r/askadcp

I’m considering a donor embryo or egg donor, given my age. I have always wanted to be a mother, but unfortunately, my partner does not want children. I have done tons of research outside of just simply the process of having a child. I mean, I have read data on the psychological effects on both mother and children and so on. It’s not just having a baby. This is a person, a human being. It’s not trivial and I do not want to diminish the realities.
My question is.. do you feel more affected because you were never told the truth, meaning there was a lack of openness about it from your parents? Or do you feel any resentment towards your donors?
My father and my mother, both never knew who their biological fathers were. My father was actually lied to his entire life and made to believe that his bio dad was someone who clearly was not. We found out through DNA testing who his bio dad was and he had feelings of resentment towards his mother for withholding this info. She was wonderful and at that time, there may have been a great deal of shame associated with her telling the truth, nonetheless, she was wrong. We even tired to reassure her that we had no judgement towards her and just simply wanted to know for health reasons and curiosity, as my dad looked nothing like his dad and was artistic. She took it to the grave. So I understand firsthand the complexities of children needing to know who they are.
If I were to pursue donation, either egg or embryo, I would from the defining be open, so that it was organic and I would be fully supportive of them wanting answers. I get it, we need to know.
Does having parents who get this, make a difference? I would hate to bring a human into this world, only to cause them pain.
My view is, although it may not be accurate, is that these eggs and embryos are there and will inevitably get adopted and therefore, they will be born, so at least if they were born to me, I would be understanding and supportive. Idk, it’s all a lot but at the same time, I feel and know from experience, that when you’re honest, despite there being some bumps in the road, the outcome ultimately is better.
I plan on journaling my process if I decide to go this route, explaining everything and in the hopes of passing it along to my child one day. I want them to know everything from the start. Every single detail. All their bio parents health, my feelings, all of it, and that it wasn’t just some haphazard rushed decision, but rather something very thought out and well intentioned.
Can anyone chime in and let me know their thoughts and experiences. TIA

hello all!
I (29AFAB) am considering conceiving via donor. no one I know or am related to has even thought about donor conception. so I’m going in blind. I was just seeing if anyone who was conceived via donor would give me some insight into what their life was like? how they felt when they found out? and anyone who’s conceived via donor… what was your experience like?

any and all advice would be amazing. thank you!

My partner and I have been on the ivf journey for 5-6 years now.

No successful transfers in all that time and our doctor has indicated donor eggs are likely needed.

We're considering Spain based on our doctors recommendation as well as timeframes and good feedback we've been reading online.

Is anyone able to share their experiences with this kind of pathway? Whether it's undertaking ivf with donor treatments in Spain / living the life as a donor conceived person / raising a donor conceived child in general?

The two issues glaring us in the face currently are,

1. The complete lack of choice we as the intended parents have in the selection process of egg donor. Apparently we'll only be informed upon successful implantation of hair, eye, skin colour.

2. Complete anonymity from Spain laws that might come into play later in the conceived child's life in regards to tracing family history etc.

We’re trying to cover as many aspects of this question as possible before committing to any option offered to us by our clinic/s.

Any insights would be really helpful and appreciated!

I’d really appreciate hearing DCP perspectives on academic research outcomes. What do you make of findings suggesting that anonymous donation is not associated with worse psychological outcomes than open-ID or known donation, and that DCPs overall don’t appear to have worse psychological outcomes than non-DCPs? Sample sizes are often small so more research is definitely needed. I’m asking because, reading this sub, it seems to me that it often strongly recommends early disclosure, which is supported by the research literature, but also strongly discourages anonymous donations and is quite often hostile to donation in general.

Examples (the first four are from the same longitudinal study but I’m showing them all):
2011 study – known vs unknown donors (PubMed)⁠ Psychological adjustment did not differ between adolescents conceived with known versus unknown donors.
2021 longitudinal study – anonymous vs open-ID vs known donors (PubMed)⁠ No significant differences in psychological adjustment by donor type across ages 10, 17 and 25.
2023 study – donor contact and relationships in adulthood (PubMed)⁠ Most DCPs were satisfied with their level of donor contact, regardless of whether their donor was known or unknown.
2025 longitudinal study – 21-year follow-up (PubMed)⁠ Psychological adjustment was generally healthy through age 30–33 and did not differ by donor type or donor contact.
2024 systematic review – 50 studies, 4,666 DCPs (PubMed)⁠ Most studies found DCPs had similar or better psychological outcomes than non-DCPs, although some reported poorer outcomes.

