Issues to consider when building your family through third-party donation

Hello,

I am from Canada and we, my husband and I, need to resort to donor conception because I’ve been diagnosed with premature ovarian failure, so our only chance to get pregnant means using donor eggs. We’ve also considered embryo adoption, but I prefer to use ours as we can still use my partner’s sperm. Anyhow, we are making a list of issues that we should take into account before making this decision. Of course, we’ve thought firstly of genetics, because I’m aware our baby won’t have my genetic material, but that’s something we are not afraid of, because we don’t believe parenthood is all about genetics, in fact we think it’s the less important part of it. It’s like adopting a child I think. Apart from that, is there any other super important disadvantage we should weight up?

Please, let us know, this decision is very significant for us.

Affectionately,

Emmy Chan

Dear Emmy,

Coping with infertility and the fact that you need donor eggs is not easy; therefore, take as many time as you wish to make up your minds. Anyhow, there are many other aspects to be taken into account when making up your mind about this in addition to genetics. For example, have you thought about the emotional reactions you may experience? The fact that you are going to be the partner whose gametes are not being used may make you feel a sense of loss or disappointment. However, according to what you said, I think this isn’t your case, which is very nice.

Secondly, parenting concerns may be also involved when taking on this challenge. Even though you don’t care about genetics, this may create certain fears indirectly, such as asking yourself if you will be unable to create an emotional attachment to your son or daughter, or concerns about how the child will respond when he/she finds out that was conceived via egg donation. For this matter, I recommend you to read the following topic: Telling your child about egg donation. According to experts and experience over the years, children who learn about their background at an early stage of their lives are more likely to develop a positive self-concept surrounding it.

What about telling others about it? I encourage you to feel free to talk about it, there is no reason to be ashamed and, besides, resorting to fertility treatments is nowadays becoming increasingly common among couples and new family types. However, we understand that each community or neighborhood takes this issues differently, so my advice is that you consider which is your comfort level about sharing information with other people. For example, one thing you are likely to experience is comments about how much the baby resembles you, are you ready to embrace comments on this matter?

Legal issues are also noteworthy, since your province or territory may have some legal issues related to your rights and responsabilities, both for donors and recipients. Getting advice from a lawyer is strongly advisable in these cases as well as asking your fertility clinic to give you some guidance.

FInally, if you need additional support to make this decision, you may want to consider using a counsellor to help you make up your mind, coping with stress, getting fertility counsellling, etc.

Hope this helps and I wish you the best!