A Connecticut woman got the shock of her life when she found out she had accidentally slept with her half-brother. Her mother’s fertility doctor had used his sperm to conceive babies with his patients, and she didn’t know it. Victoria Hill, who is 39, said it was very upsetting when she learned she had slept with her half-brother from high school.
At least 23 people say they were born because Dr. Burton Caldwell used his sperm without telling their parents. Victoria’s mother, Maralee, was deceived by Caldwell, who said he would use the sperm of an unknown medical student.
Victoria told CNN that she found out the man she thought was her father wasn’t her biological father after taking a DNA test with 23andMe. She told about it at a high school reunion 20 years later, and her old boyfriend saw that something similar had happened to him. He took the same DNA test and couldn’t believe what he found.
Victoria got a text from her ex-boyfriend that said, “You’re my sister.” She told the News, “I look at my entire high school experience in a completely different light now. It puts a damper on the whole thing,” adding, “I’ll just say it this way: I was intimate with my half-brother.”
She also said she went to elementary school with another of her siblings and often stopped by a deli run by twins who turned out to be her family. “That traumatised me,” she admitted. “Now I look at pictures of people and think: If he could be my sibling, anyone could be my sibling.”
Victoria considered taking the doctor to court but was told she didn’t have a good case due to the unclear laws on fertility fraud. There are no national laws on the subject, and only 13 states offer protection.
Nonetheless, social worker Janine Pierson, one of Hill’s half-sisters took action against the retired doctor. Janine thought she was an only child until she took a 23andMe test in 2022.
“It was like my whole life just came to a halt,” she told CNN, revealing that she had to break the news to her mother as well. We both cried for a few minutes because it felt like a violation”, she explained.
Janine even unknowingly crossed her path with a sibling at a summer camp, as seen in a photo. “We were just feet away from each other and had no idea,” she said. “It shouldn’t be like the Wild West where these doctors can just do whatever they want,” she added.
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