth. And I’m definitely not alone in this situation. After 10 years of investigating the baby business, almost everywhere I look in donor conception, I see a mountain of lies.

* Steven McKenzie is a pseudonym.

This is an edited extract from Sarah Dingle’s Brave New Humans: The Dirty Truth Behind the Fertility Industry (Hardie Grant Books, $35), out May 5. Dingle will appear at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, April 30 and May 2.

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