Husband won't discuss

[Princesslucky1]

We have a child through donor sperm, before we had treatment we had to go to counselling to discuss any issues, one of them being should we tell child or not. We could not make a decision so decided we would talk about this in the future now child is almost 3 and I've tried to talk to my husband about should we tell or not... He said no we should not tell, I'm in between minds but would like to as least discuss it further. Donor can never be found and no information will ever be given to us or child. Its so confusing I hate secrets but what's the point in telling?

The other thing to bear in mind is something our counsellor told us when we were looking into donor sperm before deciding to conceive - there is already a service called "23andMe" which you can send a cheek swab to and they send you back a full genetic report (I believe this is temporarily closed down but it was active last year.) You are then uploaded to a genetic Facebook, basically, which means that as similar services get more and more popular, your chances of keeping a secret like this decrease.

Our counsellor reckoned that if we went for anonymous donor sperm (which we did) we shouldn't count on the donor actually remaining anonymous as it's quite possible that our child will one day be able to establish a full genetic history with a few clicks of a button.

tell as soon as possible
you are bound to have the 'mummy seed and daddy seed stick together and a baby starts growing' conversation - that is when you tell him that sometimes we need some extra seeds
other family members can be told at that time

I am for being honest but I am biased. I didn't know until I was thirteen that my mum was actually my step mum. It blew my world apart. Either tell, or never ever tell. But I think tell.

I'm with Kew and Maryz and all the other adopters who have posted on this thread.

Please tell your child soon, so he grows up 'knowing' rather than wait until he is 'old enough to understand'. If he always knows it will never be a big shock to him, it will be just normal.

Like Maryz we used to tell our adopted DD2 a story in the bath from when she was age 2. "Once there were 2 girls who lived with XXX but she wasn't very good at looking after them ....." Over time we have added more detail, but even now at 9 she really only partially understands.

You say you trust your Mum to never say anything.
But what if she gets dementia and starts rambling?
What if your DS when older gets into some big trouble and there's an argument and your DH or your Mum throw out a comment in the heat of the moment?

Please please please tell your DS.
And keep telling him so he grows up knowing.

its so unfair not telling the truth ,i know a woman who told everyone about her dds real dad but never told her dd ,her dd found out at 13 and went off the rails thinking her whole life was a lie,also know a lad in his late teens now who doesnt know his dad isnt his real dad , going to be another one whose life will be turned upside down,someone will tell him one day.

What is the motivation for using entirely anonymous sperm in the first place, whether a child is told, or not?

It seems very selfish and single minded to deliberately create a child, knowing that it will never know anything about one of its parents.

Keinbock that's the only option that was available to us... Not selfish he has a father... A sperm donor does not make a parent!!!

Well, thanks for that thoughtlessly judgemental post, KeinBock, but parents who go for that option don't do it on a whim. Our decision was made after talking extensively to a specialist counsellor, informed by the available research, and after much discussion we decided that this was the best option for us, our baby, and our family in our particular circumstances. The specific details I don't share with nosey parkers on the internet, but you can be certain that it was a decision I gave a lot of thought to and remain happy with.

And with respect, people like you are part of the problem for the OP's DH - that you would regard a donor as a "parent" when it quite clearly is nothing of the sort. The OP's child, like mine, will know both of its parents; it won't have a parental relationship with the donor - which it wouldn't whether that was an anonymous or non-anonymous donor.

the child needs to know how it was created because one day someone will blab , they used a donor thats all the child needs to know., it will have two loving parents , how is that selfish .

Agree with last post... Narrow minded!!!

I think unless someone's been through / seen the procedure it's easy to assume that the sperm is a big deal… we actually took a photo of the syringe (probably TMI for the baby's book, so just for us) as it's seriously so inconsequential - a plastic disposable syringe with 3ml of entirely disconnected fluid. You couldn't possibly look at it and think "that is a parent" any more than you could confuse the IUI procedure (for those who haven't done it, it's exactly like a smear test!) with sex.

We have a donor-conceived child. DH doesn't feel anything other than gratitude that he has a lovely son and doesn't need to worry that he will develop the devastating condition that has decimated his family.

We shoe-horn it into conversations, so if we are talking about planting seeds in the garden, I say, gosh that reminds me of when the doctor told daddy his seed was wonky and he would have to get someone to give us one of theirs that was nice and straight. What a lovely man that was, etc.

Don't think about 'telling' and the father-child bond in the same breath. Your child will not care about biology.

Actually, maybe Keinbock just means that it is better to use non-anonymous sperm (as we did) so the child doesn't have any unanswered questions.

