Hi I read your post below you ask about regrets. I read a blog from a mom who did DE, her child is still a baby. She regrets telling anyone. She was so strong in her convictions to tell and share her story. Now people are asking ignorant questions that are annoying and hurt. What if your child wants to be with his "real" mother. That sort of crazy stuff. She feels as if co-workers are still talking behind her back about it. She is probarly right. Me I can't handle that stuff, I feel like I am putting a burden on my child that is not fair, you never know how a child is going to take this and you risk upsetting the balance in his life, I can't take that chance. If all is well, why introduce this? It just adds thoughts and questions I don't think I can answer. My donor is anoymous to me, with no medical issues. What could I share? I say if you have any doubts or not sure, keep it to yourself until you are sure no matter what you will not regret telling. I learned early on in my life, regrets are a terrible burden on the regretter, you could spend the rest of your life every day regretting something. So I live my life as to not to have any regrets, to make the best decision up front, make it in a way that no matter what given the circumstances again you would do it the same. I want you to think like your child, how would you feel if you found out that your mother wasn't your biological mother, that you don't have that tie, or you are tied to your dad but not your mom. Do you want to know about sisters and brothers from your bioligal mom? Do you feel like your "Real" family is out there somewhere? I say for me biology does not make a mother, does not make a family. Just be sure you want to tell and will do so with no regrets, have the conviction and confidence to deal with the annoying questions, or insensitive comments. I don't have the strength or confidence to deal with that stuff. I also don't have the burden of to tell or not to tell, my decision was easy for me. No questions asked...litterly no questions asked from anyone. Just everyone happy that we were finally pregnant. I was asked several times by nosey people about IVF, I said we started trying in December to have a baby and by March we were pregnant and I say no more. I skirt away from that infertility stuff. I am so not tell, I truly forget about DE and the donor. I have moved on, her donation made a big difference in my life, an eye, a heart, an egg. A medically necessary donation. If I could thank her personnaly I would, but thats where it ends. This tell stuff is gonna open doors one day, for the donors to be more involved in these children lifes then the parents want. There is a Lifetime Movie waiting to happen from this stuff, and I will be sitting back saying THANK GOD I did not tell anyone!

the blog I read the reader expressed depressing regret for ever telling and wonder what telling her child down the road will be like, because she has to tell because other know and she wants to be the one to tell her child. I was mad at her when I read the blog, she was so "Tell" now regrets it tremendously. I feel sorry for her.

I don't really think you can make those assumptions for your child, per your post. You can make guesses as to how they might feel (and you might be right in some cases), but to presume you will know how they think or feel about anything is not a guarantee. And many psychologists would say that it's actually pretty unhealthy to assume you know any thoughts of feelings of your child on an issue as big as this one.

You can flip this around: what I imagine what my child would feel in this situation if I didn't tell is that they would be very, very angry and confused. And would wonder what other things I've been hiding from them.

Also, one blog is one data point. There are plenty of DE moms who have told and are very glad they did. From what I've read, the majority who have told do not regret it.

In the end, we all have to do what we feel is best for the child. None of us really know which way is 'wrong' or 'right' at this point. And we may never have an answer to that question as individuals are unique and have their own feelings. Or, society may evolve to a point where this is a non-issue and there is no longer any shame that people feel they need to hide from.

For myself, the fact that the primary motivator for not telling involves avoiding negative feelings such as shame, embarrassment, rejection, etc., is every reason to tell. You can't run from those things in life. Add on top of it the risks of a child not knowing their full health history just makes it all a bad idea.

is that DE is illegal where I live. Honestly, what better way to make my child feel like a freak than to have had to sneak her across the border in my womb? The truth is, DE is not yet completely acceptable. My hats are off to those who do tell and make it easier for people in the future, but as long as Germany says it's a crime to conceive the way I did, I'm keeping my secret.

