Sperm Sisters's Podcast

In this week's episode of Sperm Sisters , we're joined by our very first guest, Freya Lyon (@thequeermama) a second-generation queer mum who is donor conceived and has gone on to use a donor herself. Freya shares her incredible story, from navigating a sibling network that's even bigger than ours to building a meaningful relationship with her donor (who, we're delighted to repo...

It’s how much to have a behbeh?!  In this week's episode of Sperm Sisters , we're following the money. As three donor-conceived sisters, we investigate the rising cost of fertility treatment , IVF , and sperm donation in the UK, asking whether eye-watering clinic fees are pushing people towards finding donors on social media instead. Oh, and Mandy’s back! We call Mum to hear what fertili...

When you've spent decades apart, it's not just the big life events you miss, it's the glorious teenage disaster stories and embarrassing moments that help you piece together who your long lost sibling really is.  In this week's episode of Sperm Sisters , we're swapping DNA discoveries for teenage traumas as three donor-conceived sisters continue the important work of expos...

"Unofficial sperm donor sells BBC 'baby batter' delivered with tomato passata." Yes, you read that right. Inspired by a recent BBC Wales article, this week on the Sperm Sisters podcast we dive into the alarming rise of "DIY" fertility options and the hidden risks that come with them. For many people, soaring fertility treatment costs have made unofficial sperm donatio...

In this deeply personal episode of Sperm Sisters , we share the exact moment we discovered we weren't biologically related to our dads. The split-second before and how our entire identities changed after.  As three donor-conceived sisters born during the largely unregulated era of 1980s sperm donation, we revisit the conversations that changed our lives forever and the emotional aftermath of...

How many children can one Viking sperm donor really create? The answer is probably more than you're comfortable with. In this episode of Sperm Sisters , Gemma takes us on the fictional journey of Danish sperm donor Sven Spermerson . Based on real-world sperm donation practices, fertility industry trends, and current research, we follow Sven's donations across borders to discover just how...

How much of your personality is actually yours… and how much is inherited chaos? In Part 2 of Nature Vs Nurture , Nat takes us deeper into our own experiences as donor-conceived sisters - comparing our habits, personalities, emotional reactions, and the slightly alarming similarities we never expected to share. Through a series of increasingly personal questions, Gemma and Helen open up about the...

🧬 Are we unique individuals… or just recycled DNA with WiFi access? In Part 1 of Nature Vs Nurture , we spiral into the weird and wonderful world of genetics, inherited traits, and whether our personalities are actually our own… or just biologically pre-installed. We dive into famous cases of identical twins raised apart , the wildly creepy similarities they shared, and ask the ultimate question:...

👀 What happens when a sperm donor wants to make contact? In this episode of the Sperm Sisters Podcast , You’ve Got Male , we explore one of the rarest and most emotionally complicated sides of donor conception  - a donor reaching out and wanting a connection. We talk about just how close we came to discovering real information about our own donor, and what it means when anonymity, identity, and b...

😳 What happens when sperm donation stops being anonymous… and starts becoming an obsession? A judge. A birth certificate. A man claiming to have fathered hundreds of children. In this fictionalised bonus episode of the Sperm Sisters Podcast , we step inside the mind of the judge overseeing a disturbing and deeply modern court case: should a prolific sperm donor be legally recognised as a father?...

Red Flag Relatives |  The Risk of Accidental Incest  What if the person you’re dating… was actually related to you? In this episode, we dive into one of the most uncomfortable - and very real - conversations around donor conception : the risk of unknowingly forming relationships with biological siblings. We explore just how close donor-conceived people can come to crossing that line, and share a r...

What do you say to a sister you’ve never met? This was our first message... The Message That Changed Everything | Donor Conception, Finding Siblings & First Contact Reaching out to a sibling you’ve never met is a moment you can’t take back. In this episode, we share the story behind our very first messages - the nerves, the overthinking, and the courage it took to finally press send. We talk a...

A single message. A life quietly about to change. In this bonus episode, we follow Emma’s story - beginning with a message she almost didn’t open: “Hi. I think we might be related.” Donor conceived and raised with honesty about her origins, Emma had always understood her story… until it became real in an instant. What unfolds isn’t a dramatic revelation but something softer and more complex. From...

Spit on That Thang | DNA Testing, Ancestry Results & Finding Biological Relatives In this episode, we explore the world of DNA testing and genetic ancestry - how to take a DNA test, which DNA kits we recommend, and what you can actually learn from your results. We break down popular consumer DNA tests and share our own real-life experiences, including what happened when we discovered unexpecte...

In this episode, “Facebook Sperm,” Helen takes us into a world most people don’t even realise exists, where sperm donation is being arranged online, in plain sight, through social media and private groups. It’s happening right now, closer than you think - maybe even up the road from where you live.  We explore this modern, unregulated side of donation: the risks, the realities, and the questions n...

This week’s bonus episode is an anonymous story from a sperm donor who donated during what we call the Wild West of sperm donation - a time with little regulation, few questions asked, and consequences no one fully understood. Why did he donate? What was he told at the time?  This is a rare, unfiltered perspective from the other side of the story, one that raises just as many questions as it answe...

In this episode, Nat puts the big questions on the table while Gemma and Helen do their best to separate fact from fiction - with a few surprises along the way.  What starts as myth-busting quickly turns into something more, as we share our own donor discovery story and the moments that changed everything. And just when you think you’ve got your head around it… we dig into the murkier side of sper...

This episode, “Mandy’s Story,” shares the honest and deeply personal account of our mum’s 8-year journey through fertility treatment in the 1980s. It’s a story of resilience in the face of loss, of holding on to hope when everything felt uncertain, and of the emotional and financial toll placed on families during a time when questions weren’t encouraged - and honesty wasn’t always given. After yea...

What does it actually mean to belong? In this episode, we dive into the very human need to be part of something - a family, a team, a clan . Because at our core, we’re wired for connection, for safety, for knowing where we come from… even when the answers aren’t what we expected. We talk about identity, DNA, and the stories we told ourselves about where we were from - and how wildly wrong we turne...

These bonus episodes go further - bringing context to our Tuesday shows and shine a light on the realities faced by hundreds of thousands of donor-conceived people across the world.  Every Friday, expect to hear how we found out that we're donor, what we message to newly discovered siblings, and how it feels to find our actual donor, what would you even say?  Join us—Gemma, Natasha, and Helen...

It’s our first ever episode of Sperm Sisters and we’re kicking things off in Natasha’s living room armed with snacks, questionable knowledge, and a very eye-opening quiz. Helen puts us through our paces with a pop quiz on the donor-conceived world. Spoiler: we were not prepared. From eyebrow-raising facts to genuinely shocking truths about the fertility industry (past and present 👀), Gemma and Na...