Hi!

I joined the registry just over a year ago. At first I was nervous. Did I really want to make contact with anyone? My life with my daughter was wonderful, why mess it up? I was worried after I saw the number of children that had come from our donor. It was a scary few days. Then I realized I wasn't messing anything up, what I was doing was giving my daughter an extended family. Happily, I can say that I benefited too from this by finding new friends. The reason I wanted to do this is because my daughter was starting school and I wanted to give her some answers before the questions came. Right away I was treated warmly by all the group members. They were so willing to share their lives with us. It made it easy for us to share too. After a few months of emailing I wanted to start a quarterly newsletter. It allows us to connect without everyone, most of the families post updates. We get to hear about everyone and even share photos. My daughter and I have also been lucky enough to meet three of her half siblings and their wonderful families. We met one family when they came here on vacation. The other two families we met were during our vacation to another state. I feel truly blessed to have gotten such a wonderful daughter from this as well as having the opportunity to meet (even if only through emails) some truly amazing people. Our group is supportive and really seems to care about each other. Another family started a group for us on a website too so we could stay connected. We have now reached 20 children from the same donor. I am so happy that my daughter will always have family to connect with since she is an only child. I hope all of you are as lucky as we are!

Elizabeth