Questions people actually ask

It is a place where people looking for a known donor and people willing to be one can find each other and talk. Behind it are two brothers, Matti and Janne, whose own family came about through a private donation.

What that means in practice: we run the site, and nothing else. We are not a clinic and not a sperm bank. We do not handle, store, test or ship anything. We do not screen anyone's health, we do not verify identities, and we do not give medical or legal advice.

What we do is narrow on purpose:
• put people in the same room
• keep it readable and free for the people looking
• be clear about what you have to work out yourselves

Yes. Messaging is for members only, which keeps drive-by contact out. Signing up asks very little of you: you choose what appears on your profile, and you can change or remove any of it later.

You do not need a card, and you never will to read a message someone sent you.

• Single women who want a child without going the clinic route, or alongside it
• Couples, same-sex and different-sex, working out family planning together
• Men who want to donate
• People thinking about co-parenting, where the donor stays part of the child's life

Different shapes of family are the point. What matters is talking straight and saying early what you actually want.

Nothing, if you are looking for a donor. Not to search, not to write, not later.

Plenty of sites in this field let strangers message you and then charge you to open it. We think that is a bad way to make money and we do not do it: a message you receive is always readable, whatever else changes.

If we ever charge for anything, it will be something new that does not exist yet. We will not take away something you already have.

Not in the way that word usually implies, and we would rather say so plainly.

• We do not verify identity. No document checks, no background checks.
• We do not screen health. Nobody here has been tested by us.
• We do act on reports. Accounts that break the rules or that people report get looked at and removed.

What you can actually go on is behaviour you can see for yourself: how quickly someone replies, when they were last here, how long they have been a member, and whether what they say stays consistent. That is worth more than a badge somebody bought.

Yes.

• Your profile can be hidden or deleted outright at any time
• Deleting the account removes your conversations along with it
• We do not sell your data, and we do not run advertising trackers on pages that would give away why you are here

How long you stay, and what you leave behind, is your call.

Donating and receiving privately is not itself against the law. What it changes is who the law treats as the child's second legal parent, and that turns almost entirely on whether an HFEA-licensed clinic was involved.

Yes, and this is the part people most often get wrong.

Outside a licensed clinic, a known donor can be the child's legal father. That carries the possibility of child maintenance liability, and it also gives him a legal standing in the child's life that some donors did not intend to have.

Donation arranged through an HFEA-licensed clinic works differently: the donor is not a legal parent of children conceived from his donation. That difference is the main reason people go through a clinic at all.

No, not on the question that matters. A donor agreement written between the adults does not change who is a legal parent, and it does not remove a maintenance liability. Courts have been consistent about that.

It is still worth writing, for what it forces you to discuss: contact, names, what the child is told, what happens if somebody moves or changes their mind. Treat it as a record of an honest conversation, not as protection.

For a female couple who are married or in a civil partnership, the non-birth partner is generally treated as the second legal parent where conception happened with her consent. For unmarried couples the position is different, and the parenthood election forms that a licensed clinic uses exist precisely to settle it.

Conceiving at home outside a clinic can leave a non-birth parent with no automatic legal relationship to her own child. If that applies to you, it is worth advice before conceiving.

A person conceived through a licensed clinic can ask the HFEA for identifying information about their donor once they turn 18. A private arrangement sits outside that register — but consumer DNA testing has made anonymity unreliable in practice regardless.

Most people here take the view that being open from the start is easier than a discovery later, and agree between themselves what the child will be told, and when.

Speak to a family solicitor before anyone conceives. One paid hour with someone who does this work will tell you where you stand far better than any page on the internet, including this one.

Nothing here is legal advice. We are not solicitors, and this is deliberately general — the details that decide your situation are the ones we cannot know.

We do not test anyone and we cannot advise you medically. What we can tell you is what people in this situation commonly ask each other for:

• Recent STI results — typically HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B and C, chlamydia and gonorrhoea
• Genetic carrier screening and family history, if it matters to you
• The paperwork itself, not a summary of it: the lab report, with the date and what was tested visible

Tests have a window in which a recent infection does not show yet. What that means for timing is a question for a doctor or the lab, not for us.

Asking is not an insult — it is the normal cost of doing this well, and anyone reasonable will expect it.

• A video call before you meet. Voice, face, and whether the story holds together
• Consistency. Does the profile contradict itself, or the messages?
• Documents in their original form, with dates, rather than retyped or cropped
• Your own read on it. Stopping a conversation costs you nothing. Talking yourself past a bad feeling can cost you a great deal

You can stay fairly private without making the other person feel shut out.

• Go one step at a time: the chat here first, then a separate email address, then a phone number if and when you want
• Keep full names and addresses off your profile, and meet somewhere public the first time
• Use channels you set up for this and nothing that is tied to your everyday accounts
• Watch what files carry — photos and PDFs often hold location and device data
• Agree on the rules together: what can be shared, what stays between you

Fewer, usually.

• One or two real conversations are easier to keep straight and fairer to everyone in them
• Say so if you are talking to more than one person. Finding out later reads as dishonesty even when it was not
• Keep the same short list of questions for each: health, expectations, contact later, timing
• There is no clock. Pausing is allowed, and rushing this is how people end up somewhere they did not choose

Every route is different, but the shape tends to be the same:

1. You write to each other here and see whether it fits
2. You talk about expectations, roles, and what contact looks like afterwards
3. You share health results, and re-test if the timing calls for it
4. You plan the practical side: timing, place, method
5. It happens the way you both agreed

Some people do this at home, some involve a doctor or a clinic. Both are normal, and which one is right depends on things we are in no position to judge for you.

It is the most common route people take privately, and it involves no sexual contact. The donation is collected in a clean cup, and a needle-free syringe is used to place it. People also call it at-home or self insemination.

Why most people here choose it:
• The boundary is unambiguous, physically and emotionally
• Far less room for expectations to be misread
• Everything about it can be agreed in advance

• At-home insemination, as above — the usual route for a known donor
• A clinic, with IUI or IVF using a known donor. More expensive and slower, and in some places it changes the legal picture considerably. See the legal section
• Co-parenting, where the donor is meant to be part of the child's life from the start. A different arrangement, and one that deserves its own long conversation

This site is not for arranging sex. Profiles or messages that treat it that way get removed, and we would rather say that here than pretend it never comes up.

Donating a lot in one area, over years, ends up with a number of genetically related children growing up near each other. Most people who think about it decide to hold a line somewhere:

• Keep some distance between the families
• Agree on a number, out loud, rather than assuming
• Say how many children there already are. Somebody deciding whether to go ahead with you is entitled to know that