I don't ask people such questions. However, I feel my child has the right to know. We have told our parents only. They knew were were struggling with infertility. They went through some really tough medical things with me. We had told them we were looking into adoption which we were. So after we decided to do DE and after I was 12 weeks along, we told them. They were so thrilled at my pregnancy, nothing else matters. I would never tell co-workers or friends. It definitely is NONE of their business. People can be ignorant and petty. Family is one thing, friends, aquaintances, a totally different thing.

When my child fully understands, it will be up to her. Can she blurt something out, of course. But what will she blurt out - that mommy had help? B/c that's all she knows. She doesn't understand the genetics of even what an egg and sperm are now. I do not regret in the least in telling my parents or my child.

It is not something I am ashamed of. It is something that has worked out so wonderfully. My child was meant to be in this world. I went through hell and came back kicking and found a way to bring her into this world. The only way to bring THAT child into the world. And I thank God, every day for all I went through. B/c if I had not gone through it, SHE would not exist, and the world could not exist without her.

but we are the biological mom. Look up the definition of biological mother if you don't agree. It is one who carries and gives birth to an offspring. We carry and give birth. I am the REAL mother.

"Do you want to know about sisters and brothers from your bioligal mom? Do you feel like your "Real" family is out there somewhere? I say for me biology does not make a mother, does not make a family. "

I would rather my daughter know her truth. If handled properly, and let's face it, there are more and more of these situations, it will be no big deal. Adoption is no longer a big deal, so may celebrities etc, use DE so why is it something we have to hide and be ashamed of? I am blessed by this option. I am thankful for it. I am not hiding it. I am just not telling everyone I meet. I have never been asked if my child is DE. When people says she looks just like her father, I agree with them. Many say she looks like me and I laugh and say, no, she looks just like her daddy. When people say she doesn't look like me, I agree. It's not a big deal. I don't go into explaining it and people don't ask.

the child/ren wanting to know and even having a relationship with, the donor, the child's genetic contributor.

i thought hard on this one, would that hurt me? if one day they grew up and went to see her, got to know her, spent holidays with her and her family? my guess is it would hurt some of course. BUT i thought about this...i am not, nor will i ever be, the sole person in my child's life. i will be MOTHER and i have no doubt in that, i know NO ONE will replace me in that role to my child, regardless the genetics. however, i want my child to know and love, and to be known and loved by, others beyond me. although i know i will have an impact on my child, i also know that i will not be around forever, i know that i alone cannot provide to my child all the things she or he will need and want in life. no one person can do that for another person. it's impossible. we all need a variety of relationships in our lives, a variety of types of LOVE. i am whole enough in myself to allow my child to be a separate entity, to have thoughts and feelings beyond me, to be WHO, and HOW, and with WHOM, they want to be. i do not see a child i would be so lucky to have as ONLY a child, but as a person with an entire life experience that I will only be a part of. the donor is not a threat to me and she would not be a threat to our family. in my perception she would be an addition, if that is how it would play out. i equate my child knowing their donor, as i would my child having a relationship with any relative, aunt, uncle, grandparent, friend, etc.

i have lived a life fraught with family dysfunction. i know all to well what it is like to be genetically related to people who end up nearly destroying you, let alone not loving you. blood relations is not the 'BE ALL, END ALL' of the human family experience. FAMILY is a makeup of whom we choose to bring into our hearts and hold onto.

taking this a step further, and 'well, what if the child is denied by their donor and that crushes them'? life carries some hurt for everyone. hurt can build character, greatness and wisdom can be inspired by hurt, empathy and compassion can come from hurt. it is a given that every parent does not want to see their child suffer even one moment. how could you? However, i think a wise parent knows it is best to give a child the tools that he or she will need to cope with hurt, because in some way, shape, or form...it will come, it is impossible to create a world for any child without it. i would rather prepare my child, than have them blindsided. rather they not be raised to see the world as a perfect place and disillusioned with it when they find that things are apparently less than ideal and/or perfect. i would raise a child to understand that our lives are something we can create, despite whatever challenges we encounter. if those lessons have to start with their very conception, then that is where it starts...with my example.

Wilson

Your words are very wise, and you are proof that difficulty can lead to extraordinary insight and compassion.

Thanks.

