Featured Image Credit: Jaclyn Frosolone / Jamie LeRose
Topics: News, US News, World News
Kit Roberts
A woman had an awful shock when she found out that she had more than 200 siblings.
When Jaclyn Frosolone did a test with 23andMe on January 1 2021, only to discover she had hundreds of half-siblings, she quite reasonably assumed there had been a mixup.
But the 24-year-old was in for a massive shock when it was confirmed that there had not been any mistake.
Initially she had thought she only had one half sister, but soon dozens of people began appearing on her screen.
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After messaging some of them looking for answers, Frosolone eventually found out that she had been conceived by a sperm donor.
Her donor father's sperm had been used for at least 200 other people.
Not only that, but it is still being sold.
Frosolone called her mom, who tearfully confirmed the bombshell.
“It’s been three years, but I still haven’t really processed this information,” she told USA Today.
Jamie LeRose, 23, also found that she is in the same group of people.
She said: “I have quite a few gay siblings that would have to go through donors to have children.
"I would rather die than find out that one of them had a baby with our dad because they didn't know."
LeRose says that in her dating life she is 'grossed out' by people her own age, fearing they could have the same sperm donor as a father, and recently dated a man in his 40s to reduce the risk of incest.
This isn't the only reason LeRose and her siblings are desperate to find out more about their sperm donor father.
LeRose suffers from PCOS, gastroparesis, borderline personality disorder, chronic UTIs and vaginal infections, extreme eczema, ADHD, anxiety, POTS, severe blurry vision, depression, migraines, OCD, cysts in her vocal cords and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS).
She said: "I share basically 90 percent of that with the majority of my siblings."
Frosolone, meanwhile, lives with a brain-fluid filled cyst in her spine that could result in paralysis, anxiety, depression, supraventricular tachycardia, ADHD, severe vaginal pain and dermatitis.
LeRose said: "I just want answers about half of my genetics because I’m lost and no doctors can help me."
Donor conception in the US is largely unregulated, with only minimal state and federal oversight on the industry.
There is also no right for a donor-conceived person to find out the identity of their donor, though it can sometimes be possible to discover this through independent genetic testing.
It's a deeply traumatic experience for people.
Frosolone said: “The only people who understand what we are going through are those who are literally going through it too.
“Although it seems like there's nobody out there, there's actually too many experiencing the exact same thing I am, which is terrifying.”