I am considering using a donor egg to have another child. I have been struggling with secondary infertility for years and had a 3 cycle long unsuccessful IVF journey.

My questions are how did your parents tell you that you were donor conceived? What would you change about it? Do you have any advice for a parent who is considering using donor means to have a child?

The donor conceived child would have a sibling who was naturally conceived. If you are in this position, do you feel any different?

Any advice would be extremely appreciated.
Thank you all for sharing your experiences.

This seems to be a relatively new thing. While I do feel like banks are unethical, they’re not really pretending to be anything they’re not as far as involvement and donor responsibility goes and there are a ton of legal protections. I believe a KD situation with a person you already know and trust is the ideal situation hands down.

But I’ve been noticing lately that there’s been an uptick on couples or SMBC seeking out men on apps specifically for the purpose of saying their children have a known donor. While this seems sweet in practice, I find myself thinking this is almost as unethical and frankly way more irresponsible than using a bank.

I feel like people have gotten swept up in the idea that just because a known donor is the ideal, that means that finding one by any means necessary is way more moral or better than other options. As I said, this concept is relatively new so I guess we will have to see what the new generation of DCP feel when they’re older.

And to give context on my own background, my parents used an anonymous donor and didn’t even tell me I was donor conceived until I was in high school!!! Which was a huge mindfuck at the time and I did eventually meet my bio dad (thanks 23andme) so I definitely am not supporting anonymous donation or even banks in general, it was just something that I had been seeing a felt a bit icked out by.

I’m thinking about having a child conceived from both donor egg and sperm (both open ID only). Currently, I’d be a SMBC.

I had tried a few IVF cycles with my own eggs and chose sperm donors who are not my ethnicity. The reason for that sounds now so naive and ignorant to me - I wanted to add to diversity in this world - but I didn’t think about whether this could have an impact on the child (though I was always planning on having their ethnic background/culture integrated in their upbringing, etc).

Now that I’m also thinking about a donor egg, I’m asking myself if my potential donor-conceived child would prefer if they looked similar to me (and the majority of people where they’d grow up)? Of course, you can never know with genes what might happen - but should I make an effort to choose donors who are of my ethnicity (and perhaps have similar traits like hair and eye color)?

Then again, I would tell my child from the beginning that they are donor-conceived and so looking as similar as possible wouldn’t matter too much?!

I’m sorry if my thought processes at this point are ignorant and uninformed and perhaps even hurtful.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and insights in advance!

Edit: thank you all for your critical and thoughtful responses! My lack of insight, naivety, and ignorance are quite glaring to me now. It also made me realize that I didn’t center my potential child’s needs at all, didn’t even realize it. So thank you also for allowing me to get cognizant of that!

I’m currently pregnant with a baby conceived using donor eggs, after being diagnosed with premature ovarian failure.
I’d like to ask a question, and I hope I’m not being insensitive or offensive, or breaking any of the rules of this sub.
I often read that DCPs don’t like hearing that they were “so deeply wanted” by their parents, because it can make them feel pressured in a way. Because of that, I would never say this to my child in the future.
However, I see friends of mine who conceived through IVF using their own gametes constantly saying the same thing to their children and publicly on social media.
Does this kind of comment feel different to a DCP compared with someone conceived through IVF without a donor? Or could anyone conceived after a long or difficult fertility journey feel pressured by this kind of comment?

I'm in a lesbian relationship and we recently asked a friend of our if he would be willing to be a known/directed donor for our family. We had a conversation with him and his partner and they were asking about our expectations. What I said was 'I believe the idea that this is strictly genetic and doesn't mean anything beyond that is a fantasy for the adults involved. Who this is going to be the most meaningful to will be the children, and everyone is different and might have different feelings about it and we just don't know what their needs will be yet'. My baseline expectation of a known donor is that they care about the kids, are willing to be available to talk when needed, and have good boundaries with children.

