From sweethearts to siblings — yes, you read that right.
Victoria Hill sat in sheer “disbelief” upon discovering that her boyfriend was actually her brother.
“He sent me the screenshot that, ‘You are my sister,’” Hill, a crestfallen mom of two from Connecticut, explained on the UK’s ITV “This Morning” show.
“The mind-boggling thing about it was as he sent me the screenshot, I had the notification from my phone on 23andMe that you have a new half-sibling,” continued Hill, who’d learned that she’d been conceived via fertility fraud.
It’s the deliberate act of “misrepresenting the source of sperm, eggs or embryos used to treat infertility,” per the University of San Diego School of Law.
The misdeed is not currently recognized as a federal crime. However, that’s not stopping victims from ensuring that justice is served.
New Yorker Morgan Hellquist, 36, recently sued Morris Wortman, a Rochester-based fertility specialist and gynecologist, for acting as her healthcare provider after artificially inseminating her mom with his sperm in the late 1980s.
“He knew the whole time who he was and I didn’t,” a heartbroken Hellquist howled. “He took away that choice for me.”
In another case, Jacoba Ballard, a 40-something from Indiana, learned that she, too, has over 94 half-siblings, thanks to alleged fraud committed by fertility doc Donald Cline. She unpacked the sordid truth behind her biology in the 2022 Netflix documentary “Our Father.”
Ballard, like Hill, made her shocking DNA discovery via 23andMe — a virtual genetic testing database. The once-popular imprint is now facing bankruptcy.
Hill originally submitted a saliva sample to the company seeking medical information after experiencing a series of health issues.
“I never in a million years did I think I would find out all that I had,” she told “This Morning” hosts.
“I got the information and I very quickly went to look at the health stuff, and I had seen some half-siblings pop up,” she remembered. “But I very quickly dismissed it and thought it was an error.”
However, much to Hill’s chagrin, the site was right.
“I kept getting an email from a woman who I later found out was my half-sister,” said Hill, admitting she thought the messages were a scam. “As she continued to push, she said, ‘Did your mother go to Yale Fertility Clinic to get help for fertility?’ ”
The woman’s curious question set off alarms in Hill’s head.
“When she said that, it got my attention,” said Hill, who’d known that her parents had sought pregnancy support at the clinic. “She had my attention and she gave me the rest of the information — this doctor, my mother’s fertility doctor, was, in fact, my biological father.”
Hill recalled the realization as “surreal.”
“It took a while to set in,” Hill confessed, adding that she’s connected with approximately 25 of her half-siblings.
“I have to say, growing up I felt a part of me was different or distant,” she said. “We used to have a joke, between my father and I, that the only thing that was similar was our hands.
“In some weird ways, it clicked. But it seemed too bizarre,” added Hill. “Not only is it the man who raised me not my biological father, but my mother’s doctor that she went to for over eight years of treatment trying to conceive — then kind of bringing her the news, sharing that with her.
“She was not aware of this as well,” Hill said of her mom, a former patient of New England-area endocrinologist Burton Caldwell, who died in February.
Hill had the chance to confront the doctor before his passing.
“When I asked him, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘It was in the business of making babies,’” she revealed. “There wasn’t a lot of remorse; there wasn’t a lot of concern.”
But Hill became exceedingly concerned after sharing the startling news with old friends, including her high school sweetheart — who turned out to be her half-brother.
“As I’m telling this story, my high school boyfriend, now friend, looked like he was turning something over in his head,” she said. “His mother had recently told him that [she] went [to Yale Fertility Clinic] for treatment with his father.”
It was later confirmed that the exes were, in fact, blood-related via Caldwell.
“Just that realization,” said a stunned Hill, “I felt like I was on ‘The Truman Show.’”
“It was just one next thing that hits after another,” she lamented. “We still don’t know what is to come.”
Hill, who claims that at least 80 other specialists are guilty of fertility fraud, is raising awareness to inspire change.
“There really are no [regulations],” she said. “That’s why we’re fighting. That’s why I’m bringing this story out, so that we can get some better laws, protections and regulations out there.”
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