Maybe that is what they meant, but it's still no less judgy-pants to those of us who used anonymous sperm (like we did), as though it was a thoughtless decision (it wasn't.)

Yes, happymundanes, that is exactly what I meant. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using donor sperm, assuming the child has some way of tracing the donor as an adult, or at least of knowing the donor's identity, if they choose to.

Using completely anonymous sperm is short-sighted and selfish, IMO, because it means the parents have prioritised their 'right' to have a child over the child's (far more valid, IMO) right to know about their genealogy/background/heritage.

PosyFossils I'm more than happy to be enlightened about all the selfless reasons a parent might have for choosing an anonymous donor...

Sorry - haven't time to read whole thread now, but wanted to post as I'm the child of donor sperm and wasn't told until my 30s, after I had my own kids. It was a surprise rather than a shock and I'm very glad I only found out as an adult with a firm sense of myself and my loving family. As a kid, it would have given me no end of identity crises, excuses to lash out at my dad during teen rages etc. and wouldn't have had any benefit as far as I can see except to make me confused and insecure. Whereas I grew up never questioning that my lovely dad was my biological parent and that was the best thing for me and for him. He still doesn't want our extended family to know and I would never hurt him by telling them. He's proud of being my dad and wouldn't want anyone to think he's not.

So OP, I totally understand where your DH is coming from and agree there is no point in telling your child until they're much, much older. Beyond 21 and ideally a fully-formed adult.

Agree with people who have said tell, and tell very early in a lighthearted way. A 3yo/4yo (some 2yo) can understand that a man has a seed and a woman has an egg and those join to make a baby that grows in the lady's tummy. Then if daddy hasn't got a seed, another man may share his seeds - and I said to my dc, just like you share a packet of smarties. A very young child will just happily accept that how it is. If you receive a question (unlikely if you tell a 3yo) such as is daddy not my dad then, you say of course he is, he looks after you and loves you.

I think storing up secrets is absolutely the wrong thing to do from the child's pov. If you tell now, it won't be a secret and there will be no issue.

I don't think that's really the question here Keinbock. OP is asking a very difficult question about something pretty sensitive and is getting a lot of really helpful responses. Having a go at her isn't nice or helpful

Just to add, mine was anonymous donor and so there's no one to answer any questions even if I had them. I think the comparison with adoption doesn't work, as there is a 'parent' and a story out there somewhere. With anonymous donation, it's not an issue but by making it part of the child's identity at a formative age, it makes it a bigger potential issue imo.

I saw this programme and it was very useful and insightful.
Aussie prog but excellent argument from people who are impacted by this question.

(if link does not work google 'SBS insight donor sperm')

The other thing with secrets is that your mum may mention/ tell her best mate...who shares with their daughter (all in the strictest confidence of course) and she shares with friends and one day your child is told at a party/gathering and is floored by the info.

Being infertile is a health issue, not a personality trait. Nothing to be ashamed of...unless your DH is ashamed of having mumps/a cold/asthma.

We were in this position, we have two children though DI. We also had counselling before we had the treatment, and through this process we decided to tell. We had also done a lot of research online, this question has been really extensively studied, and it seems that children who are told naturally as a part of their "how did I get here?" conversation and who are told young (under 7 at least) are absolutely fine about their origins. Those who are told later in life are generally very upset about being lied to by their own parents for so long (and I can see why).

I had concerns about telling my two. My Dad was against telling so early, because we are very private people, and you can't rely on a small child not to blurt the news out to all and sundry! But actually, because it wasn't told as a "sit down we have something Very Important to tell you" thing, but just as an answer to the question "how was I made in your tummy?", it hasn't been a big deal. I was actually surprised how easy it was to chat about it. I also told them about the sadness that we had in our lives when we thought that we wouldn't have children, and how happy we were to eventually have the two of them. It turns out that our children are as private as my husband, and don't want to discuss it in public. To be honest, even if they reach the stage where they do, it's at least as much their story as it is ours.

I suppose as they grow older, it will have more significance as they understand it more. We (or rather I, they always ask me!) have answered any questions as they have turned up. The younger has learned everything by osmosis by listening in to chats with the elder. But it will never be a shock to them, and they will never remember not knowing.

I know that a medical problem with sperm generation shouldn't be shameful, but I'm afraid that there still is a lot of prejudice out there. We all know jokes about "jaffas" and there is some misunderstanding correlating infertility with impotence. But my husband has decided to take this on the chin, because we feel that this isn't our decision to make. Our children deserve to know who they are, and we can't take that away from them.