“I have to tell you a question”. That’s what our daughter says whenever she has something really important to say. Like, “Emma’s favorite color is pink” or “After Sam falls asleep I want to watch Bob the Builder”.
You don’t need an advanced degree to see that it’s not so much a question as a statement. Yet on a certain level it’s a curiously appropriate phrase if you apply it to telling people about donor conception. It’s a topic that tends to generate many questions. In a way, you really are telling a question when you tell someone that your children are donor-conceived.
Over in the UK, the Donor Conception Network (DCN) is expanding their “Telling and Talking” series, which helps parents tell a child they are donor-conceived. The new booklet in development will provide guidance on talking with family and friends. Later this month I’ll be talking with DCN’s Olivia Montuschi about our experience of telling. Of course, I’m probably not the most typically representative mother of donor-conceived children. A lot of newer friends, colleagues and acquaintances learned our truth by reading my New York Times Motherlode piece, or from reading this blog. It’s a rather public expression of a private matter. But I do like to stir up a bit of trouble and I want to write, so the shoe fits. However, it’s not for everyone.
That being said, recent experience represents round two of telling. Round one took place many years ago, before we were even married. As it turns out, it’s a lot easier to talk about your hypothetical donor-conceived child than to talk about the real one. I spent many happy evenings in grimy New York bars talking with friends about how we might have a child someday, if the time came. Talking about your hypothetical child sets you on the path of openness, laying the foundation for building your family in a spirit of honesty. But it doesn’t necessarily prepare you for openness once they are here. To my slight surprise, once pregnant I found myself retreating from telling. As I started to research how you introduce a child to the concept of being donor-conceived, I also started to feel that our daughter should be the next person I tell. Newer friends, no matter how much I adored them, could wait. For me, the most respectful path was to start talking with our daughter before sharing with anyone else.
For other parents of donor-conceived children, the path to telling may look entirely different, particularly for LGBT and single-mothers-by-choice. There’s no right or wrong way, just the most comfortable, respectful, and child-centered way. For many people trying to figure it all out, I have no doubt that DCN’s booklet will help a lot of them find their path.
This is really interesting – a friend from DCN and I were just talking about this recently… How in theory, with hypothetical children, I’ve been all about openness and talking to friends very honestly. But I really don’t know how this will change if we do get pregnant via DC, whether when it’s a real baby as opposed to an imaginary baby that questions over privacy for the child trump your own needs to talk to friends?
As you approach the idea of diblings with a fair amount of openness have you thought about how to approach the issue of the other relatives of donor offspring? This is not something that is discussed in the Donor Conception Network’s workbook series. I’ve raised the question with Olivia on Olivia’s View and she said it would be cruel to tell a child that they have all sorts of relatives that they will not get to know so I am not sure if she is saying that they advocate against discussing all those relatives or if the policy is still to be truthful.
The whole point of telling and talking is so that the child never misunderstands that they are genetically related to someone who is playing the roll of parent without the genetic connection – so they never feel lied to by virtue of simply being silent on the issue. If there are diblings then there are grandparents and great grandparents and great great grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. With grandparents there is no such thing as a half grandchild and the same would go for aunts uncles and cousins unless the donor was a half sibling to his own siblings. Donor offspring are generally the full cousins of the donors nieces and nephews. This is of course a pretty big deal for them when their uncle has over 10 children/offspring.
Have you discussed how to approach this with others raising donor offspring? I’m curious because I reunite separated families and quite a few of those families were separated by gamete donation. Its just not something on the radar. Wondered what your thoughts were on that. I think honesty is the best policy. Those people for medical intents and purposes are the family of donor offspring so they are important to one another always.