Sperm Donor Who Has Had Mother Add Them on Social Media

Three years ago I was a sperm donor for a fertility clinic to put myself through graduate school. About eight months ago, I received a friend request from a woman on social media. Without thinking I accepted the friend request and thought nothing more of it. (I do not use social media frequently and rarely post.) Recently, I saw on my feed that this woman and her partner had conceived a baby. I’m not sure what made me dig deeper but I clicked on her profile.

I first notice we do not have any mutual friends. I went to her friend list and saw that some of her friends had mutual friends with me, so I thought, did I meet this woman at a party or social gathering? I thought this was unlikely as our mutual friends wouldn’t add up to me knowing them personally and surely that would mean we would have had at least one mutual friend.

Upon further digging, I then found that they belong to a group with my fertility donor identifier. As you can imagine, this was quite shocking. I had already looked through the baby photos and pregnancy announcement on her feed and now I feel very conflicted. Not because I want some sort of relationship with their child, but it is wild to visibly see one of my biological offspring and not something I was mentally prepared for. (My wife and I do not have kids, but plan to eventually.) I think my true consternation is that I have not told my wife of this development. She knows I was a donor while in school, but I did tell her that contractually, contact would only occur when the child reaches the age of majority and only at the child’s discretion. Most often, if a child does reach out it is just to get an update on any health developments.

Why would this woman add me on social media? To be updated on any health developments?

I am not sure what advise I am looking for on here… do I tell my wife? I feel guilty for some reason (almost as if I committed adultery or something) which makes me think yes, but I also do not want to cause unnecessary issues in our marriage. I also feel conflicted about remaining friends on social media as I understand some of the reasoning is for this woman to keep apprised of my health. But it feels like an invasion of privacy under false pretenses and I feel very conflicted about seeing photos of this child growing up…