Alanna Kelly knew she wasn’t an only child, but never thought she would ever find her siblings.
The 18-year-old was told when she was 12 that she was conceived through a sperm donor. In 2010 she decided to enter an ID number she found through a Toronto sperm bank into donorsiblingregistry.com to see if she could find a match.
Within months, Kelly was talking to her brother Zach, a 15-year-old from Vermont.
The two began exchanging Facebook messages to get to know each other better.
“We just messaged each other and told each other random things about ourselves,” Kelly said Tuesday morning from her home in Thunder Bay.
Kelly’s experience took her and her mother, Julie Czinkota, onto the show Anderson in November. While telling her story on national television, host Anderson Cooper surprised Kelly by introducing her to her brother Zach face-to-face for the first time.
“When I first heard his voice and saw him in person it was pretty unreal,” she said. “You wouldn’t imagine that that would happen.”
The two are now on a search for more siblings and, even though he wants to remain anonymous, maybe eventually discover who their father is.
While she understands why a donor wants anonymity, it’s important for Kelly and her new-found brother to find a father-figure.
“You don’t want a hundred kids coming up to you saying ‘hey you’re my dad’ I understand that point, but it’s also hard for the children to go through life and not have a father and know that they don’t want you to find them and don’t want anything to do with you,” Kelly said.
Even still, Kelly said it’s nice to meet someone like Zach who’s had the same experience.
“It’s like I’m not looking alone anymore.”
Czinkota said it was a relief when Kelly found her brother because she had spent years wondering and searching.
“It was amazing to see the two of them together the similarities the resemblance, the mannerisms they’re very much alike,” she said.
It was an emotional moment on Mother’s Day six years ago when Czinkota told her daughter how she was conceived.
A lot of parents don’t tell their children how they were conceived, she said.
While they knew there would be siblings, Czinkota said she didn’t know if Kelly would ever find them.
“It was time for her to know before the questions started,” she said. I don’t know why they hide it but I think it should be open. The kids should have the opportunity to meet their siblings and be part of their lives.”
The new families only got to spend about four hours together when they were on the show last November but were given round-trip tickets in order to visit each other. The siblings are going to each other’s homes this summer.
