In this session, Becky Kearns, Founder of DefiningMum & Paths to Parenthub, mum to three girls, all thanks to egg donation, has talked about the importance of emotional support when you’re going through donor conception treatment.
Defining Mum is a blog and an Instagram account dedicated to offering support for people who are on the journey of trying to conceive through IVF, as well as donor conception. Becky has also launched Paths to Parenthub which is an online platform designed to offer a deeper level of support with lots of resources, support, and connection opportunities for people who are going through the paths to parenthood of donor conception.
I am no expert, I’m not a professional, and I’m not a counsellor, but what I do have is that lived experience and also networks that I’ve built over the past couple of years where I’ve spoken to many people who have all been down the path of either egg donation, sperm donation, double donation and have built their family in this different way to what they’d originally imagined.
My story started when I was 27. I’m 35 now, but I was 27 when my husband and I decided we were going to start trying for a baby. Probably, almost everybody else never thought there would be an issue. It was about six months down the line when I started to notice that something didn’t feel quite right, my periods were a bit all over the place after coming off the pill, and I was having periods every 14 to 21 days, so really regularly. I was having night sweats, and something just didn’t feel right. I just had this feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Furthermore, I spoke to the GP several times, which was very difficult at the age I was to get someone to listen to me. On the third attempt, they finally ran some tests that showed that my follicle-stimulating hormone was high, and eventually, after some more private tests, I was diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency. I was told that I was entering early menopause and that our chances to conceive were very low. I was also told that it wasn’t the end of the road and that we could try IVF, and they were quite hopeful that with my age being at 27 if we were able to retrieve some eggs, we may have some success there.
We went through five cycles of IVF before we moved to egg donation. In my first cycle, I became pregnant after I had one embryo put back, but sadly at eight weeks, I lost that pregnancy, so it was over about 15 months when we underwent five cycles of IVF, where we were desperately trying to find that golden egg, conceive, and kind of just start our family in the way that we’d always imagined using both my genetics and my husband’s genetics as well.
It was after cycle number five that we decided to use egg donation, and it wasn’t an easy decision at all. There was a lot of grief involved, and there wasn’t a moment where I suddenly realized that this is what we need to do, it was a real process over those 15 months of acceptance and working towards redefining what it meant to me to be a mum. That’s a bit of a background as to what led up to our egg donation cycle. As you can see, our journey ended happily, and I’m so grateful and so lucky to now say that I’m a mum to three little girls.
Mila, my eldest, is now almost 5, and I also have twins Esker and Lena, who are 3. At the point we decided to use an egg donor, we decided to go abroad for many reasons, which I can go into a bit later, but we were keen to move quite quickly because of the emotional impact that the previous 15 months had had on me. So, our decision-making was quite quick, I remember feeling quite unsupported and very alone. This is another reason why I do what I do today. It’s because when I went on that journey, I didn’t realize how common it was or how many other people were experiencing this too, and a real big turning point for me was when I met somebody through an online forum, Netmums of all places, who had a little boy through egg donation, and she supported me and allowed me to ask questions. We finally met in person, and that was quite a pivotal moment because that allowed me to see the reality of what her life was like as a mum through egg donation, and to be honest, there was nothing that seemed any different to any other mother-son relationship.
That gave me so much hope and that’s why I share my story today because I think it’s a really important part of acceptance to be able to see somebody else’s reality and to be able to see that there is that chance of happiness at the end of what feels like a very dark time.
This is a quote I shared in an article I wrote for Grazia magazine. It kind of tells the real story around being told that you can carry a child, but they won’t be genetically related to you is hugely complicated news to process. I don’t know about many of you, but after going through the process of suddenly finding out that we weren’t going to conceive naturally, going through IVF, that in itself was a huge amount of grief.
