A therapist's reflections on grief, identity and donor conception

A few years ago, after spending some long weekends in Ireland, I started telling my husband how deeply I felt drawn to those places. I couldn’t quite explain it, but something about the landscapes, the people, and the atmosphere resonated with me. Half-jokingly, I’d wonder aloud if I had Irish ancestry I didn’t know about. I wasn’t expecting any great mystery, just a passing curiosity.

That Christmas, my husband gave me a thoughtful gift, a DNA test kit. It was meant as something fun, a light-hearted way to explore a bit of family history. I imagined it might confirm a small percentage of Irish heritage buried among mostly English and Viking genes. I completed the test, sent it off, and forgot about it for a while.

When the results came back, I opened the app to see the breakdown of my ancestry. I was surprised to find I was 50% Irish. It felt like an answer I’d been seeking, something that made sense of the emotional connection I’d always felt. Still, it didn’t match the family narrative I had grown up with. My parents had always dismissed the idea of any Irish heritage. I rang to share what I had found, thinking they’d find it interesting too.

Instead, they were quiet. They told me they’d be visiting me the next morning, together.

The day my story shifted

Later that day, I received a message through the DNA app from someone with a 50%. The label indicated a close biological relationship, but I assumed it was inaccurate. I didn’t even consider it might be real and had honestly paid the DNA match section no attention. 

The message explained how that person had helped my parents have me many years ago. They explained their journey and process of how they came to be a donor and advised me that they were there to answer any questions I may have. 

This was the first time I had ever heard or considered that I was donor-conceived, and I genuinely could not believe the information. In a way, it kind of made sense to me, but it was definitely an identity-shaking moment and brought up a lot of ‘oh my god’ moments, the more I reflected on my life and my family. 

When my parents arrived the next morning, they told me I was donor-conceived and explained their experience and thought process. They seemed keen to maintain that this information didn’t change anything and that things would stay the same. I recognise that this came from a place of love, but for me, it felt like things would never be the same. 

It was a moment of profound disorientation. The reality of my identity shifted in an instant. Nothing around me had changed, but everything inside me had. In the days that followed, through communication with the donor, I learned that I had multiple half-siblings, that the donor is Irish, and I gained more insight into who they are as a person. 

It all happened very quickly.

Building a new sense of self

In those early days, I tried to frame the discovery as something positive. I told myself I’d gained a new layer to my story, more understanding about who I was and why I felt drawn to certain places. I threw myself into learning more about the region of Ireland connected to my DNA and even started to feel a sense of belonging there.

Looking back, I can see that this reaction was part of how I coped. It gave me some agency in a situation where I felt I’d had none. By leaning into the discovery, I found a way to make the experience feel like something I was choosing, rather than something that had been withheld from me.

I also found comfort in the knowledge that I had subconsciously known there was more to my story. When explaining to a friend that I couldn’t believe what I had discovered, they pointed out how they didn’t know anyone who had randomly done a DNA test. I guess that resonated with me, and I found a deeper trust in myself and my intuition.

Grief, guilt, anger and shame

When I first spoke about the experience in therapy, I remember feeling oddly upbeat. I shared the story with energy, even a sense of excitement. But beneath that initial reaction lay a far more complex emotional landscape.

Over time, the grief began to surface, not grief for a person, but for an identity I had believed in. I had spent my life assuming I resembled certain family members, believing I had inherited their features, preferences, and quirks. Suddenly, those connections no longer felt biologically mine. I found myself questioning how I saw myself, how I fit within my family, and whether I still belonged in the same way.

Alongside that grief came guilt and a strange sense of fraudulence. Had I falsely claimed these people as mine? Had I unknowingly lived as part of a secret I was never meant to discover?

I also wrestled with the tension of leaning into a culture and identity I had only recently uncovered. It felt both meaningful and invalid at the same time, new to me, not something I had grown up with. While I may have a genetic connection, that’s all it is. That connection is often minimised, and I’ve found that people don’t readily recognise me as being half Irish, if I can even call myself that?

Eventually, the anger arrived, anger at being denied the truth. I understand that, before the year 2000, parents involved in donor conception were often advised not to tell their children. Still, it felt deeply wrong that something so central to my identity had been hidden. It felt like a betrayal, a denial of a right I should have had from the start.

