Experiences Of Donor Conception

Drawing on the experiences of parents, offspring and donors and including her own and her family's story, this thought-provoking and informative book explores the process of donor conception. From finding out about an infertility problem, to considering whether - and how - to tell the children about their conception, and how those children feel as the adult offspring of a donor, she provides practical suggestions as well as in-depth consideration of the emotional and ethical issues involved. Lorbach takes the reader step-by-step through the process of deciding to use donor conception, choosing a donor, and discussing the decision with others - and considers the perspective of the donor alongside those of parents and offspring. Tackling difficult subjects such as disclosure and offspring's access to information about the donor, this important book is a much-needed resource for health, counseling and social work professionals as well as for the couples and families themselves.

Drawing on interviews with donors, their kin and fertility counsellors, the authors discuss what donation stories can tell us about contemporary understandings of connectedness, time and morality in the context of reproduction and family life, and consider how reproductive ‘openness’ might be done differently.

This book is about the psychological experiences of women and men who have used donor conception to create their families. The authors offer diverse accounts of their clinical, research, and personal experiences. They describe the challenge of powerful conscious and unconscious fantasies that can be aroused and how these may reawaken early anxieties and developmental struggles. Whilst recipients of donated eggs or sperm may think they are simply acquiring a factor of reproduction, they are also receiving the genetic history of another family. The sensitive management of these relationships is considered in relation to establishing healthy and well-functioning families. The way these emotional challenges are negotiated is likely to be reflected in how parents talk with children about their donor origins.

The first comprehensive book that offers invaluable step-by-step advice for families with donor-conceived children. Wendy Kramer, founder and director of the Donor Sibling Registry, and Naomi Cahn, family and reproductive law professor, have compiled a comprehensive and thorough guide for the growing community of families with donor-conceived children. Kramer and Cahn believe that all donor-conceived children’s desire to know their genetic family must be honored, and in Finding Our Families, they offer advice on how to foster healthy relationships within immediate families and their larger donor family networks based on openness and acceptance. With honesty and compassion, the authors offer thoughtful strategies and inspirational stories to help parents answer their own, and their children’s, questions and concerns that will surely arise, including: How to support your children’s curiosity and desire to know about their ancestry and genetic and medical background. How to help children integrate their birth story into a healthy self-image. How to help your children search for their donor or half siblings if and when they express interest in doing so. Finding Our Families opens up the lives of donor-conceived people who may be coping with uncertainty, thriving despite it, and finding novel ways to connect in this uncharted territory as they navigate the challenges and rewards of the world of donor conception.

Let's Talk About Egg Donation was written by, for, and about families built through egg and embryo donation. It takes the reader on a journey--from infertility diagnosis, to pregnancy, to how to talk to your child about egg donation. Let's Talk About Egg Donation tells true stories of real families who are parenting via egg and embryo donation. Their stories are woven throughout the book to craft an informative, easy-to-read narrative that focuses on positive language choices. This is the first book written by parents through egg donation that gives you age-appropriate scripts for how to take the scary out of talking to your kids about the special way in which they were conceived.

Having Your Baby Through Egg Donation is a helpful, authoritative guide to negotiating the complex and emotive issues that arise for those considering whether or not to pursue egg donation. It presents information clearly and with compassion, exploring the practical, financial, logistical, social and ethical questions that commonly arise. This fully updated second edition also includes recent developments in the field, including travelling for egg donation and the emerging field of epigenetics. This book will be valued by all those considering or undergoing donor conception, as well as the range of professionals who support them, including infertility counsellors, psychologists, therapists and social workers.

Each year, tens of thousands of children are conceived with donated gametes (sperm or eggs). By some estimates, there are over one million donor-conceived people in the United States and, of course, many more the world over. Some know they are donor-conceived. Some do not. Some know the identity of their donors. Others never will. Questions about what donor-conceived people should know about their genetic progenitors are hugely significant for literally millions of people, including donor-conceived people, their parents, and donors. But the practice of gamete donation also provides a vivid occasion for thinking about questions that matter to everyone. What is the value of knowing who your genetic progenitors are? How are our identities bound up with knowing where we come from? What obligations do parents have to their children? And what makes someone a parent in the first place? In Conceiving People: Identity, Genetics and Gamete Donation, Daniel Groll argues that people who plan to create a child with donated gametes should choose a donor whose identity will be made available to the resulting child. This is not, Groll argues, because having genetic knowledge is fundamentally important. Rather, it is because donor-conceived people are likely to develop a significant interest in having genetic knowledge and parents must help satisfy their children's significant interests. In other words, because a donor-conceived person is likely to care about having genetic knowledge, their parents should care too.