I’m 23 & have SIXTY siblings – now I’m on a mission to meet them all
FROM a young age Kianni Arroyo knew that her family looked different to others – instead of having a mum and a dad, she had two mums.
Kianni, a paramedic who lives in Florida, said that as she got older, she began to understand that she’d been conceived via a sperm donor.
Growing up she was always fascinated about who her donor might be, but unfortunately the donor profile was kept private.
She told the : “I used to make Father’s Day cards for my donor because I didn’t have a dad. I never did anything with them.”
The private profile meant that the children conceived from his sperm couldn’t know anything about him.
For years Kianni was kept in the dark about who her sperm donor was, but after appearing in a promotional video for the donor company Xytex – the donor changed his mind.
The company had told Kianni’s mum that they believed she was the first live birth of this particular donor.
Once his profile was made public, it meant that Kianni was able to make contact with him when she turned 18.
But as she waited for her 18th birthday to come around, Kianni decided to do some more research into her roots which led to the discovery of her siblings.
Kianni signed onto a register with the sperm bank which marked her down as the offspring of her donor’s sperm and hoped it may lead to finding her siblings.
When she was 15, a family contacted her – the mother had twin daughters who shared a donor with Kianni.
She said: “They came to Florida on holiday to go to DisneyWorld and I only live 30 minutes away, so I decided to go and meet them.
“They were only three years old, so they didn’t really understand who I was - they just knew I was ‘sister’.
Over the years Kianni met around ten of her siblings but was still waiting for her 18th birthday so she would be finally able to meet her donor.
When the day finally came, she realised just how much she had inherited from her donor – now she sees him once a year.
Kianni said: “It really helps me learn more about myself.
“It’s so nice to have contact with him, not so much as a parent, but a friend.”
But even though she’d finally met her donor after all those years, her donor register kept growing, meaning she had dozens more siblings than she’d previously thought.
Kianni said there’s at least 63 siblings that she knows about, some of which are in the US and Canada.
She made the surprising discovery that she has some younger siblings on the other side of the world, namely in Australia and New Zealand.
In her home state of Florida, Kianni has 12 siblings – some of whom she sees regularly.
Some of her sisters even made it to her wedding.
As the pandemic goes on and restrictions get looser, she’s determined to meet more.
So far, she’s met at least 23 of them and have a family reunion planned for the first time next month, with around 25 children going.
Kianni’s even started an Instagram account to try and keep in touch with her brothers and sisters who want to be involved in each other’s lives.
She said: “Not all of them are interested in being in contact and have met up once before going back to their own thing, and that’s cool.
“At least I got to meet them in the first place.”
As the pandemic scuppered their plans to meet for a long time, Kianni is eagerly anticipating next month’s reunion.
Kianni is on a mission to meet all of her siblings and can't wait to discover more of them.
