Valerie McMorris

On what we know is often an incredibly difficult journey, you may now be contemplating using an egg donor. Or perhaps you have decided to proceed with a donor, and are in treatment or planning to start treatment in the near future. Some of you may already be pregnant with the help of an egg donor, and have now arrived at a place where joy, light, and excitement can begin finding their way in to what previously may have felt like a very lonely, isolated, frustrating, overwhelming place. However, this good news can also bring with it a different kind of confusion, and a whole new batch of questions and unknowns. Regardless of where you are in this process, congratulations on making it this far: What you have already lived through often qualifies as one of the single most trying times in a person’s life. 

The decision to use an egg donor does not come easily for many, and often requires a long and sometimes uncomfortable process of self-reflection, identity exploration, adaptation, adjustment, interpersonal challenges, and a constant reconfiguration of expectations about how things were “supposed” to be. To get here, you may have endured a lengthy and arduous experience in the fertility world, one that is draining on every level: emotionally, psychologically, physically, and financially – you may still be feeling depleted and fragile from everything that led to this point. Under these circumstances, there is certainly no need to have the answers to the tough questions just yet. However, we do know that one of the most pressing questions for many egg donor recipients remains whether or not to disclose this information to your [future] child.

This is an incredibly personal decision. Much of fertility treatment is invasive and violating; it often robs individuals and couples of their privacy and physical intimacy, and can create feelings of extreme vulnerability and exposure. The desire to maintain privacy around your decision to use an egg donor can be a very natural one, one designed to protect you, your partner if applicable, and your child from questions, judgments, and opinions, as well as to preserve the sanctity of your growing family and parent-child relationship(s). If you choose not to disclose, that choice typically requires a commitment to blanket secrecy, to telling absolutely no one in your life, given the likelihood that any form of disclosure to any party may mean that you cannot contain that information or control whether it is shared. It is a heavy burden for most and often turns out to be an impossible one to maintain for a lifetime; for this reason, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s (ASRM) current stance is to encourage disclosure. Please see the link below.

The mental health community also strongly supports openness and transparency to the child, and owning this decision with comfort, security, and confidence. This enables parents to be honest about this part of the family narrative, and prevents an ongoing need to hide the child’s genetic identity and true medical history. And with the proliferation of DNA databases like Ancestry.com and 23AndMe, which have greatly changed the landscape of the world of gamete donation, children have come to this information on their own. This can then create an implosion of trust in the household, and an association with shame or stigma. 

You may be grappling with how to tackle this subject matter with your [future] child. Remember this, first and foremost: It takes a special soul to fight through the rigors of fertility issues and treatment, a warrior of the utmost resilience. The same character and mettle that brought you here will make you exceedingly equipped to handle the new challenges that lie ahead around parenting and, more specifically, parenting a child conceived from a donor egg. 

As amazing a gift as it is, it can also feel quite scary and fraught with unique responsibility. As mentioned above, the ASRM supports disclosing to your child that he or she is the product of a donor egg. We also know that this dialogue is an ongoing one that begins in toddlerhood, as is age- and developmentally appropriate, and is expanded on as the child can understand more and subsequently ask related questions. It is important to remember that your donor merely provided a gift of microscopic genetic material, a cell: YOU are the parent. Children are incredibly adaptive and resilient, and the focal point is normalizing the idea that families are created and composed in many wonderful ways. 

As a starting point, there are countless books written for small children on the topic of conception, including It’s Not the Stork by Robie H. Harris and Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle. Once the groundwork is laid, you can begin fleshing out more specifically how your pregnancy journey was special. Fortunately, there are also numerous children’s books geared toward helping you share this information with your child in age-appropriate language (please see the link below for a comprehensive list of recommended books.