I strongly believe each family needs to decide what is right for them about tell/ no tell.

I read a post when we were just considering DE and it really helped my decision making around this issue.

The poster wrote that medical science being what it is, genetic testing is more common these days, and is only going to increase in future. People will get genetic testing for all sorts of issues in the future. I know a close friend of mine has just had genetic testing for a family illness that they didn't even know existed until last year - they just watched family members die young without knowing why. Genetic testing will become quite common. And life expectancy is increasing. I believe by the time our children are born, their life expectancy is considered around 100 years. That's a lot of years of medical science and possible testing - things that our minds can't even conjure up yet. Probably home testing and testing for a wide variety of things.

For us, the thought of our child 'discovering' through genetic testing was too great a risk. This is why for us, we went with the adoption model of 'tell'. I'm going to share with our children the information about epigenetics, and the contribution the BIOLOGICAL (as separate from genetic) mother makes to formation of the child in the womb.

Best of luck for all us girls doing DE!

EliB

most upsetting I guess about this question is that we have to have it at all. It seems to signal the stigma or shame or something that surrounds this process and that makes me sad.

I have no problem with DE, and honestly, with what I have gone through I am not so dedicated to passing my genes on (eg I have some cancer going on). To me the fact that we chose to have a baby, chose a donor and went through this shows that we wanted this child and the child will know that. For example no DE child has to struggle with the question of having been given up by another person as an adopted child has to come to terms with. They do I guess have to struggle with something else, but because this is new, we aren't that sure how it might pan out. But I feel that to hide this from a child is to hide something about their creation, and how much we wanted it. And frankly, if they become interested at a later date in whatever it is about the genetic line, then that is fine, we can work that through. But I really feel that the fear of telling is mostly related to the social environment and that is truly sad. I hope that it becomes more common and that my kid will only realize that we wanted him or her very much even before he or she was born. I actually feel that in many ways the emotions that adopted children have to face is just as complicated, as they are confronted with the idea they were given up. That is not to say I am against adoption, in fact I am considering it, but I don't find it any easier to navigate in relation to what to tell a child.

Good luck and I hope we can all work in small ways, even if you decide not to tell, to contribute towards demystifying this process..

really why you think that the child will feel that their "real" family is out there. That goes on a particular presumption. Wouldn't the same apply to an adopted child then as well? What is the difference, and in fact, isn't it in some sense more difficult for an adopted child to understand that they were given up by their "real" parents then for a DE child to consider that the mother needed help to have a child that she wanted very much. It seems the issue is more about being worried about what others might think about the process and how that might reflect back on the child. Which depends on each particular circumstance. But I feel that the genetic significance is less importance myself. For centuries women have gone to other men if their husbands were infertile.

Thanks very much, dee, for taking the time to answer my question about women who had told their children about DE and who had regrets. I appreciate your consideration of that question. I am very interested in the blog you mention, and what this woman is going through, I think it would be very helpful to read. But at the same time, the perspective of one woman who still only has a baby isn't really where I am going to find what I am looking for, which is the long-term view.

I understand what you are saying about the issues that could potentially come up because of this choice to use DE, and some of what you say seems to make a lot of sense, and that is to be judicious in whom you are telling. I can't imagine ever telling co-workers such a private thing, unless I was very very close to them outside of work in a very proven relationship and could count on their being discreet and supportive. I'm so I'm sorry to hear that this woman who writes the blog is having regrets about sharing this with people she works with. It sounds like her judgment was not very good on that point, and that that is the real source of her stress. Though I would find it very helpful to hear the kind of issues she is dealing with, this particular situation, to my mind, has not much to do with what is right for her child as far as knowing or not knowing about DE.

As for what you said: "I want you to think like your child, how would you feel if you found out that your mother wasn't your biological mother, that you don't have that tie, or you are tied to your dad but not your mom. Do you want to know about sisters and brothers from your bioligal mom? Do you feel like your "Real" family is out there somewhere?"

