1 Sperm Donor, 17+ Kids, and a $5M Lawsuit - YouTube

-Growing up, I had two brothers and a sister.

Two years ago, we found out that

we have at least 17 half-siblings.

-"Sorry, this is probably the weirdest text you will ever get,

but I'm looking for a Maddy who was conceived

using donor 8928.

Hello, I'm Allysen. And apparently I'm your sister."

-I was looking around on campus thinking,

"Well, now every boy with brown hair

and green eyes is potentially my brother."

-It was definitely shocking to find out

how many of us there were.

It was very interesting -- the idea that somebody,

essentially, is suing because you exist.

-This case involves a medical institution

and its fertility clinic.

-I had many reservations as to the potential pitfalls

of being a sperm donor.

-To my knowledge, this is the biggest lawsuit

from a sperm donor about the misuse of their donation.

The lawsuit that we filed is for $5.25 million.

-I think we're gonna start seeing more

and more similar situations

to where these fertility clinics were misusing genetic material

and creating humans in a manner that they weren't supposed to.

The problem is -- is that there is no external oversight

on sperm banks.

And so that's how you can end up with one donor who has 15

or even 50 or, in some cases,

we've even heard examples of 150 offspring out there.

-My name is Allysen. -I'm Ricka.

-My name is Robyn. -I'm Honi C. Gruener.

-I'm Maddy. -My name's Jake Shallenberger.

-I'm one of Bryce's... -Bryce Cleary's...

-Bryce Cleary's... -I'm a donor sibling.

-I'm a donor child.

-And I'm a donor child of Bryce Cleary.

♪♪

-Hi, love.

[ Gasps ] Good morning.

I probably had suspicions starting around 16,

just because the siblings that I grew up with that

were my dad's from a previous marriage looked like him.

I knew my nose was different. I knew my face was different.

I just didn't fit

the family picture, looks-wise, that everybody else had.

I thought, for one point, maybe I was adopted.

But then there was pictures of my mom in the hospital with me.

So I knew that that wasn't it.

And so I started asking questions,

and my mom always just said, "No, no, no."

And finally, when I was 20,

DNA testing was kind of getting popular.

My mom and I were in the car, and I said,

"I'm gonna find out, so why don't you tell me?"

And she told me.

She said, "You're a donor child."

I remember her saying,

"Now you're gonna go look for your family, aren't you?"

And I said no, because to me,

I thought she was talking about a dad.

And I've always been confident I have a dad.

It wasn't until later, a couple of days, when I realized,

wait a minute, there's probably other kids out there.

There's probably other siblings out there that I would have.

I found out my mom used OHSU and found donor number 8928

was the donor that was used to conceive.

I went on the National Donor Sibling Registry site,

and Maddy had already registered herself on there

under our donor number.

-I got Ally's text as I was on my way home from work.

I was waiting for my bus, and my heart just stopped

and my stomach dropped because it was the text

I'd pretty much been waiting for for years at that point.

♪♪

-I just remember being so relieved when she was like,

"Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to talk to you," and I was like,

[Exhales] "Okay, we're gonna have a relationship.

We're gonna have a conversation. This is gonna be okay.

She's not gonna tell me to go away."

-[ Laughs ] -That nerves was over.

But then it's like a whole new nerves of like,

"Who is this person?"

It was probably about six months after we tested with 23andMe

that I realized if we tested with more databases,

we would have more chances of finding siblings.

And so I tested with Ancestry DNA,

and when my results came back, we found Honi.

-My parents told me when I was really young --

they told me about age 8 -- they were getting a divorce.

I was very angry, and they were fighting.

And I asked them, "What other secrets have you kept

from me my whole life?"

Then they had to have a sit-down talk with me.

They sat me down, and my dad was crying.

I have maybe seen my dad cry three times in my entire life.

They explained it to me,

and I didn't really understand at first because I was so young,

but it didn't change anything with my dad.

