From Only Child To Sibling Squad: Woman discovers she has 77 secret siblings
Sheena Holland-Dolan, a woman from Cleveland, Ohio, was stunned to learn at the age of 20 that she had 77 secret siblings.
Her parents had struggled to conceive and turned to a sperm donor, a fact they initially kept hidden from Sheena.
Sheena who thought she was an only child upon discovering the truth was initially upset that her parents had lied to her, but her curiosity soon led her to explore her family history.
She turned to the website 23andme.com, where someone quickly contacted her claiming to know who her biological father was.
Through the site, Sheena found out she was the 47th sibling born to the same man. Her older half-sibling, Kianni Arroyo, had set up a Facebook group to connect as many siblings as possible.
They discovered that their biological father had become a sperm donor in college to earn extra money.
Now, 26-year-old Sheena has embraced her unique family background and enjoys finding new siblings to connect with.
So far, 78 confirmed half-siblings have been identified.
According to Sheena, her siblings all have “different levels of involvement” with the group – some, like her, regularly meet up while others prefer to remain more distant. Every time she meets a new sibling she will scour them for similarities, she added.
Sheena has even grown close enough with Kianni to go on honeymoon together. However, she acknowledges that the situation does have its downsides.
“It does worry me slightly that if I go on to have children, I will have to warn them that they need to be very careful when choosing their partners,” she confessed.
“They will have so many close relatives out there who they will know nothing about.”
But she added: “I’d love to meet all of my half-siblings, eventually.”