Otherwise I don't exactly know what to tell them as far as expectations. I don't want to put an expectation on them that neither of us might want or be available for in the future (like spending any holidays together or being involved in ways they wouldn't already be as friends) but I also know the potential kids might have feelings about him or his extended family that I want to prepare everyone for the possibility of (like the possibility that my kids would want to spend time with his siblings' kids, how to be graceful about the fact that him and his partner do not wants to have the same family obligations they might have with their nieces and nephews, what boundaries could lead to profound rejection for a child versus what boundaries are healthy).

I wanted to go this route as opposed to an anonymous donor because it seems like the transparency and care is better for the kids. My kids will always know who their donor is and that he and his partner are people who care about them. What advice would y'all give my family as donor concieved folks about what boundaries feel constructive versus restricting, inconsistent, or unachievable.

Long-time reader, first-time poster. My husband and I (both men) have a four-year-old and a toddler, both via surrogacy (same egg donor, with each of us as one of their bio parents). The egg donor indicated “maybe” when asked if she wants to meet them in future; I don’t know how that works precisely but I believe they will be able to reach out when they are 18. We are transparent about how they came to our family and will always answer any questions they have.

Our family felt 'complete' to us when our younger son arrived, because that closed the genetic link between the four of us (I'm related to him, he to his brother, his brother to my husband). I can’t predict how they will feel in the future about being donor-conceived, of course, but I hope that our family structure and openness makes it less likely they face the trauma that people in the worst-case scenario (i.e., lied to their entire lives with no genetic link to the people who raised them) can experience.

I wish I had discovered this community before our kids arrived. I've read a lot and have a much better appreciation for the complex set of emotions donor conception entails than I did before. I don't think it would have changed our minds about surrogacy, but we would have made an open donation one of our donor criteria, and we would have been more thoughtful about the potential impact on our children.

But better late than never. We want to be the best parents we can, and to that end I’d love to hear from anyone here with advice or resources on how we can best support our donor-conceived kids, both at their current ages and as they grow up. Personal experiences welcome as well, especially from those with two dads!

I’m a 41yo SMBC with a 3 month old via IVF with anonymous (ID) donor from sperm bank so has donor siblings with limits. I have 2 additional embryos. I would love to have 2nd child, but I am older and had potentially life threatening complications that are likely to recur with repeat pregnancies which then also puts the fetus at risk of complications as well as preterm and potentially very preterm delivery. I also worry that as a solo parent I won’t be able to parent 2 well (related to time, and financial constraints). I also have very demanding job. I definitely don’t think 3 by myself is doable unless I end up with a partner or something. What are some of the DCP perspectives/experiences with having sibling embryos that remain frozen?

I'm about to start egg donation in Spain, where donation is anonymous by law. I've been reading here and elsewhere for weeks and I'd value your perspective, including the parts I won't enjoy.

Where I've landed:

• I will tell my child early, before school age, and keep it an ordinary fact rather than a revelation.
• I will never lie about it, and I won't wait to be asked.
• I'm keeping every document — carrier screening, donor phenotype, clinic records — permanently, so the medical information is available to them.
• I won't stand in their way if they want to search as an adult, including through DNA databases. I'll say so.
• I'm asking the clinic for whatever non-identifying information they'll give me, so I have something to hand over.

What I'm not doing: choosing an identity-release country. Partly because the Spanish system is the practical option for me, and partly because I hold a position I know is contested here — that a child's interest in knowing their origins has to be weighed against the donor's interest in the terms she agreed to, and against my family's privacy. I don't think the child's claim automatically outranks everything else. I understand that many of you disagree, and I'd rather hear why than have it left unsaid. I'm also aware this costs my child something they didn't consent to.

Two questions I've been unable to answer from reading:

For those of you who haven't sought out your donor, or don't intend to — how do you think about that? Is it indifference, a settled decision, or something you've had to make peace with?

And separately: do you think of your donor as a parent, or as a different category of person entirely? The language varies a lot and I don't want to assume how my child would frame it.

I'll be honest about why I'm asking. I haven't started treatment. If I can't find a way to do this that I think is fair to the person it creates, I'd rather not do it at all — so I'm asking before, not after.

Given the route I'm considering, what would you want me to do differently, or do in addition? And is there anything you wish your parents had done that I haven't thought of?

I donated a few years ago in the UK and have DCPs born as a result all under the age of 5 currently.

It’s difficult for me to overstate the extent to which I want them each to have the best life possible, which makes me think about what they’d want in terms of DNA testing.

