Emma Mansell always dreamed of a large family, but with out-of-pocket costs typically ranging from $5000 to $10,000 per IVF cycle, she found the double-digit dream unreachable. Instead, she and her wife Sarah Hopkins turned to what is colloquially known as the 'turkey baster method', using a needle-free syringe for at-home insemination with sperm from a private donor.
"The reality was that if I wanted my big family, I had to find a different way," Mansell said. She and Hopkins now have three children conceived through informal sperm donation.
The number of Australians bypassing licensed sperm banks and IVF clinics in favour of private donor agreements is unknown, but Deakin Law School associate professor Dr Neera Bhatia says she has observed a marked rise anecdotally. Recent IVF bungles, price increases, sperm shortages, donation caps, and a lack of desire to undergo hormonal IVF treatments are driving people away from the regulated system, she said.
"Without any formal record keeping, the donor may have in fact donated several times over that amount," Bhatia warned, noting that recipients rely entirely on a donor's word about their medical history and donation frequency.
The risks were highlighted when 15 women inadvertently gave birth to 27 half-siblings from the same Melbourne donor between 2020 and 2024, many meeting him through the Facebook group Sperm Donation Australia. Founder Adam Hooper said the donor was banned from the group in 2021, a claim the donor disputes.
In the regulated system, clinics track how many families have children from the same donor to comply with state limits, Victoria caps donors at 10 families and New South Wales at five, partly to prevent accidental incest between half-siblings.
Ellie Sedgwick, 36, conceived through the method earlier this year with a man who previously donated to a Victorian clinic, meaning he had already completed screening. She paid $1500 for a lawyer to draw up an agreement ensuring he has no legal rights to the child and she cannot pursue him financially. Her son is due in February.
"I've never doubted that I could do it," Sedgwick said. She compared the risk to a one-night stand, noting that people do not typically check medical histories in that scenario.
Mansell and Hopkins asked their donor to sign a contract found online and provide genetics and STD tests. "I figured a straight woman going out to a bar and having sex with a man was technically way more dangerous than what I did," Mansell said.
Hooper said births reported among his Facebook group had dropped to 606 in 2025 from 903 in 2023, which he attributed to cost-of-living pressures. The number of births is self-reported and cannot be independently verified. The group has about 23,000 members, but private donors can also be found in smaller Facebook groups, Reddit threads, international websites and apps.