I think it’s often not recognized that many people will always dream of just conceiving naturally, like most other people, so to be told that you’re not going to be able to conceive in that way is a huge hurdle to overcome, but then to be told that you might still be able to conceive but that that child won’t be genetically related to you, that’s a whole other ballgame, and it’s a whole other layer of grief and complexity that you have to deal with and trying to think about what does that mean for me? What does it mean for our family? How does my partner feel about it? And also how do we talk to other people about it? It’s not as simple as just deciding the terms of a treatment to use. It’s something that has an emotional impact running right through it, so I’m sure many of you who are on this path will be able to relate to that quote specifically around the complexity of this decision and path. At the end of it, it can be so much joy but there is still so much to process on the way.
What emotions are present when you realize that donor conception is your only option?
I speak a lot about emotion, and this is a big thing I talk about through Defining Mum, you’ll see this image here, and this was created through a survey asking lots of my followers what the main emotions that they felt when they found out you needed to use egg donation or the egg donation was an option for you. The bigger words are the ones that came up more often, there are such extremes in emotion, so you’ve got:
On the other end, you’ve got:
I can honestly say that every single one of those words on there felt, and it was such a roller coaster at times because one moment, I was feeling hopeful that, for the first time in a long while, there was a chance of actually becoming a mum. On the other side, I still felt devastation at the fact that I wouldn’t have a child that would share my genetics, and I wouldn’t necessarily see myself in my child, and I may not see the resemblances with my own family as well. My mum and I are very alike, and it’s always commented upon, I had always dreamed that I would have a child that would look like me, act like me, and be a mini-me just like we had.
It was only after my whole process when I spoke to some counsellors and people within the field, that I started to understand the magnitude of what I’d had to process, what all of you were having to process, and the journey that you go through and understand that it is a real grieving process. It is a hard one to describe to somebody who hasn’t been through it because you’re grieving something invisible, it’s not tangible, it’s something that’s been in your mind forever, and you get to the point where you’ve got to let that go and redefine what that means. That is where the name Defining Mum comes from as well because I did have to redefine what it meant to me to be a mum.
All of these emotions that I’ve listed on this slide I went through, I mean, at very first when somebody said to me that “you may want to use an egg donor”, I was in complete denial, so when I was googling and doing all the things online to try and find support. If I found a story where someone like me had used an egg donor, I didn’t want to hear it. All I wanted to hear were the success stories of people who had beaten the odds and managed to conceive with their own eggs.
Now I realize that at that stage, I was just not ready to start accepting this as a path, and grief was a theme throughout, so I struggled emotionally, I struggled at work, I was signed off work with stress and anxiety, and I had to try and focus on me and to try and look after my own mental health, so I took up reflexology, I tried acupuncture, lots of other things to try and relieve some of the stress and tension and then came acceptance.
As I said before, I don’t think this was one sort of lightbulb moment where I suddenly realized that this was the path for me, but having met the person that I referred to online and having gone through several failed cycles and grieving the loss of those cycles and those embryos, I started to, I suppose, focus less on what I would be losing by going down the egg donation route and started to think about those things that I would gain. This is where hope came in came in.
I started to think about being able to carry a child. I wanted to experience pregnancy and also have the opportunity to give birth to a child, feed them, and just do all the day-to-day things that, so many people take for granted; so, I desperately wanted to have the sleepless nights, I wanted to go to the mum and baby groups, I wanted to raise a child, I wanted to hear all the firsts, the smiles, the walking, the laughs, the talking, and I wanted to just be with them every step of the way and that’s where I started to find hope because I thought ‘okay, this child wouldn’t be sharing my genetics, but they’d be sharing almost all of their time with me, and I would be the one growing them, and I would be the one nurturing them’, and that’s got to count for something. That’s when I kind of came to the point where I was ready to make that decision.
Fear also came in and was a big part and would sometimes pop up at the strangest of times. I think fear fueled by grief at times is a very real emotion that you feel on this journey, especially at the very beginning and sort of going through treatment, and even through pregnancy because there’s still so much that is unknown ahead of you. Then, as I’ve mentioned, conflicting thoughts. One minute you might feel excited, and then you’ll wonder why you’re still feeling scared, or you’re still feeling worried about what’s to come.