As a post 2005 UK donor, they will be able to contact me when they’re 18, but I’m also open (though perhaps slightly anxious) about registering and allowing myself to be found before that.

If they want to meet me or ask me anything, I’d be happy to do either, but things are necessarily more complicated for people under 18.

Appealing to DCPs or Donors, do you have any thoughts on whether it’s the right thing to do? I’d be unlikely to sign up before the oldest is 10 regardless, so it’s not urgent, I’m just thinking about what’s best to do.

I’m 30F and I’ve always wanted to be a mother. I thought I’d be starting a family next year, but after a recent breakup, that future suddenly disappeared and I’ve been heartbroken.
My sister gave birth through IVF 4 months ago, and she and her husband still have 2 frozen embryos. They offered to donate them to me, provided I have my own place and a certain amount of savings. I’m considering becoming a single mom and possibly doing the embryo transfer around 33, giving myself a few years to prepare.
The embryos are genetically theirs, so my sister would be the biological mother and her husband the biological father, while I would carry and raise the child.
I’m really excited about the possibility, but I’m also wondering if this could become complicated for me, my sister, or especially the child later in life.
Would you do it? Do you think knowing their aunt and uncle are their biological parents could create emotional or family complications?

We had two children with the help of the same egg donor and our child can choose to contact her when she's 18.

If you were on either end of this interaction, how did it go? Was it something you regretted doing? Was there an instant connection that made you happy?

Hello community. I’m seeking insights from this community on if you would have stronger feelings with different paths.

I (40f) have 6 blastocysts with my partner (egg donor, his sperm - I am infertile myself). Unfortunately, our relationship has broken down truly in the days before implantation.

I do not want to bring children into a broken home (especially as it would be multi-country) but also I wonder if for a DCP knowing who one of your genetic parents is would have outweighed the potential trauma of a co-parent situation. I am also gutted about destroying those created blastocysts.

I am considering embryo adoption to do this on my own and am blessed with the means to ensure a single parent home would be stable for a child. But I don’t know if a double-blind donation is in the better long-term interest of a child if they have the chance to know one of their bio parents.

We live where both the egg donor and embryo adoption is strictly closed on all sides, even if the child desires to know, although I understand the reality of self-driven genetic discovery later in life and would certainly support that if it’s what the child desires.

In either option the child would know from birth that they were donor conceived or an embryo adoption. It would not be hidden and would be integrated into their core knowledge and identity from day one.

I’d love any insights anyone could offer. It’s all so tricky and I want to ensure the best decision for the child is made here.

Hi, I was wondering if having a sibling who has the same parent & donor would be something that would be important or nice for a DCP to have?

I know there's no guarantee that siblings will get on but I wondered if it was important or even just nice to have someone who not only shares your biological history but has the shared experiences of growing up together.

I'm an only child and I was thinking it was important but not sure if that's just my own biases at work.

Hi all, I am so grateful for this group. I am really torn here and need advice. I am a SMBC in the process of choosing an egg donor. I have dark curly hair with hazel eyes. My known sperm donor is light skinned blond/blue eyes.  I am debating between two options. Both have been known to create embryos (but no live births tracked).

Donor 1: early 20s. She has one brother and no known cancers (at least reported). She has light brown hair/brown eyes.
 
Donor 2: early 20s. She has a few siblings. One of her sisters also donated. One grandfather had lung cancer and the other pancreatic inflammation. She has dark hair/brown eyes.
 
I am worried about the fact that if I go with Donor 1 the child may not look like me at all. If I go with Donor 2 I am afraid that they will have a lot of extended siblings cousins through her and her sister’s donations.  How would you decide? 

Hi! I am a single mom (not by choice) to a beautiful 15 month old conceived with donor sperm. I absolutely want to tell her everything I know in age appropriate way. To that end, last September 18 (the day the embryo was transferred through ivf), I read her a kids story about a kid with two moms (which she had at the time) and a baby conceived through ivf with donor sperm and then told her a simplified version of events (which she obviously did not understand). My plan is to make September 18 [Name] day and make it like a second birthday where we celebrate her and also make sure to talk about how she got her with the details increasing as she gets older. Obviously this is going to be an ongoing discussion not limited to once a year, but i do think that this tradition will at least ensure that no more than one year can go by without revisiting the topic. Thoughts on this from the community would be super welcomed! Thank you!

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