But he thought it would. And that was the hardest part.

-We are on our way.

-All right, dope. Do you know what Robyn's driving?

'Cause I tried to call her, and there's a car here.

-Jake's driving, like, a little silver car.

Just go knock on the door. It's your brother.

-All right.

-We met Honi, and then we matched to two siblings

who remain anonymous.

After that, we met Robyn and then Ricka and then Jake.

We have a new sibling every six months or so.

♪♪

[ Knocking on door ]

-Hi! -Hey.

-I'm Maddy. -Nice to meet you, Maddy.

-Hi, Jamie. -Hi, Maddy. Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, too. -I was like, "I'm excited

to see who's taller -- Jake or Maddy."

-This is Jamie. -Hi, Jamie.

-I met Ally last night. -Yep.

-Just met Robyn. I met everybody today, other than Ally.

[ Laughter ]

-For me, the most surprising thing about the OHSU visit

was hearing that there was probably 14 or more of us

and then hearing that beyond that,

the donation could be shipped out

to literally anywhere in the United States.

♪♪

-My mom said I didn't walk until 18 months,

so looking at him, I'm like, "He's good."

-Robyn had expressed interest in wanting to contact Bryce,

and up until that point, me, Honi, and Maddy

had all been on the same page of just not really wanting to.

She said, "I'm going to do it." And we said, "Great, good luck."

-I reached out to him over Facebook

and said, like, "Hey, want you to know that I believe

that I'm one of your daughters from when you donated.

At this time, I'd love to get some information from you."

He actually put in the e-mail

that when he donated back in the '80s,

he was told that there would be no more than five

and that they would all be born on the opposite coast.

And I told him, "I can confirm there are more than five

and that we are all from the Oregon area."

I showed Ally, Maddy, and Honi the e-mails.

-I was so angry for him.

And I think my first wording in that first e-mail was,

"Hi, I'm Allysen. I'm one of your donor children.

I'm not looking to have any sort of relationship with you

at this point in my life, but I have

some disturbing information that you need to be aware of."

And I just unloaded everything on him.

And that was the last conversation I had with him

until in May of 2019,

he sent me an e-mail and said, "Sorry to bother you,

but I've decided to pursue legal action,

and my lawyers would like to contact you."

And I said, "Absolutely."

-Prior to participating in the program,

I had many reservations

as to the potential pitfalls of being a sperm donor.

Specifically, I was concerned about my own future children

and any interaction they would unknowingly have with children

produced in the program.

-I'm not part of this lawsuit at all.

This is Bryce's lawsuit,

and I wanted to be there to support Bryce and --

and let it be known that we think that this is wrong.

This shouldn't have happened to him.

And even though we're alive and we are his children,

we support him taking action against

what was done wrong to him.

I don't feel that Dr. Cleary signed up to be a father

to all of these children, so I'm definitely not looking

for any sort of -- that relationship from him,

but I feel for him significantly.

-So, the way that sperm banks work is that they

recruit donors.

They spend two or three months screening them.

They're asking them all kinds of medical questions.

They're running genetic tests.

They're running all kinds of medical tests.

So there's a certain amount of money

that's put into approving a man to be a sperm donor.

And at the point at which he's approved,

then they will need to make a certain amount of money back.

And so they will ask donors to donate at least

once a week for an entire year.

One donation could result in anywhere between zero

and up to eight or nine vials of sperm

that would then be later sold to recipient clients.

And so over the course of that year,

you build up dozens and dozens of samples.

The sperm banks ship them out in their own local area,

but also all over the country and even all over the world.

And they don't have any way of making customers report back.

So there is literally no way of knowing for sure.

And because sperm banks aren't regulated in this area,

you hear these reports of people like Bryce

who find out later on, "Oh, um, it's not just five.

It's 17."

-Growing up, I had two brothers and a sister.

Two years ago, we found out

that we have at least 17 half-siblings.

