From the Stacks: Quick Takes on Books, Pods & Docs (July 2025)
When Journalists Investigate the Fertility Industry—And Find Themselves in the Story
My list of books, podcasts, and documentaries related to donor conception keeps growing. "From the Stacks" is where I will share my thoughts on what I've been reading, watching, and listening to from time to time. I approach these with as much of a critical eye as I can manage as a solo parent of two busy little kids. These aren't formal reviews, just my quick and honest take. A quick note: I purchase or borrow everything independently and receive no compensation from authors, publishers, or affiliate links. Have a suggestion? Send it my way!
When journalist Rachel Lehmann-Haupt decided to become a single mother using donor conception, she embarked on a journey to explore how advances in reproductive science are creating new forms of kinship and challenging traditional notions of family. Her 2023 book Reconceptions: Modern Relationships, Reproductive Science, and the Unfolding Future of Family combines her personal experience with insights surfaced through her professional investigative skills. What I enjoyed most was her candid exploration of connecting with her son's donor siblings (they use the term "dosies") and managing complex emotions around extended genetic family networks. The book has its limitations: the author's access to resources and generally positive experiences do not reflect reality for all families.
Investigative reporter Valerie Bauman found traditional sperm banks expensive and unwelcoming in her late 30s quest for single motherhood, so she entered the unregulated world of freelance sperm donation. Her 2024 book Inconceivable: Super Sperm Donors, Off-The-Grid Insemination, and Unconventional Family Planning blends memoir and investigative journalism to explore the prohibitive legal, financial, and medical obstacles that push many single people and LGBTQ+ couples to seek alternative reproductive pathways. For me, her interviews with donor-conceived people, biofather/donors, and her own mother provide a glimpse of perspectives often missing from fertility narratives. More please! Be warned: her investigation reveals disturbing truths about "super donors" with hundreds of offspring, sexual harassment in donor groups, and virtually no control over prolific donors across multiple platforms.
When University of San Diego law professor and investigative reporter Dov Fox concluded his podcast on the fertility industry's biggest hoax, he could have ended the story with scandal and systemic failure. Instead, Part Two of "Donor 9623" (released in 2023) elevates the story to something far more powerful: a deep examination of the radical act of trusting what we cannot fully understand. Fox explores what happens when a family affected by the Xytex and Donor 9623’s deception chooses to make a leap of faith and trust their gut, despite all external evidence suggesting caution. I could not stop listening.
When investigative reporter Sarah Dingle learned at 27 that she was donor-conceived, she turned her professional skills toward uncovering the truth about her origins and discovered a web of corruption spanning decades. Brave New Humans: The Dirty Reality of Donor Conception (2021) exposes a dark side of the fertility industry: hospital records routinely destroyed, under-the-table trading of eggs and sperm, women dead, donors exploited, and ultimately, donor-conceived people denied the option to gain access to information about their origins. For me, the book's greatest strength emerges in its final chapters, where Dingle's vulnerability and willingness to share her inner processing transform the narrative into a profound reflection on what it actually means to discover family, piece together identity, and navigate the complex emotions of finally having answers after years of searching. Readers should be aware that she tends to treat genetic identity as the primary component of selfhood in ways that may feel reductive to those who value chosen family in addition to biological connections.
Have you read any of these? Share your thoughts below!
Sarah Dingle's book is quite a read! The history of the fertility industry (particularly in Australia) is illuminating and important for everyone entering the donor conception space to be aware of as background for decision making. And seeing how poorly many donor conceived adults are still treated by the fertility industry to this day shows any claims that it now operates ethically are false. Unfortunately, its not currently available from the Australian publisher so we can't stock it at DCP Hub's bookshop which is dedicated to donor conceived people and their families.