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???

It's not just about repression, though, is it?

Having a brother as a donor is really complex. Either you presume that brother will lie (huge can of worms), or he'll be uninvested in his own biological child, or he'll be 'daddy' to his sister's child.

All of those options come with serious issues. They're not insurmountable, but they also shouldn't be dismissed as squeamishness. IMO it is usually straight people who think biology is terribly important and same-sex relationships aren't really genuine, who find themselves able to suggest that having a child with your brother is a great solution.

Well, the OP invited us to give it thought and that's what we've done. You yourself would clearly rule it out. But there are ''pros'' as well as cons.

Twice you've had a pop at straight people for not GETTING that what you think is obviously a no go be ruled out. It happens, so it's not as clear cut as you think, you're not the ambassador for ALL GAY PEOPLE! Let us chew the fat here.

Oh, gosh, I'm sorry! I didn't at all mean to come across as I obviously have.

I read the comment about repression as quite a negative one and, and I have to admit I was quite shocked. I was mostly responding to that - I read it as saying that anyone who wouldn't agree with that must be just repressed and therefore not making sense. So I wanted to get across that there could be other reasons that might not be very obvious if you're thinking in terms of biology being the decide-all factor. I'm really sorry if that sounded as if I was saying I spoke for all gay people. I definitely don't mean to do that! People make all sorts of choices that are right for them.

(I have been really struggling how to put into words how I feel about the biology issue, so that may be why I've come across wrongly. I hope it was still helpful for the OP!)

I was joking that in my own family the word sperm would never be uttered at all in any context! But i imagine some families would be able to just put it out there and simply ask! For the reasons you set out, the answer "no" is not unreasonable!

I think it's not the reasonable/unreasonable issue that bothers me, or being shy about talking about sex or sperm. It's that there's a presumption that lesbian families aren't real families, and the non-biological parent isn't really integrated into the relationship shared between the biological child and his/her mother.

I do get why, in some circumstances, people do things like a sister being a surrogate for her straight brother and his wife, or a brother being a sperm donor to his lesbian sister and her wife. But, on MN, if the first situation is discussed, there will always be people pointing out that it might really be quite complex. I guess it just disturbed me that, on this thread at least, the response was such unanimous positivity, as if the issues only apply in a heterosexual relationship?