In the mid-2010s, a man named Toby donated sperm to Melbourne IVF. Nearly a decade later, the state’s reproductive authority connected him with a mum and her twin girls. It was, in his words, "magical".

More recently, Toby was connected with another family whose child was conceived using his donation. This time, the process took so long that the six-year-old boy involved spent almost two years believing his donor simply didn't want to meet him.

In the time in between these two moments of connection, the Victorian Government shut down the authority that oversaw reproductive care in the state. In the wake, donor-conceived families have been facing delays in finding out vital information.

In today's newsletter, we're breaking down how donor conception works, and what happens when the government services families depend on disappear.

In vitro fertilisation (IVF), is a fertility treatment where an egg is fertilised outside the body and implanted in the womb, sometimes using egg or sperm from a donor rather than the “intended parents”.

An estimated 60,000 donor-conceived people live in Australia today. Single women and female same-sex couples represent a growing share of IVF patients.

Donor conception has been practiced in Australia since at least the 1940s. In its earliest days, it was conducted mostly in secret, with doctors promising anonymity and parents told not to tell their kids how they were conceived.

In 1988, Victoria became one of the first jurisdictions in the world to regulate donor conception, giving donor-conceived people the legal right to learn their donor's identity at 18. The state banned anonymous donations outright in 1998.

So what does the actual process look like today? Toby walked me through it.

Before donating, donors go through interviews, blood tests, and screening for genetic conditions. That information is then passed on to any recipient family. Donors are also capped on how many families they can “create” – a maximum of ten in Victoria.

Then there's a letter, kept on file for recipient families and future kids to read, explaining who a donor is and whether they're open to contact. Toby knew what he wanted.

“I made it really clear in my letter that I thought it was wonderful that people who otherwise couldn't have kids, whether they were gay women, families who were infertile, or single women, could have them... I was really keen to be contacted down the line and help with whatever they wanted to know.”

That letter matters. It's often the first contact a donor-conceived person has with the person on the other end of their existence, and it can set expectations that follow them for years before anyone gets in touch.

For Toby, that wait was long. He first donated in his late twenties and heard nothing for seven or eight years. Then, in 2024, he was connected with a recipient mum (we’ll call her Jen) and her twin girls through the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA).

“The journey we've gone on has been just amazing,” he told me. “They've met my parents, I've met larger parts of their family... it feels quite special.”

The entire process took roughly a day, from the family applying to contact Toby, through to VARTA connecting them. But VARTA doesn't exist anymore, and what replaced it has made the process very different.

VARTA ceased operations on 31 December 2024. Its functions were transferred to the state's Department of Health as part of a broader government push to cut costs.

Victorian MP Rachel Payne, who is donor-conceived herself, opposed the move at the time.

“VARTA was sort of world-leading and the envy of the world in how to do this kind of work appropriately and properly,” she told TDA.

Under the Department, the process broke down completely for Toby.

Jen had been connected with another mother (we’ll call her Grace) who was also a recipient from Toby. Their children are biological half-siblings. Grace told Jen she’d applied to the Department of Health to be connected with Toby after sharing his letter with her son. The Department had since gone quiet.

Through Jen, Grace and Toby were finally connected. Grace told him: “I just assumed you'd moved on with your life and decided you weren't interested.'"

Toby said it’s hard to describe how that made him feel. He had family members who died during the Department's delay in connecting him with Grace and her son.

“The chance to connect when the kids are young matters a lot, and to meet their grandparents, is something that a bureaucrat doesn't give a shit about," he said.

We put these accounts to the Victorian Department of Health. A spokesperson said it is "focused on ensuring the systems and processes are strengthened," and that nowadays, Voluntary Register applicants "generally" receive an outcome "within a few weeks."

This was echoed by Victorian MP Harriet Shing in a letter she wrote to Toby directly, when she was the state’s Health Minister. Responding to his complaint, she said: “The department's intention is not to create barriers to connection, but to ensure connections occur in a way that is informed, respectful and safe for everyone involved.”

Shing acknowledged the delays faced by Toby and Grace, but advised them that it is unlikely to occur in the same way again.

At the time of writing, The Department's own website still says it is facing delays processing applications.

It’s unlikely we’ll ever see VARTA reinstated. Toby wants an independent review of the post-VARTA transition, and proper investment in a replacement model with specialist case management, both formally requested of the Minister.

"I received apologies from the department itself, but words aren't really enough. There needs to be action," he said.

A 2024 federal review of the fertility sector, led by former Health Minister Greg Hunt, recommended the establishment of a national body similar to VARTA. Nothing has come of it yet.

As Victoria tried to position itself as a world-leader in reproductive care, Payne argues that policy decisions are mostly focused on parents wanting to conceive children.

“I think often what's missed from that conversation is the rights of the child and the rights of the child to have access to information about their identity as well”.

To end, I want to leave you with an excerpt from the letter Toby penned over a decade ago to the future donor kids, with no promise or expectation of being in their lives:

“Don't be afraid of being yourself and being different. The greatest people in the world were different to most of the people around them. Even when things seem grim you'll be okay.

I hope we get to meet some day.

Lots of love,

Toby.”

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