200 siblings and counting. And all very sick.

How would it feel to discover that your father is a sperm donor, that you have at least 200 half-siblings, and that all of them have serious health problems? A profile in USA Today of a 24-year-old woman named Jaclyn Frosolone, the daughter of lesbian mothers, is stomach-churning.

Ms Frosolone has “a brain-fluid filled cyst in her spine that causes full-body tremors and threatens paralysis; anxiety; depression; supraventricular tachycardia; ADHD; and severe vaginal pain and dermatitis, among other problems.” When she contacted some of her half-siblings through 23andMe, the genetic testing kit, she found that most of the others shared her medical problems.

None of these issues are mentioned on her sperm donor father’s health profile. In fact, his sperm is still available for sale, although it has been “restricted”. “Nobody prepares you to have a life like this,” said another young woman, Jamie LaRose. We really are so sick and it sucks.”