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KID YOU NOT
I didn’t think I’d had any children, then I found 37 secret kids – my life will never be the same, they just keep coming
Peter shared a sweet message about meeting his biological children
A MAN who thought he didn’t have any family of his own was stunned to discover he had 37 secret children.
Peter Ellenstein, now 62, was a sperm donor in the 1980s and 90s whilst trying to raise money to start a theatre company in the US.
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After making his deposits at the local sperm bank, Peter didn’t think anything of it, until a message popped up on his Facebook in October 2017 from one of his biological children.
Speaking in this exclusive interview, Peter, who lives in California, says: “It was from a young woman called Rachel White and from the moment I read it, it changed my life forever.
LIFECHANGING MESSAGE
“It said that she was messaging me under strange circumstances, but that she believed that I may be her biological father.
“I was so shocked it was like a bolt from the blue - I held it out for a friend to read, who couldn’t believe it either. I messaged my then wife and siblings about it, who wondered if it could be a scam.”
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“But it wasn’t. I messaged Rachel back and we arranged to meet later that night, and it was amazing.
“We hugged each other and cried, but we hit it off instantly and ending up talking until the early hours of the morning.”
Since then with Rachel’s help, Peter is now in touch with 36 out of the 37 children who were born as a result of his donations.
He said: “I met up three weeks later with Rachel again, and she had a list of another 11 children that she had found.
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“Then I went on a genealogy site and I was finding another one each month and began reaching out to them.”
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BUMPER BROOD
Amazingly Peter has met with 34 of his biological children so far and is in regular contact with at least a dozen of them.
He said: “When I first made those donations I never imagined it would come to this.
“At the time, the clinic told me the donations were anonymous, although I agreed that any offspring could track me down in the event of a medical emergency - if they needed my bone marrow for a transplant for example.
Meeting all my biological children has enriched my life enormously
Peter Ellenstein
“So I went away and mostly forgot all about it.”
Now Peter says that meeting his biological children is the best thing that has happened to him.
Peter regularly goes to family dinners, has attended several of their weddings and even took a three-week trip around Europe with one of his sons.
Peter met daughters Ashleigh and Alex as recently as two years ago, and son Kyle, who recently got married a few months ago.
He said: “Ashleigh is the last one I have met, and I met her for the first time last summer.
“Alex messages me now whenever I go on a date and says ‘Is this going to be mum?’
“When Kyle messaged me for the first time, he started it off with ‘Hello father, what number does this make me?’”
What are the legal implications of becoming a sperm donor?
In the UK you are required by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to sign a consent form.
A maximum of 10 families can benefit from your sperm, with parents being permitted to request sperm for siblings if they wish.
Thanks to amendments to The Human Fertilisation & Act (HFE Act), which were added in April 2005, the anonymity of donors has been removed.
Children born as a result of sperm donation can now request access to identifying information about their donor once they reach the age of 18.
This includes a full name and last known address.
Some centres will ask you to provide information about your family and medical history and something for individuals conceived by your donation to read, should they wish when they reach the age of 18.
You have no legal responsibilities to any child created from your donation and the person who received your donation will be their legal and social parent.
Your name will not appear on their birth certificate, and you will have no rights over their upbringing or have any financial responsibilities.
ENRICHED LIFE
Peter is in a private Facebook group with all his children and has noticed that they share his love for board games, podcasts and puns.
He has been previously married, and been in several relationships, but had never started a family of his own, but now he is getting more than he ever imagined.
“Meeting all my biological children has enriched my life enormously,” he said.
“It's truly the best thing that has ever happened to me.
“It’s made me learn a lot about myself and made me a nice person.
“I never had a family of my own and perhaps it has made it easier that I didn’t have any ties to a biological family when I started to meet my donor children.
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“It’s not the same relationship that you have if you raise a child - some of them I’m very close to, and some I have a lesser connection with.
“The relationships I have with them are based on what they want from me.”
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