'I knew I was an IVF baby. I didn't know I had 70 siblings.'

Let me take you back to my 30th birthday.

My husband handed me my present, which I had already planned, because that's the type of person I am — an Ancestry.com DNA kit. I had figured out many things about myself and who I was, but one question loomed, and that was whether I had Indigenous history on the paternal side of my family. (Spoiler alert: I don't.)

I was pretty quick to spit in the tube and send it off, getting excited about what I might find out about myself. I would later say that my thirst for knowledge came back around to bite me this time.

Watch: A couple was implanted with wrong embryo during IVF. Article continues below.

About six weeks went by and one Monday morning, I found myself sitting at home. I'd just finished doing some work and decided to duck to the gym to stretch my legs.

I quickly checked my emails to get rid of the little red notifications in my phone and saw that my DNA results were back. Excitedly, I opened the app. I was confused at first, because a photo of my brother as a little kid popped up as my first match, with 50 percent DNA shared.

But this person had a different name to my brother and sharing that much DNA would have to mean they were my parent.

That's the first time I felt reality slip out from underneath me. Trauma moment number one.

It didn't take me too long to piece together that the person I had matched with was, in fact, my biological father. His photograph looked exactly like my brother at the age it was taken.

I quickly FaceTimed my brother and asked him if he knew anything about my conception. We had always been told we were IVF babies, but we were under the impression that the man we call 'Dad' was our biological parent.

I watched reality slip out from underneath my brother, too, as I showed him the photograph and the results sent to me by Ancestry. Trauma moment number two.

The rest of that day became a blur of looking through the 14 half-siblings I'd also matched with, discovering the identity of my biological father, and then wracking our brains about whether our parents were aware that we weren't our dad's biological children.

We were terrified that we were products of medical malpractice. But a swift trip home the next day allowed us to ease our worries with our parents telling us that they never actually knew whose biological children we were.

IVF was a very new technology in the '80s and '90s, and the ethics surrounding its use were also still developing. See, my father's sperm and the donor sperm were apparently mixed in a petri dish before being introduced to the eggs.

The fertility centre told Mum and Dad to raise us believing we were our dad's biological children and that it was his sperm which allowed them to conceive us. They were also told to never tell us — something they grappled with until I decided to pursue my thirst for knowledge.

After a lot of hugging and tears, we reminded each other that family isn't about blood, it's about love.

Where to from here?

The next logical step was to get my brother's DNA tested through Ancestry as well, to confirm that he was, in fact, my full sibling. I had also been in contact with some half-siblings via the app, and learnt that there was a group chat of about 10 to 12 of them.

Still reeling from the shockwaves of receiving this information, I decided it couldn't hurt to be in the group as well. I spent the next week getting to know each of them as they shared pre-typed blurbs about who they were, how they found out they were donor conceived, and when they connected with each other.

Stomaching that I had 14 or more half-siblings was its own challenge. I learnt that they are all very close with the donor, some having even spent holiday periods together.

My arrival in the group chat, and sharing that I had a brother who would likely match with everyone, spurred on one of the girls to contact the fertility centre and ask if there was an updated list of births that belonged to our donor.

Seven days after finding out that I was donor conceived, I had on my phone a black-and-white list of births recorded next to my biological father's donor ID. Sixty-nine lines, saying either male or female and a year, ranging from 1989 to 2005.

Sixty-nine half siblings.

One of the women in the chat mentioned her sister's birth year wasn't on that list. The fertility centre said the list was still being finalised as they were in the process of converting old paper records to digital records. This allowed us to conclude that there were 70 of us and counting. Trauma moment number three. 

For the following weeks, I moved through the stages of complex grief with a looming anxiety about my brother's results. Even though I knew it changed nothing about our relationship, I desperately wanted him to be my full sibling.

My father was very well-matched to the donor, as they shared a lot of similarities. I often thought I saw myself in my father and that he shared many features with both my brother and me. Six weeks later we received the final answer we needed, confirming that my brother was indeed my full sibling, and conceived to the same donor.

Relief for me, but I'm sure a lifetime of disappointment for my Dad.

The whole journey felt like a movie, and our group chat is now full of jokes about when we will be contacted by Netflix. I spent some time looking up different articles and was shocked to find three other occasions where people have discovered they have a similar number of half-siblings, if not more, due to overuse of sperm donations.

I have heard one horror story that could have been my reality, in which a husband and wife discovered they were half-siblings after they had had children together, the husband not knowing he was donor conceived. Although not my case, it felt too close to home.

But, we do have our own challenges ahead as we try to understand what this means for our children. They will share approximately 12 to 13 percent DNA with their half-first cousins, which could easily total into the hundreds. Although this might not have medically concerning implications for their children, the emotional toll of finding out you are related to your partner is something that I don't want them to have to go through.

I am incredibly grateful that these fertility services were available for my parents, allowing my mother to finally fulfil her dream after 10 heartbreaking years of trying to conceive. However, it is also hard not to be bitter about the lack of consideration these facilities had when allowing so many babies to be born to the same donor.

I hope that in the future there are services available, particularly for the children of those of us conceived in these conditions.

For us, DNA testing will now be something mandatory for our children and something we highly suggest they do with any future partners.

Feature: Canva.