Another thing I always like to point out is that using a donor it isn’t just a one-time decision, it’s a decision for life. I think sometimes when donor conception is presented as an answer by a fertility doctor, for example, and the complexity of emotions and the complexity of this path that isn’t often explored in, as much depth as I feel, is potentially needed.
When we went through making this decision, we never actually had a specific counselling session relating to donor conception, and that was mainly to do with the path that we went down. We never got to the point of reaching the top of the waiting list in the UK, which would have meant we would have had an implication session, and going abroad, there wasn’t an offer. I did seek some counselling from a generic counsellor where I was able to talk through some of my fears, but they didn’t have that specific knowledge to support me.
One of the things I always advise is to find a counsellor even if you’re a bit earlier on in your journey because having a safe space to explore some of these thoughts and emotions is important, and it’s something I wished I had done in the past.
As I’ve said, it is a real process of grief and acceptance, and some people may think that once you’ve made that decision that process is over, but what I’ve found and what I’ve found through speaking to other people is that actually the process just continues, I think it’s worth being aware of some of these thoughts and emotions that may crop up, so if you are taken by surprise, you’re aware that other people have felt that too.
Obviously, through diagnosis, there’s going to be a lot of grief around coming to terms with this diagnosis and how you feel about it and what that might mean for you and your future family in deciding as I’ve mentioned before, not only if you’re in a heterosexual relationship, not only are you having to think about this for yourself, you are also having your partner to consider as well, and I just wanted to mention this because when we went down this pathway, my husband Matt, he was adamantly against the idea, for much longer than I was, and we had some very difficult conversations around what does this mean if he doesn’t want to go down this path and I do.
Those are the kind of relationship conversations and questions that you don’t ever expect to be having with your partner, so I think it’s really important to understand that not only is it a process of grief and acceptance for the individual who is losing their genetics, it’s also a process of grief and acceptance for the partner as well in many cases because they are also grieving the loss of the child that they thought they might have. I know Matt was dreaming of the child that shared both of our genetics and would be a little bit of him, a little bit of me, so I don’t think I realized that at the time, and that we were just both on very different paths in terms of the stage of acceptance.
Going through treatment as well I was quite shocked from my own experience; how this impacted me as an individual, so I thought I’d gone past the stage of making the decision and then I was all fine with it. Now we’re going ahead I was hopeful, I felt more excitement at the fact of having more than a 50% chance rather than less than a 5% chance and going through treatment I found really difficult different triggers along the process; matching with a donor, for example, brought up some real fears for me around feeling threatened about the thought of someone else having the role of mum or being seen as a mum and I remember feeling jealousy around the fact that the donor could do something that I couldn’t and that I wanted to do so badly. I felt guilty for feeling that as well because, at the same time, I felt grateful that someone was willing to donate their eggs to us, so I found that a confusing time, particularly when the actual treatment cycle was underway.
Another thing to be aware of is the point where you are informed of how the cycle is going; so, the call around how many eggs and how many embryos. I found that hugely triggering as well. I felt very detached and I felt a lot of control over there because I’d been used to being completely involved in that process and suddenly I was on the sidelines, just waiting for an update, which again brought back those feelings of not being able to do what I wanted to be able to do and grieving that kind of loss of the role of being able to provide the eggs.
I think I thought that at the point I would become pregnant, that all of the fears and everything would disappear, and I was over the moon and very grateful. We were very lucky that it worked the first time for us with our daughter Mila, I then found pregnancy quite an anxious time because that was where some of the other questions started coming into my mind, and it suddenly all felt very real, and then through to parenting as well. There are always things that are going to remind you of this difficult process and journey.
This is why I feel that emotional support is so important, not just at the point of diagnosis and making the decision but also throughout the treatment cycle pregnancy parenting and beyond.
I’ve tried to capture some of the big questions and fears that seem to crop up a lot when people speak to me through Instagram, but also things that I felt myself, so all of these fears went through my mind at some point over the journey.
Having to accept that someone else will be the genetic parent to your child is hugely difficult and I struggled with trying to let go of that aspect, at times, I think you still wish for a less complicated story, and it is a very real fear, and not only for you feeling like the legitimate parent but also will other people see you as the legitimate parent.
