What race should the donor be?

[alisha556655]

Our ethnic combination is Pakistani (me) and white irish (her). I’ll be carrying one and she’ll be carrying the other
She’s not bothered either way so ultimately it’s up to me, we both want them to be half siblings so they’d need to have the same donor but I’m torn for several reasons:

Pros of a white donor:
More variety of white donors. The children sharing her white background, easier for life in britain if they’re paler skinned and won’t be affected much by racism

Cons of a white donor:
Her biological child will be fully white and I wouldn’t want my child to feel excluded from my cultural background and community or shamed if they feel more of a connection with it

Pros of a pakistani donor:
Both of my children would share my ethnic background, so could freely embrace the culture without feeling left out as it’s my non-biological child’s culture too

Cons of a pakistani donor:
My biological child could wish he/she had white heritage too. Facing more racism if darker skinned

What should we do???

Some posters are really being so short sighted. Good luck, OP. It's important to consider identity.

As always, the deliberately obtuse Mumsnetters are out in force. It's clear from your post what you are talking about. Cultural and racial identity is no joke.

My cousin is going through this, she is Pakistani and her wife is white (Belgian), they looked a few different methods. One was using my sperm and her wifes egg, so the baby would be biologically related to both of them and an ethnic mix of both of them. But then I became a parent and I was worried how my son would feel in the future if I had a biological child.

In the end they found a white donor and used my cousins eggs, but they have fertilised eggs and my cousin will carry one and her wife will carry on. So genetically both children will be full siblings, but both mums get to experience pregnancy. Her wife is older so she went first and she is due in February, then when the baby is a year old my cousin will have ivf in the hopes of carrying baby number two.

Have you had any contact with sperm banks, OP?

Just asking because when DP and I did this we went into it having all the conversations about what was important and then discovered the choice is tiny. Especially once they do blood type stuff. We ended up with a choice of three, and when we went back to the clinic a year later there was literally one donor they could match us with.

I know it's easier if you're willing to use overseas banks etc., but I just mentioned it in case you're at the early stages, as the choice may effectively be made for you if you've already chosen the clinic.

(FWIW I think I would go with a Pakistani donor because I suspect people will see a Pakistani woman with a white child and endlessly presume you're unrelated, whereas a white woman with darker skinned children might get marginally fewer comments.)

Good luck!

Btw, this thread is full of deleted posts so obviously I don't know what was said, but I can guess.

It might be useful for posters to know that these sorts of questions are what you are told to consider when you are thinking about donor conception. That's based on quite a lot of years of research into donor families and what seems to provide the most emotionally healthy results. It's not trivial.

@SarahAndQuack it really wasn't like that, someone pretty much accused the OP of talking about her potential babies in a jocular / whimsical fashion.

@borageforager

OP, you might be better off asking for this to be moved to conception/fertility boards, where people will be more likely to understand the conversations around donor sperm.

Yes why not do this OP?

AIBU isn't the right place for help or advice on this.

My Pakistani friend had double donor twins.

She used a Greek egg donor and mixed Indian Caucasian sperm donor.

Her children look fair in complexion. But even still one is slightly "darker". Noone questions the heritage. She chose the combination as a preference to an Asian dd situation.

Have you been offered counselling? A trained professional can help you decide

@VladmirsPoutine - yes, that's what I assumed, and why I wanted to point out that it isn't trivial or jokey at all. I can still see all the posts saying it's not a joke to think about identity, and wanted to make clear that it's something clinics actively require you to think seriously about.

Thank you for the different perspectives and also for sharing your own personal experiences or experiences of donor conception from people who you know and how they came to decide which sperm donor to choose, it’s helping a lot! We are a lot closer to deciding which donor to choose than we were when I’d first started the thread

How would I get it moved?

@stressfullday No, we haven’t pursued any counselling yet, though I imagine it’ll be offered free to us part of the consultation when we do contact any clinics but I could be very wrong! I’m all new to this

@SimonJT Glad to hear they conceived a child! Are the grandparents supportive with the family dynamics? My mum really doesn’t approve of same sex relationships so I worry tbh

@SarahAndQuack I didn’t know this could happen, thank you for pointing that out! It does make sense that certain donors would be incompatible with either me or my partner, but I’m hoping we don’t face the same problem. Do you know if the same could happen if it was a known artificial insemination donor we had chosen ourselves?

No @alisha556655 she hasn’t had contact with the rest of the family for about 15 years, so they won’t even know their is a baby on the way.

