Glossary

A donor whose identity was not intended to be disclosed to recipients or donor-conceived people under the program's rules.¹²

Assisted reproductive technology.³

Medical or clinical support for reproduction, including procedures and contexts broader than donor gametes.³

A record of what changed, who reviewed it, what evidence was used, and what decision was made.²³

A broad term often used for a genetic parent, and sometimes used by donor-conceived people for a donor.⁴

A person who gave birth to the child. This may or may not be a genetic parent.⁴

A fertility clinic or care provider involved in donor-gamete treatment, family-building, records, counseling, or coordination.³

Product settings and permission controls that govern visibility, sharing, contact, identity release, updates, and access to sensitive records.²³

A durable record of a consent decision, including scope, timing, parties, source, version, evidence, review status, and changes over time.²³

A process for requesting, reviewing, granting, limiting, changing, revoking where appropriate, or escalating a consent decision.²³

An organization that stores, manages, distributes, and tracks donor sperm, eggs, or embryos.³

Donor-conceived adult.⁴⁵

Donor-conceived person.⁴⁵

Informal shorthand for donor sibling. Some people use it warmly; others find it too cute or minimizing.⁴⁵

A donor who is identified to or has a known relationship with the intended or recipient parent(s) before donation.¹²

A discovery about genetic parentage, donor conception, siblings, or relatives through consumer DNA testing or related evidence.⁴

A sperm, egg, or embryo donor whose information, updates, consent preferences, and donation outcomes may need durable tracking.³

The lived experience and family-building context created when a child is conceived with donated sperm, eggs, or embryos.³

A person who shares a sperm, egg, or embryo donor connection with another donor-conceived person and may have been raised in a different household.⁶⁷

A clinic, cryobank, agency, or organization managing donor recruitment, records, eligibility, updates, and obligations.³

People connected through the same donor, often across different households or families.⁶⁷

A family that includes one or more donor-conceived people or was formed through donor sperm, eggs, or embryos.³

A person conceived with donated sperm, eggs, or embryos.³

The broader network of people, institutions, records, relationships, updates, consent decisions, and obligations created by donor-gamete use.³

The market around sperm donation, egg donation, embryo donation, clinics, cryobanks, donor programs, donors, intended parents, recipient families, and donor-conceived people.³

A family-building context involving both donor sperm and donor eggs.³

A person who provides eggs for another person's or couple's family-building process. Also called an oocyte donor in clinical contexts.³

A family-building process where donated embryos are used to attempt pregnancy.³

A person or couple who donates embryos for another person's or couple's family-building process.³

A donor profile or claim supported by documents, attestations, institutional review, source records, or other reviewable evidence.²³

A parent label a household may use for a legal parent, raising parent, or guardian who is called father.³

A person who provides sperm or eggs for reproduction and does not intend to parent the resulting child.³

A person whose sperm or egg contributed genetic material to the child.³

A person connected through shared DNA, including donor siblings, donor relatives, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and ancestors.³

A person who carries a pregnancy created from the gametes of intended parent(s), donors, or both, and does not provide the egg for that pregnancy.³

A parent who carried the pregnancy and may or may not be genetically related to the child.³

Fine-grained settings that let people specify what can be shared, with whom, under what conditions, at what time, for what purpose, and with which exceptions.²³

A person with legal or court-recognized authority or responsibility for a child, depending on jurisdiction and documentation.³

People who share one genetic parent. In donor conception, this may refer to people connected through the same donor.³

New or changed medical-history information that may need to move from donor, clinic, cryobank, or family records to relevant parties.²³

The app's family-centered unit for organizing people, relationships, permissions, and pilot workflows.³

A workflow where donor identity or identifying details become available according to consent, policy, age, law, or program obligations.⁶⁷

A donor whose identifying information may become available to donor-conceived people at a specified age or under specified program rules.⁶⁷

A consent process where a person receives understandable information about the decision, risks, benefits, limits, alternatives, and future implications before agreeing.²³

A person or couple seeking to become a parent through donor gametes, embryo donation, assisted reproduction, or a gestational carrier arrangement.³

A donor known to the recipient or intended parent(s), often through family, friendship, or a direct arrangement.¹²

A donor-conceived person who learns later in life that they are donor-conceived.⁴⁵

A person recognized as a child's parent under applicable law or legal documentation.³

A parent label a household may use for a legal parent, raising parent, or guardian who is called mother.³

A parent who does not share a genetic connection with the child.³

A donor who is not identified to the recipient or intended parent(s) at the time of donation.¹²

Not parent expected or non-paternity event, an umbrella term used in DNA-discovery communities when genetic parentage differs from what someone expected.⁴⁵

Clinical term for egg donor.³

A family-role label for a legal parent, raising parent, or guardian in a household.³

Donation arranged outside a licensed clinic, regulated program, or institutional record system.³

A parent or caregiver who raises a child, regardless of genetic or gestational relationship.³⁸

A family that used donor gametes or embryos to conceive or build a household.²³

The product's household-centered framing for family users in the app.³

A parent who used donor sperm, eggs, or embryos to conceive or build their family.⁴

The structured map of donor-conceived relationships across donors, offspring, sibling groups, households, clinics, and related people.³⁸

Single mother by choice.³

Single mother by choice.³

A parent or parent-like figure whose relationship is social, emotional, or caregiving rather than genetic.⁴

A person who provides sperm for another person's or couple's family-building process.³

A broad term for a person who carries a pregnancy for another person or couple. It can refer to gestational or traditional surrogacy.³

Assisted reproduction involving someone outside the intended or recipient parent(s), such as a gamete donor, embryo donor, or gestational carrier.³

A surrogate who both carries the pregnancy and provides the egg, making them genetically related to the child.³