I felt isolated in the experience, and it became clear that this revelation meant far more to me than it did to my parents. After their visit, it became an unspoken topic, something not to be brought up again. My attempt to connect with a heritage that wasn’t theirs caused offence. Once again, I was left feeling ashamed, as though this huge part of my story had to be silenced. Around my family, I kept it quiet. With extended relatives, I kept it secret. It felt difficult because, in sharing my truth, I was exposing my parents’ secrets. That silence created a deep sense of inauthenticity.

Holding space 

One thing I’ve learned, both personally and professionally as a therapist, is that feelings around donor conception are not fixed. They evolve. You might feel grounded one day and heartbroken the next. That is completely normal.

What helped me most was creating space for all of it. Therapy gave me that space. I didn’t need to be consistent or tidy in how I felt. Some weeks, I felt curious and open. Other weeks, I was deeply sad, confused, or angry. And often, those emotions coexisted in ways that felt contradictory. I learned that holding space for conflicting feelings, grief and gratitude, anger and understanding, connection and distance, wasn’t a sign of weakness or confusion, but a very human response to a complex truth.

I had to practice being kind to myself through that process. To honour the feelings that surfaced, even when they were messy or uncomfortable. Even when others didn’t understand, or when my emotions seemed to make others defensive. I realised I didn’t need anyone else’s permission to feel what I was feeling. My experience was valid, whether or not it was shared.

Self-compassion became essential, not as a vague ideal, but as a daily practice. I let myself feel what I needed to feel without judgment. I reminded myself that my response made sense. That I wasn’t overreacting or being ungrateful. I was responding to something real, something that mattered.

Over time, I began to integrate the experience into a broader understanding of who I am, not just based on biology, but shaped by memory, relationships, values and meaning. My identity isn’t defined by one moment or one truth, but by how I’ve met those truths with honesty, care and a willingness to grow. I also acknowledge that this journey will most likely be lifelong, and I am okay with that. 

The isolation of being donor-conceived

Even with a support system, at times I felt deeply alone. That’s something many people experience with donor conception. Before I found out, I knew very little about the donor-conceived community; it simply wasn’t something people talked about. For those around me, nothing had changed. But for me, everything had.

I often struggled with the way others responded. Well-meaning friends encouraged me to focus on the parents who raised me or told me to be grateful for the life I had. I was told things like, “They’re not really your siblings,” or “It doesn’t change anything.” I understand that these comments usually come from a place of comfort or reassurance, not judgment, but even so, they often felt dismissive. They reduced something deeply personal and complex to something I should simply move past.

There were moments when I felt silly for caring so much, like I was being dramatic or making something out of nothing. I questioned myself: Was it ridiculous to want to know who the donor was? To wonder about their family, or to consider the other children as siblings? Sometimes, just using the word “sibling” in that context would make people laugh or correct me. I’ve had people ask me how many siblings I have, and when I’ve explained that I have donor siblings, they’ve laughed or told me, outright, that they don’t count. As if those connections couldn’t possibly matter. As if it’s absurd to consider them part of my story. Those reactions have made me feel small, embarrassed, and somehow naïve for even bringing it up.

And I did understand that most people hadn’t had to think about this before. I didn’t take offence, often, it wasn’t cruelty but simple obliviousness. But still, it made me question myself. When I saw how bizarre or laughable others found it, I felt like I was living in a version of reality no one else wanted to recognise. It was incredibly isolating.

What truly helped was finding people who had been through similar experiences. Support groups, online forums, and reading personal stories reminded me that I wasn’t alone and that my feelings were not only valid but shared. Hearing others articulate what I had felt in silence brought a deep sense of comfort and clarity. Their stories helped me make sense of mine.

We’re not alone 

If you’ve recently discovered you are donor-conceived, or if you’ve known for a while, I want you to hear this: your feelings are valid.

Whether you feel shocked, numb, curious, betrayed, confused, or all of these at once, or none of these feelings  – it’s OK. There is no right way to respond to learning this kind of truth, and it takes time to make sense of it.

As cliché as it sounds, the journey isn’t linear. Some days you might feel clear and grounded, and others, completely untethered. But no matter where you are in the process, you deserve support. You deserve space where your experience is taken seriously, where you can explore what this means for you, without judgment or pressure.

Whether that support comes from a therapist, a support group, or simply someone else who’s been there, you deserve to feel seen and held as you figure this out.

You are not alone.