Could your white partner use an Asian donor and you use a white donor so both children are mixed Asian/white heritage?
I know PP mentioned mixed donor but I’m not sure if they meant this or use a donor who is already mixed Pakistani/white

@alisha556655 - I'm no expert, I only know what happened with us! I would guess that if you're using a known donor, they'd just accept you want that person. It must happen with straight couples all the time, that the clinic knows they're not a perfect match biologically.

With unknown donors, they give you the evidence just because there's no reason to prefer a less good option. But even there there's wiggle room - when DP was tested she was positive for CMV (which is a common virus that stays dormant in your body). Usually, they recommend if you are CMV negative, you shouldn't choose a CMV positive donor, as there's a tiny chance it'd give you that virus. But when I wanted to try, our clinic had no problem with me using the same donor as DP, even though I was CMV negative.

I suspect it all varies hugely from clinic to clinic, and I suspect that they'd also be fine with you arguing the case about a specific donor. But the bottom line is that in the UK, there are just very few donors.

Mixed race I think would make everyone look more alike. Otherwise I'd take it off your skin, if you're fair, go white, if you're dark, go pakistani. I think that would make the kids look more alike to eachother.

(And please do check out the donor conception threads! I'm not very active on there atm but they are lovely, and it's such an exciting thing to be doing. If you use instagram, there's a really active lesbian TTC community there too.)

I think your best bet would be to use a white donor with your eggs and both you and your partner carry a child of that mix. That way your family will look more alike and the kids will be full siblings. This is important as you will constantly get asked whose the mother and when you say we both are you'll get, no the real mother. If your Pakistani with one mixed race and one white child lots of people will treat you as though you're only the mother of the mixed child and not the white one. It shouldn't be that way but unfortunately it is.
I also think you will find it incredibly hard to get a Pakistani donor compared to a white one.
Goid luck and all the best

It is usually much more expensive, though, to do that, @Hahaha88? Unless they're doing IVF already (forgive me if I missed that the OP said that).

Personally I think it would be better if it could be arranged thst the two children are full siblings.

I think I would do what Hahaha88 says

I think your best bet would be to use a white donor with your eggs and both you and your partner carry a child of that mix. That way your family will look more alike and the kids will be full siblings. This is important as you will constantly get asked whose the mother and when you say we both are you'll get, no the real mother. If your Pakistani with one mixed race and one white child lots of people will treat you as though you're only the mother of the mixed child and not the white one. It shouldn't be that way but unfortunately it is.
I also think you will find it incredibly hard to get a Pakistani donor compared to a white one.
Goid luck and all the best

I’m mixed race. My Dad was white. My DC have a white father and are very white skinned. Unexpected at first, but really 50% of my genes came from my white father which I didn’t think about. Just assumed my DC would look slightly brown and was very wrong.

@SarahAndQuack

Have you had any contact with sperm banks, OP?

Just asking because when DP and I did this we went into it having all the conversations about what was important and then discovered the choice is tiny. Especially once they do blood type stuff. We ended up with a choice of three, and when we went back to the clinic a year later there was literally one donor they could match us with.

I know it's easier if you're willing to use overseas banks etc., but I just mentioned it in case you're at the early stages, as the choice may effectively be made for you if you've already chosen the clinic.

(FWIW I think I would go with a Pakistani donor because I suspect people will see a Pakistani woman with a white child and endlessly presume you're unrelated, whereas a white woman with darker skinned children might get marginally fewer comments.)

Good luck!

One million percent agree that a dark skinned parent with a white child will be given funny looks and be subject to stupid and intensive questions than the other way round. Sad but true.

@SarahAndQuack sorry for the late reply. Yes it would be more expensive then insemination, but I would still seriously consider that option if finances allow for it

Well, but also more expensive than regular IVF, I think? Or maybe not, but a large outlay of money. I was just thinking aloud as we're in the middle of all of this too!

@SarahAndQuack

Well, but also more expensive than regular IVF, I think? Or maybe not, but a large outlay of money. I was just thinking aloud as we're in the middle of all of this too!

They'd have to pay for the cost of donor sperm but otherwise it shouldn't cost any more I think. there'd be storage fees for the fertilised embryos but that would be the case anytime there are more fertilised embryos than used. When the other woman started ivf it shouldn't cost anymore than it would for anyone else going through ivf.

I think mixed race is the way to go, it will give the most accurate combination of genes
Or you white and her Asian donor