The Australian Surrogacy Podcast Episode 85: Emma-Lee. Emma-Lee is an egg donor, and is also a genetic genealogist – she researches genetic histories as a hobby. This means she can find out all sorts of information about someone, based on them, or their genetic relatives, having uploaded their DNA to a consumer site, such as Ancestry.com.

If you are interested in finding out more about genetic genealogy, or ‘DNA detecting,’ you might be interested in the Podcast that Emma-Lee talks about, Cut Off Genes. You can also read about another DNA Detective, Rose Overberg, who is a donor-conceived person herself.

Emma-Lee is an egg donor for her friends Cara and Jayden. I interviewed Cara for the Podcast back in Episode 39.

Some things that Emma-Lee and I talked about which may be of interest include:

• Donor conception and how there’s no such thing as anonymous gamete donation with the increase in DNA consumer sites like Ancestry.com
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• The importance of talking to donor-conceived children about their genetic heritage and providing information to them – rather than waiting until they find out themselves. This Podcast interview with VARTA’s Kate Bourne may be of interest.
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• Egg and sperm donation in Australia and entering a donor agreement.
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• You can also read about my reflections as an egg donor, now that there’s a child born from my donation.
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• This episode with Gail, of Donor Conception and Beyond, who is raising a donor-conceived child.

You can find more information in the free Surrogacy Handbook, reading articles in the Blog, by listening to more episodes of the Surrogacy Podcast. You can also book in for a consult with me below, and check out the legal services I provide.