My name is James Cleary,

and I am Bryce Cleary's second-born natural son.

And I'm also a lawyer on the team of lawyers

that we have representing him in this lawsuit.

-Hi!

-My dad got the e-mail from Allysen,

which really started the ball rolling,

and my dad requested the information from OHSU

on his donation -- "In a very general sense,

just give me whatever information you can."

And they ignored his request. No one ever got back to him.

The lawsuit that we filed is for $5.25 million.

The nuts and bolts of our case are you have a medical student

that was brought in to participate

in a sperm-donation program

and was lied to in order to get him to participate.

They took that material and said,

"We don't care what we told him.

We're gonna use it for whatever we want to use it for."

He doesn't regret that any of them are alive or born.

It's just he feels like he needed to step up

and be a voice for change in an industry

that is really unregulated.

I would say that in general, you guys look more like my dad

than me and my siblings, which maybe my mom

just has strong... -Right.

-...strong genes or something, but it's a crazy small world.

That's for sure. Now it's even smaller.

-And you're really learning how small it really is.

-That is for certain.

-How does he feel about you coming to meet us today?

-He wants me to be a go-between as much as possible.

Even though on paper there's no responsibilities,

but there's definitely a connection, right?

And there's definitely some emotions tied with that.

He has four kids and five stepkids

and grandkids and all this stuff.

That part is kind of why he's not trying to make contact

and trying to find everybody and do all this.

It's not that he doesn't want to.

It's just that it's too -- too overwhelming.

-Sperm banks will both rely on customer reports --

some customers do call back and let them know.

But they also have sort of proprietary algorithms

that they use to try to figure out,

"All right, how many samples do we have?

How many have we sold?

What's the likelihood of people getting pregnant?"

The problem is -- is that there is no

external oversight on sperm banks.

There is no federal agency or professional organization

that tracks how many sperm donors

there are in the United States, how often they're donating,

how often those donations become children,

and how many children there are per donor.

And so that's how you can end up with one donor who has 15

or even 50 or, in some cases, we've even heard examples

of 150 offspring out there.

-We're talking about humans making humans.

There's no regulation and law about making humans.

That's insane. It's absolutely insane.

Guidelines are not significant

when you're talking about creating human life.

-One of the biggest things that weighs on everybody

in this situation

is the unknown of how many are out there

and how many there could be.

So I think there needs to be a way to know --

for every single donor

to know how many and where they are.

If there's no way to record that,

that seems like a good place to start.

-I had always intended to donate,

I think, just kind of to give back.

I knew -- I knew what I had come from and my story

and how I was conceived, and I wanted to, you know,

contribute or, you know, hopefully help out

some families if I could.

I would say after this came to light

and after I found out what the situation was

and how the actual donations are treated,

I have no intentions of donating anymore.

-Those are good.

-Would anyone else eat the garlic green beans

-Yes. -...if I get them?

-I still believe that there is a place for sperm donation

and egg donation, that it helps a lot of people.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that.

But at the same time,

there needs to be more regulations put in place

so that this doesn't happen and you don't end up

with a high concentration of siblings

not knowing in a small, confined space.

-So, somebody taught me

that if you flip a picture upside down,

you look at that person for features instead of their face

'cause you can't recognize their face.

And so you put a grid of all of us

and you flip it upside down, it's like...

-It's like "The Brady Bunch"? -Yeah.

You know, just the cheeks, the nose, the everything...

-Really fucked up "Brady Bunch."

-You would think our generation's fine.

We're probably not gonna end up accidentally,

you know, being with a sibling,

but I would worry more about our children.

-My future children are gonna have to get DNA tests

to make sure that they're not biologically related

to the people they're dating.

And that's just not something they should have to do.

-It's overwhelming to think that this is constantly

going to be going on,

to think that we're always going to be getting new siblings.

But on the other hand, we get these amazing relationships

that come out of it, so it's worth it, I feel like.

The up and down. [ Chuckles ]

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