Sperm-Donor Sisters Finally Meet

ByABC News via logo
March 29, 2006, 1:16 PM

April 13, 2006 — -- Kelli Dail and Liz Reynolds are half-sisters, but they've never laid eyes on each other until they met for the first time on "Good Morning America."

Dail and Reynolds are related through their sperm-donor dad, and they discovered each other only recently through the Donor Sibling Registry, a Web site that lets children of sperm donors post listings and search for relatives.

Dail posted a listing that included the name of the sperm bank her mother used and the number that was assigned to her donor. Reynolds saw the listing e-mailed her. She says that when she first read Dail's post, she cried.

"I was with my boyfriend at his dorm and I was in shock," said Reynolds, a 20-year-old sophomore criminal justice major in Cedarville University in Springfield, Ohio.

When Dail, a 21-year-old sophomore biology major at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, Colo., got Reynolds's e-mail, she cried, too. She was at work and told her boss that she had to take the rest of the day off.

"I think for Kelli, especially being an only child and not having any more of an extended family than she has, I think it fills a big gap for her," said Terri Dail, Kelli's mother.

Reynolds, on the other hand, has an older sister and a father -- whom she thought was her biological father until her mother told her differently four years ago. Her father had a vasectomy that couldn't be reversed, but her mother wanted another child after their son died at age 5, so she used a sperm donor.

When the half-sisters started talking on the phone, they hit it off right away.

"The first couple of times we talked for an hour each time," Kelli Dail said. "The first time it was finding out basic stupid things that we have in common. We have different favorite colors, but we both like the same kinds of card games and we both like the show 'CSI' and Chinese food."

"And, we have the same personalities," Dail added. "We're both outgoing."

The girls even share a taste in clothing, which Terri Dail pointed out after the girls met on "Good Morning America" and she saw Liz Reynolds.