I remember during pregnancy I definitely felt the bond with my bump and feeling her kick and I was so excited and so happy to finally be pregnant, and I felt great love for the child that I was carrying; yet I still had worries about ‘would I bond once she arrived?’. I had this fear around, ‘would they have some kind of sixth sense that I wasn’t genetically related to them?’, and I think I put this real emphasis on the genetics.
The other thing that went through my mind was, ‘What would my child look like?’ and I felt superficial for feeling like that, but it was a very real fear because I think most people kind of think they get pregnant and they know that it’s going to be a combination of themselves and their partner, no one truly knows what they will look like but having a third party involved. Particularly, the way we did with an anonymous donor who we hadn’t seen photos of, we just knew some basic characteristics. I had struggled with these thoughts going through my mind around what my baby would look like, and I suppose it was more around ‘would it be obvious to other people that we weren’t genetically related? Would people just look at us and be able to tell?’.
Knowing that one day I would have to almost relive this again to talk to them and tell them about how they came to be.
I think at the very beginning it can feel so huge and you wonder whether you’ll ever truly get past that and that is something that has definitely diminished for me over time, but I think at the very beginning I did genuinely wonder whether I would always be feeling sad about the fact that I’m not genetically related to my children.
That’s another huge question and I’m skipping over these but they’re huge topics in themselves, but when choosing a donor there’s so much to think about, things such as: do you use an anonymous donor? Or do you stay in the UK?
If you’re in the UK, for example, and use an open ID donor, do you use a known donor? Each one has different complexities attached to it.
Some clinics allow you to see photos, and know a great deal of information and some clinics where you go to, where you don’t find out much at all, and it’s very much personal preference as to how comfortable you feel with each route and again that’s something I just didn’t know much about at the very beginning. I was just kind of swept along with what was right in front of me.
That’s another huge fear and question that I hear a lot, definitely one that I’ve felt myself, particularly ‘how would they feel knowing that I’m not their genetic parent?’, but also how will they feel in the future about maybe wanting to find out more about the donor to try and understand a little bit more about their genetic origins?
I’m a big advocate for trying to get that real support network around you, but often, that means disclosing something that is very personal and can be very difficult to those who are close to you and that fear again about what they might think and what reactions you may have.
I‘ve tried to summarize some advice here, and I can’t answer every single one of those questions, but hopefully, what I share now will give you a kind of a bit of a pointer and a guide to where you might be able to find some support with those.
Find other people who have been on this path because it’s one of those things that you just can’t talk to in the level of depth that you need to with someone down the road who has conceived their child naturally or even someone who’s conceived through IVF, it’s a very unique experience and I have to say that meeting my friend through Netmums was the best thing that happened to me on that journey because it allowed me to have that person to open up to and who truly understood how I was feeling.
I’ve mentioned this before but I think it is really important to find a trusted person you can talk to about these emotions and to explore your fears.
I think it’s really important, whether it’s through journaling or some other way, to really focus on what you’re feeling and not to just bury it because that’s what I did at certain points. I just ‘oh, it’ll be okay, I’ll put it to one side’, when really what I needed to do was feel it and explore why I was feeling that way.
I think it’s really important to hear from other people and that includes other people who have become parents in this way like myself and there are many other people through Instagram, but also trying to find perspectives that are closely related to your family.
I’ve come across many people who are looking at egg donation as a route to have a sibling, for example, so there are additional complexities there, or finding someone, if you’re using double donation, someone else who’s been through that who understands the questions and the complexities that are unique to that path within donor conception.
I think it’s really important to remember that it is a grieving process and to be kind to yourself because so often we’re hard on ourselves.
I remember saying to myself, ‘Becky, just pull yourself together’, because I genuinely thought I was overreacting for feeling as deeply as I did, and it’s only now I look back and I remember listening to a podcast that broke down the different levels of emotion involved in making this decision. I just broke down in tears because I realized that was exactly how I was feeling, so it’s knowing that you’re not alone, which is so important, because it’s something that’s so rarely spoken about and because it’s not like you know somebody down the road who’s been down this path.
