Modern Times: The Vikings are coming

[mistymeanour]

What a lovely film and lovely women - very interesting. Oh Gemma - I really, really wanted her to be pregnant.

Oh it was great, but heartbreaking, it was so hard watching them take those pregnancy tests and how upset they were afterwards. Poor Gemma, I so wanted that last time to have worked. I hope she thinks about adopting instead.

What happened with the home birth, did anyone catch what rare thing it was she and the baby developed?

No, I don't think she actually named the rare condition. So glad the baby was okay. I was very surprised she was having a homebirth at the age of 43 and a first birth- the unit for us older mums would not have countenanced it where I attended. Of course, she should not blame herself though - birth rarely goes a splanned for anyone whatever their age.

Emotional stuff.

I found the donor men's attitudes self-absorbed, eg saying that they would be happy to have a coffee with the adult child but not be part of their li, because they would have their partners and families. And emphasising that "it's only biological link, not my child and not a sibling to my children". The DC - those living with their father and conceived through their father's donated sperm might well disagree.

This was so so emotional for me. I feel so lucky to have my donor conceived dd lying in bed fast asleep as I watched this programme. I remember the agonies of failure and the joy of finding out I was pregnant at last. Poor Gemma, there are no words of comfort for that sort of pain. I hope she does become a mum somehow, she'd be fab.

What a brilliant documentary! It was so emotional. My mind must have been playing tricks on me because I thought at the beginning it had shown a clip of Gemma jumping up and down with excitement so I'd assumed she was going to get her happy ending. I felt heartbroken for her.

I agree about the homebirth, I was very surprised she was allowed to go for it.

It was great to hear from the donors too. Some of them were very young though and I'm not convinced they've thought through all the implications.

I agree that the donors seemed very blase. A free cup of coffee might not cut it for children who may seek him out in the future. I wondered what the donors motivation was ("a helping hand" one said) the £50 didn't seem a particular incentive and they didn'r seem to feel ferventently altruistic.

Fifty quid two or three times a week adds up (in us banks they are expected to 'donate' this often).

The men are inadequately counselled. Also, they may well feel differently when they meet the children.

The donor who said the children would not be brothers or sisters to his social and biological children was also not thinking about what his own social and biological children would make of the whole thing.

And of course, the donor conceived offspring may well feel very differently about it all. For them, the biological connection may well be relevant (and of course it is often very relevant, otherwise why would women fight so hard to conceive with their own eggs before using donor eggs?).

I thought the film's director managed the issue of anonymity very well. she made it clear that their are multiple offspring from danish sperm and that this puts a very different slant on the idea of non-anonymous.

HOWEVER, I believe the director was wrong in saying that ID release donors commit to meeting the children at least once. In the UK and the US ID release donors commit only to having their ID released, they do not commit to any sort of contact.

I thought the director very tactfully tackled the difficulties of using anonymous donor (as opposed to id release) by having the well adjusted child of a single mother and anonymous donor talk about the impact this had had on her sense of identity and self.

I felt terrible for Gemma. I so wanted her to be pregnant. I hope she adopts or conceives with donor eggs. I also hope she finds support.