to buy a donor egg if mine are knackered?

[SassySusan]

Never thought I would, but find ourselves unexpectedly considering fertility treatment. Am a little over the hill. Apparently you can buy an anonymous donor egg in Spain without a wait - IVF has a higher success rate with the donor egg, and lots of the risks are reduced to that of a young mum (ie. the age of the donor)

DH and I are solvent, healthy, and nobody questions our ability to parent.

So have been surprised by the volume of negative reactions from family and friends to the idea. It's unnatural (what isn't!); the baby won't know its real mother (so what, lots won't know their bio Dad!); people shouldn't buy babies... etc.

I see it purely as a pratical issue - if we went down this route, it would be can we afford it, take the disappointment of failure etc. Can't see that there are any real moral/ethical issues for the baby... AIBU?

I agree with you StrictlyTory - except for the other Mother. I think being a mother is a greater role than being the provider of DNA. As a donor you make a gift, a very pure, huge gift.

But if the offspring of my donated eggs want to view me as some other mother then I have no issue with that whatsoever, although I am miles away and skint - so won't cut much dice through the childhood years. When the child becomes an adult I would happily try to do all I can to support them and offer whatever I can. But I would do that for any friend and so I can't claim to be a great other mother. It is my hope that the child will have a full and happy childhood, and no need to seek out another mother. Actually, it is my belief the child will have that, time will tell how this affects the childs relationship with me.

The child wouldn't have another mother though, StrictlyTory - Sassy would be the childs mother, she would give birth to it, feed it, love it, nuture it and watch it grow.

The child may have a different set of genetics, but it takes more than that to make a good parent.

Yes but not everyone feels like that! TBH now I know I'm not related to my GM it does make a big difference and I do see her differently, maybe because of the shock but also because I do see genetics as important.

I don't mean that OP won't be the Mother. Only the child might have a very strong desire to know at least something about their genetic Mother.

Yes they are important. Which is why you shouldn't lie to children about their origins. Your grandmother is still your grandmother, regardless of whether she's related to you. It's a shame that you found out late as a surprise - I suspect you would feel v differently if you'd always known your mother was adopted.

Very best of luck for a succesful outcome, by whatever means.

I would say though, that given the way medical/genetic science is moving, the chances of a child not needing to know their family medical history is minimal - it's not going to be possible to conceal it, even if it were desirable.

ok, interesting... some thinking it through...

I think one of my arguments for saying nothing would be it's nobody else's business. Being a bereaved parent is a very public thing and you do feel like you have no private life left - and though I am good at standing my ground, it does get very wearing to have everyone poking their nose in...

My neighbour has just told me that i ought to eventually stop talking to bereaved parents, for example, so I can get over my DD's death...
As soon as DD died, everyone kept asking if we would have another one? That was before the funeral. When we eventually said yes, we have been bombarded with every quesiton you can imagine "Are you pg" "Why don't you take wonder fertility drugs" etc etc.. even though wonder-fertility drugs don't exist...

If I had an affair and fell pg to the milkman (sorry, I know we don't have them any more, but it is traditional) I don't know that I would go and tell family and special friends so that I could tell SS jnr later on. I would probably just keep my mouth shut. That may not be noble, but it is bloody understandable...

I'm not sure what you would tell a small child anyway. I don't think it's reasonable to tell a pre-schooler you have another mother. I mean they don't. I suppose I would be more comfortable with "Mummy borrowed an egg from another mummy to help make you". But if you do that... they will repeat it... so you are inadvertently deprivign you and them of any privacy...

I suppose your argument would be that having a donor egg is no big deal - so what does it matter if people know... Perhaps I just think that having a dead sister is enough to cope with, without having 2 mothers?

And providing personal info just gives the idiot brigade the opporutnity to come and tell you that you haven't thought about this enough, or you're morally corrupt etc etc...

If you go for an anonymous donor, there's no possibility that they can contact them - so what is the advantage in knowing they exist?

Anyway.. all interesting stuff..

Oh I totally agree. Sadly right now I 100% feel that she is not my GM, I cannot separate the facts that we are not related at all from the fact I've known her since I was born, and I'm not sure I will ever go bac.

BUT had I always known I'm sure I would have accepted it and not felt lied to and would still have a good relationship with her.

I so strongly feel that honesty is vital in these situations.

oophs.. lots of x posts...

OOps I mean I agree with LadyBiscuit

Sassy, if I had a little one by donation and wanted to introduce the topic but keep my business private, I think I would introduce the idea that some mummies borrow eggs from other mummies to help them make babies early on without making it specific, but plant the idea in their head and tell them later? I too think that avoiding secrecy and lies is probably important.

