From the beginning of our conception journey, it was clear that at least one additional party would have to be included (as sperm remains an essential ingredient in the whole baby-making process). Ultimately, our decision to pursue embryo donation was an easy one - but before we reached that point, there were some fears we had to address, and questions we had to answer. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has considered or pursued donor-assisted reproduction. Involving another person who will have a genetic connection to your kids is a big deal, and I think it’s natural to have anxiety around the subject. For many same-sex parents, there may be a grieving process around the fact that reproduction is simply not something you can do alone. For others, the uncertainty of the changing landscape of genetic information (a la 23andme) may be a factor. For us, it felt more general - how could we be sure we were making the right choice?
The first step in addressing those anxieties was figuring out where they are coming from. For example, I had a friend when I was much younger, who was adopted at birth. I often envied her family - loving and understanding parents, a beautiful home - a lot of apparent stability I didn’t see reflected in my own home life. When she connected with her birth parents in high school, I was confused by how she appeared to favor this much less stable family over the one she had grown up in. At the time, neither I nor my friend had a particularly nuanced understanding of the feelings of abandonment adoptees have to contend with, regardless of how great their adoptive families are. When we first started looking into growing our family, her story would come up for me a lot. Could I be the perfect parent, and still lose my child over their genetic connection to someone else? Ultimately, I was worried about not being good enough - a concern I’m sure many parents who are genetically related to their kids will share.
It’s also important to be realistic about how the use of donor genetics will affect everyone involved. However rational, donor-conceived children may struggle with feelings of abandonment by their genetic family. If you’re prepared to help your child work through and hold those difficult feelings - if you’re open to accepting resources or attending counseling with your child - then you’re on the right track. In that light, things didn’t sound so scary to me; I already go to therapy a couple of times a month! What it came down to for us was letting go of the idea that if we could just be good enough parents - if we could just show our kids enough love - we could keep them from ever having negative feelings about their conception story. Realistically, I know that I will fail as a parent in ways that I may never see coming. All I can do is keep my eyes open to the things I know are coming, and prepare for them as best I can.
From there, we had to decide how to manage and define relationships around our kids genetic relatives. Who would our donors be to our child? Who would we be to their kids? Who would the kids be to each other? In conversation with our donors, we decided that using language like Auntie to refer to each other would honor the closeness of our two families, while leaving room for the definition to grow in complexity with our children’s understanding, and feelings on the subject. To add to the complexity of our situation, our embryo donors used donor sperm from a bank. I had not previously considered including a third, anonymous donor, but our embryo donors told us they have an informal group of families who used the same donor, and know of 9 donor siblings so far. Finding out that our children will be able to connect with others who share their genetics, as well as having similar families and conception stories (hilariously, many of the parents are also Lesbian couples) was a real turning point for me. I see each additional person in this extended family tree as a new potential resource as we raise our kids - the more the merrier!
Are you a Donor-Conceived Adult, or a parent to a Donor-Conceived Child? Please share your experience with us!
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