You can feel very alone, and you can feel like you are the only person in the world to have had this fear and that’s exactly how I felt through pregnancy. When I was worrying about what my child would look like and then I’d beat myself up because I think, ‘Well, Becky, why are you thinking that? Stop being so superficial, but it is, although it’s unique to each of us, it’s so common among people who go through donor conception, particularly when it is a shock and there is trauma before going down this pathway.
Patsh to Parenthub is the new platform I created to help support people and almost to provide all of the information connection and support that I wish I’d have had back when I was going through my journey, so I created Paths to Parenthub, actually, last year, obviously through lockdown, when there was a lot of time for people to be at home.
I previously planned to run some events where I would get speakers to go and talk about all of these topics, but that was all cancelled, so it led me to creating an online resource, and I’m really pleased that it did because it means that more people can get access to it now.
It’s an interactive platform that allows information, support, and connection. It’s relating to all of these different questions and emotions that I’ve talked about earlier in the presentation. It hosts several webinars, I have a network of speakers who are professionals in the field, therapists who have worked specifically with donor conception, researchers who have done research into families who’ve been through donor conception, and just many people who have been down this path.
I also hold live chats, looking at specific scenarios and family building experiences where members are able to ask questions, a little bit like what I’m doing right now. All of these different conversations and chats are all saved for people to watch back, and the beauty is you can watch it in your own home just like now with your partner or if you want to watch it on your own as well.
I also run support groups as part of this so there are opportunities to come together virtually and just chat with other people who are in the same position, who understand and just to share where you’re at and to openly speak about some of these emotions and things that you’re feeling. It’s a membership community, it’s available on pathstoparenthood.com, and like I said, you can find emotional support there, connection, and lots of information about the different questions that come up along the way.
This is a big question that I think that comes up quite a lot. When we were on the journey back in 2015, so it was about six years ago now, and originally we had signed up with our local UK clinic in the Midlands for their donor waiting list, and we signed up quite early because we were told that the waiting list was long so it was best to get on there, just in case it didn’t work with my eggs.
At the time of signing up for that waiting list, we hadn’t made the decision, we just knew it was a potential future option. When we came to the point of closing the door on my eggs, after our fifth failed cycle, we asked the clinic where we were on the waiting list, having been on there previously for about must have been 10 or 11 months, and we found that we were no closer to the top. I struggled with that, particularly because I’d almost gone through this whole process of getting myself ready to make this decision, and then suddenly, at the point, I’d made the decision I was told that it could be another six, it could be another nine, it could be another twelve months, they just weren’t sure.
I think that at the time, I feel like things have moved now, but at the time, there was a shortage of egg donors. Me being me, my husband calls me impatient, but I was only comfortable when going through this journey when I was physically doing something and I felt like I was making progress towards having a child. I went into research mode, started to look at options abroad, pulled up a spreadsheet, and just listed different things by the clinic, we looked at cost, we looked at logistics of ease of getting there, the waiting list, we looked at what screening was done on donors, and we held a few Skype interviews with several clinics abroad and that led us to choose a clinic in the Czech Republic.
That clinic, we just had a good feel for really and, like I said at the time, we were very much just leading ourselves, there wasn’t much out there to support, we didn’t feel like we’d found that connection anywhere else. So, we went down the route of using the clinic in the Czech Republic, and honestly at the time I think I found comfort in the fact that the donor was anonymous, and I think, given my emotional state at the time, I would have struggled with looking through vast amounts of details about a donor, looking at pictures or reading lots of information and questionnaires about her. So, to be told that we had been matched based on basic characteristics; she had brown hair, green eyes, and she was the exact height and weight as me, and the same age as well, so that just felt right. It was kind of me on paper if you were to put down all of my basic characteristics, so we didn’t give it that much thought, but one of the things I do like to talk about now are my reflections on that I’m a mum.