StrictlyTory - that is a real shame as she must love you so much, especially as you are the grandchild she could not have had if not for the wonderful daughter she was able to have through adoption. I hope as time passes you can reach a more comfortable place, keep talking and learning more about your mum and GM and maybe that will help?

SassySusan - I guess you are coming from such a different place. You are coming from a dark place and may have feelings of being violated, opened up, and stripped in front of the whole world. Such is grief. I can understand your need to close the door on your world and to want to build a big wall around yourself. People are often pretty crappy aren't they.

If it is any reassurance, the majority of people I have come across [as a donor] have been filled with curiosity and wonder. The vast majority have then given a shudder and said they couldn't do it [donate] . A few have had the beginings of a hostile rustle of feathers, but I manage to dampen them down with something lke 'the child is so treasured and loved, who can question pure love'. I think people are so taken aback and instantly alienated by my hipppy sighs they back off and make for the hills

I also think that the make up and complaxity of society is changing year on year. It is now nothing at all to have a child with 2 mums, 2 dads, or 2 mums and a dad, or an 1st dad and a new dad.....there are so many ways to be a family.
People had concerns test tube babies would be bullied, taunted and generally miserable, but it just doesn't seem to have panned out like that. SO perhaps the reaction of teh general population would be better than you expect. There might not be a reaaction

But yes, you're desite for privacy is completely understandable.

I can understand the wish for privacy, though agree it would probably be best to be open - keeping things out in the open means there is nothing bad in the 'pending' tray..as it were.

Oooo sorry StrictlyTory - my first lne reads lke a real guilt trip! T'is not, and I hope you won't take it as such. I really feel for you and hope for the best for you. x

Sassy - tbh I would let tomorrow take care of itself and just decide how you feel now about this. The important thing right now is for you and dh to act in a way you are comfortable with and have the outcome you want. What you tell family or any possible child can be dealt with in due course. I think if you try to sort out every answer now you'll just never get anywhere.

The answer will depend on the child though won't it - how when etc. I'm not saying don't think about it at all but I think that very often people get a bit paralysed when facing big life decisions because they feel they should play out every scenario till it all fits and sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.

Sadly a lot of the problem ladyBiscuit is that my GM did have her own children too so does have her own genetic Grandchildren as well. So I now feel very apart from that. Oh and my Mother hates her... many many issues!

I think the law was changed for a reason. Anonimity was not healthy for the child and it wasn't what the majority of adult donor produced children wanted.

Plus, there aren't any donor egg adults. The eldest is about 12 I believe.

Add into that the complaxity of the human conditon. I know nothing whatever about a huge amount of my genetics. It truly does not bother me in the slightest whatever. But I happen to be one of those people who can just see why someone acted the way they did and get on with it. My life [to date] has been simple, free of longlasting trauma, and generally fairly easy going. Now of course, to someone my life reads tough, there are many pretty hard things from my life.
But I can look at others and say that no matter how less than Kellogs Cornflake packet perfect my life was, it was in no way as hard as x's.
The fact I don't know something about my genetics and family really pales into insignificance next to the suffering of loosing a child.

So maybe that is why I was motivated to gift an egg. I just can't get excited about the percieved troubles it may cause. To be alive, well, happy, that's where it's at for me. I really hope to pass that on to my dc's, who will also have their own questions about this DNA link out there.

I can so understand the desire for privacy! And we haven't been through anything so devastating. :(

But we struggled so much with infertility, and it was such a blow to DH. In a lot of ways we felt that it would have been easier if it was me, as people seem to be more understanding of female infertility, whereas male infertility seems to still be something of a joke. And egg donors are heroic (something that I agree with!), whereas sperm donors are wankers.

Anyway, the point is that we still haven't told the world about the origins of our children. Right now, it's still a secret, and part of that is that we don't want everyone to know before our children do. We know that when we do tell, and our children tell the whole world, that some people might think that I'm selfish to use a donor's sperm, or that DH is impotent and less of a man. But that is less important than the mental health of our children.

Example of a study here www.donor-conception-network.org/report%20for%20DSR.pdf
I found it on google, and there are lots more out there.

If there aren't any adults from donor eggs - how the hell does anyone know if it is better for the child to know?

I can understand your positon LG, as it would be hard to obscure the fact that there must have been a donor involved... but I'm not convinced that everyone needs to be so up front...

But there are a lot of adult sperm donor children and that is where the studies have come from.

Surely the truth is always better than a lie in these situations?

By the way, I found a very reassuring scientific study about third party reproduction here while I was searching. :)
www.wellsphere.com/pregnancy-fertility-article/surrogate-egg-donor-or-sperm-donor-children-are-psychologically-well/710186