As one poster here says, not one of us here can actually "think like our child" because we are not that child number one, and most importantly, none of us were born of DE. And, also, attempting to put myself in my child's perspective in an empathic way is the very reason I am leaning toward telling. I believe it would be easier in many ways to not tell, but due to a nagging feeling that my potential child would have a right to know, is why, as difficult as it might turn out to be, I am realizing that I believe I must be honest.

It sounds like you have a lot of anxiety about what might happen if your child found out about DE, and I guess, as another poster here said, I am tending more now to feel that that kind of anxiety will only increase if I don't share the information in a loving positive way. Diffusing the issue by being honest rather than stuffing the issue, and, again, as another poster here suggested, risk making the issue a real negative when it isn't a negative.

I still very much want to speak with women who have a long-term perspective -- not only women who might still be adjusting to motherhood, a new baby, or having told prematurely or told people they very likely should not have in the first place. Again, I think that moms and dads who used sperm donation many years ago will likely have that longer perspective that I would like to have some exposure to to help me prepare for dealing with the decision we have made. (Though egg donation is different, I realize, if only for the effort involved on the part of the donor.)

Lastly, even though I have some ambivalence about telling, I have already begun a journal for my potential child (or children) about how much we wanted him/her/them. My husband has promised to start one very soon as well. It's not going to be a journal of the process or medical details, it's going to be a journal of the excitement and fears we are feeling as we take the steps toward creating a child together. The goal is to create a sort of love letter to our child, and that would be a jumping off point for answering any questions that child may have.

I think it will be helpful to have these conversations over the long term with one another. So, when you, for instance, being no tell, find a way to deal with something that comes up because you are no tell, such as when you're child asks certain questions, how you deal with answering those questions. And visa versa--when a "tell" person has difficulty with something because they are tell, how they find ways to, for instance, comfort their child with their love along with the facts.

Speaking of facts, we all should forgive ourselves our future errors, because the fact is, we will all make them--tell or no tell!

Thanks for the opportunity to hash this around. It's a tough issue, and we are all walking a hard road. That's actually the thing I comfort myself with--I believe that my child will respect me if I demonstrate that sometimes difficult decisions need to be made in life, and we can still make them, and have self-respect and that what other people think about our decisions shouldn't be the main reason we make them. We are all courageous here, and I believe my child will ultimately see this and be inspired by it. In fact, the way I finally was able to overcome my ethical concerns about DE was one day, when I was going back and forth over whether this is an unethical issue to hand over to a child's life, and was I just being selfish I came up with an unexpected answer. I had asked myself this question so many times and I kept coming back to doubt--thinking that it was just purely selfish of me to move forward so intentionally with this decision when I knew the issues my child could have with the decision, but this day, after another miscarriage when I was grieving so much, I thought, "What if I had a daughter, and I was watching her go through this horrible loss, and the option of DE was presented? What would I want her to do?" And I just sobbed and sobbed and realized that I'd want her to do DE. And that was it. Here I am.

Good luck to you, Dee!!

Such a ramble above, so I guess not surprising that a few of my sentences really ran away from me a few times!

I won't correct all of it to make it perfect, because I think my meaning comes across, but this one part was pretty bad, so I'll clarify it here:

"I think it will be helpful to have these conversations over the long term with one another. So, when you, for instance, being no tell, find a way to deal with something that comes up because you are no tell, such as when you're child asks certain questions, you can share with us how you deal with answering those questions. And visa versa--when a "tell" person has difficulty with something because they are tell, they could share how they find ways to, for instance, comfort their child with their love along with the facts."

Thx.

One place you might look around is the Donor Sibling Registry online, and I believe there is a very well established support network online for UK donor offspring that someone here has posted about. To your point, this is similar to sperm donation about which there's lots of info now on adult offspring. Most who've been told seem well adjusted to me, but what do I know - not a scientific sample I'm sure. BTW we used both donor eggs and sperm, and I'm in contact with the 10 or so families who succeeded with our sperm donor. They are very nice and one family has a child the spitting image of my DS - seriously, their little girl IS my ds with curls. It's both terrifying and exciting for me, to be able to share that info with them if they ask for it at a later date. (We are obviously tell.) I'm hoping one of the families who used our egg donor will also register (she donated four times, all successfully).

