The three families are close and see one another as often as they can, over Zoom and in real life. Illustration: Ngadi Smart/The Guardian
Caroline Pearson, a podcast producer from London, was a few days into her maternity leave when she discovered that her unborn daughter had two sisters. She had visited a website a friend had told her about, which allows recipients of donated sperm (such as her) to search for families who have used the same donor. If theyâve registered with this website, they could be anywhere in the world, since the US sperm bank chosen by Pearson and her husband, Francis, ships internationally, and the website, Donor Sibling Registry (DSR), is also US-based with an international reach. Pearson couldnât resist, and typed in the donorâs reference number.