Thanks for raising the topic once again. I worry sometimes I'm naive when I think that it will be no big deal to the kids, since it's no big deal to us, or to our friends and family, most of whom know about DE/DS. Ah well, what's done is done and I would not change a thing if it meant having different kids. FWIW, two of my cousins have adopted with their spouses, and the three children (in two families) all know they're adopted and seem not to think it's a big deal. They're 10-12 y.o. now, so I hope they weather adolescence with the same frame of mind. Not the same I know, but I think we're all just trying to find instances of alternative methods used to build families, that have resulted in emotionally healthy kids, and it seems like there are many, many ways that happens. Best,
Kenny

That is a great suggestion. I really appreciate that! Sounds like just what I am looking for.

You are brave to navigate the world of sibs to your kids, I admire it. It is a mixed blessing, I'm sure.

I can see, if a donor is totally anonymous, how it could become very frustrating for any child who may feel curious or compelled to try to find out about their genetic origins. This is what I am struggling with--I know much about my donor, a lot, actually, but not her full name, and she would like to keep that part private, and would prefer no contact later on. I accept that, yet I feel that I am potentially giving any child we may have of this process a mystery at the very least, and a possible source of unrequited longing, at worst. This, with no real way to resolve it (not that I know of, anyway, I am new to this--I am wondering if there is a way to connect with other sibs without intruding on the donor in case that is what a child of mine might ask for in the future.)

I don't think you are naive; I think you are hopeful and open and honest, and that you are setting the stage for acceptance for your children.

I think the most powerful thing you could express to your children is right there in your post when you say, "I would not change a thing if it meant having different kids."

As for whether kids will think being born of DE or SD is a "big deal," I think it depends on the individual child and that child's particular concerns, worries, and nature, etc... but I also believe that the parents can affect how the child integrates the facts with a sense of their place in the world and in their family. With supportive, loving parents who are patient with whatever the child's reactions may be, a child will have that much more of a chance to feel especially loved and appreciated and like a true part of their family. That's not to say they would not possibly also want to find sibs or their genetic parents, but I believe that journey being informed by support by the intentional parents, would be a very different journey than if the intentional parents were conflicted.

(That's also not to suggest that I have total confidence in my ability to adequately provide the right kind of support. We shall see. I know I'll do my best--that's classic--I sound like a mother already, LOL!)

After several unsuccessful IVF attempts (I'm 41), we are in our first DE cycle and very excited! For now, we've chosen not to tell anyone that we are using DE for this cycle. They only know that we are in another IVF cycle.

We have debated the tell/not tell scenario already. For now, we've decide not to tell. This may change in the future, but will be a mutal decision by my husband & myself. Our donor is completely anonymous. We selected her through our fertility clinic. We know her age, vital statistics, and general family medical history. There is no medical history of genetic issues (cancer, etc.) that are listed. We do not know (and cannot find out) her name, where she is from, etc. We know she has had 1 other successful cycle. (The donor is not even allowed to know if a pregnancy resulted from her cycles.) Virtually, all we would be able to tell our child is that she/he was conceived via an anonymous donor who we know little about and can never track down. With that said, I am not sure what benefit it would have for our child to know about the DE. I am very much a truthful person so I do struggle a bit with keeping this a secret. Again, if the child was able to follow up, learn more, have a relationship if they chose, then it would make sense to tell them. Since none of that is possible, I just don't see the benefit at this time. In my own mind, if we ever do choose to tell them, we would do so when they are a bit older. Adolescence is hard enough the way it is. I raised my husband's granddaughter for 3 years (age 8-11) and really saw her struggle with having a mom & dad who were not in the picture. She loved us so much but was never able to feel like she really fit in with her friends because they all had "normal" parents, not grandparents who raised them. I realize this scenario is a bit different, but it really showed me the struggles that young ones go through. All is all, I think it's a very personal choice. I'm sure it is something I will continue to pray about. Thanks for sharing your stories. It is good to hear everyone's feedback.