As I said, when I was at the very beginning of the process, I felt quite threatened by the thought of the donor, and I struggled with the thought of her really in some ways. It was that complexity between being grateful for what she was doing, but also that the grief of still not being able to do that myself was there and the thought of potentially knowing too much about her, I think I worried that I would then see her in my children, and I wouldn’t be able to shake that. Yet now I’m a mom, and I’m almost five years in to be a mum. I feel so much more comfortable in my role as a mum, and I know that nothing could replace what we have. There is no doubt that to them, to me, and everybody else around us, I am their mum and that I am the one who has raised them.
Characteristics, there are so many ways that they resemble me in terms of how they act, how they speak, and the things they say and do that the physical stuff doesn’t seem important at all anymore. I reflect now, and I see it a little more through their eyes, and I find myself wishing that I knew more about our donor, and I wish that they had the opportunity to find her at the age of 18 like they’re able to in the UK, so that’s something that I’ve had to come to terms with as well. I kind of have felt lots of guilt around the fact that they haven’t got that option if they want it.
I am aware that there is DNA testing and the advances in DNA testing mean that anonymity is no more, but again, it’s a complex, not only decision to make, but it’s driven by so many fears and emotions that we feel at the time. We just don’t understand, and we make these decisions. These really big decisions, in a state of high emotion having been through trauma and having not much guidance out there, so that’s why I really share what I do now and also through this platform that people can connect with other people.
There are almost 300 members now who connect through a private app, and they can do it away from social media, and they can talk to each other about their different routes. There are a number who are going abroad, and some are having treatment in their own country, whether it be the UK or elsewhere, but it’s just a very big decision to make, and there are lots of complexities with it. Hopefully, that answers your question about going abroad, I mean in terms of the process, it was great, it was smooth, we had great communication, which we felt we hadn’t really had in the UK, and obviously, I wouldn’t now change what we did for the world because I wouldn’t have the girls that I’ve got today.
Yes, definitely. This is a really good question, and this comes up a lot as well. I’ve recently created a resource to help with just this. I was hearing from so many people that they didn’t know how to tell their friends and family, and I was always really fortunate because we were kind of quite open along the way. We’re quite a small family and very close, so my family and friends always kind of knew that this might be an option at some point. I’m not very good at keeping things to myself, I talk, and I suppose that helped me in a way because there was never one moment where I had to sit them down and say, ‘Look, this is what we’re doing’. They kind of just grieved with us as we had the failed cycles and almost led them to the same point that we went to.
I launched recently, and it is a free resource, it’s a web resource that you can use to support you in telling friends and family. There’s information on the basics of what is donor conception and there are little snippets of videos and quotes from therapists who talk about how they can best support you. I’ve created some little videos myself talking about some of the things that might be going through your mind, so it’s almost talking to them and saying, ‘Look, this is what your loved one is feeling, and this is the journey they’ve potentially been on, and these decisions are not taken lightly’.
I’ve also included a few things around what not to say in there, such as, ‘Oh have you considered adoption?’, which is unhelpful when yes, you’ve considered it and yes, you’ve considered everything else, but you’ve come to this decision, and it’s really important to you. Also, I think to tell them that not only is it important for them to support you, but it’s also for them to support you and your future family, so I find it’s really important to have that support network around us so that if our girls who I have told about how they came to be, and they can talk about how mummy’s eggs were broken, and how we needed to have some eggs from a lady, if they were to talk about that in front of other people and if they were met with shock or questions or blank faces, I would hate for them to feel any negativity or shame around it, so I encourage where possible, and I know some family makeups are difficult and generational issues can make it difficult, but if you can have that network around you so that your child can feel like not only can they talk to you about it, but they can talk to your friends and family and that there is no shame around it. I feel that would be helpful, not only for you in the long run but for your child as well.
I’m more than happy to share that link and that resource because you can then just maybe speak to your friends, and send it on to them, and they can then learn themselves it’s an opportunity to educate and raise awareness.
I think what this question is asking is, for example, does my husband feel more connected to our children because he is genetically related? I don’t think this was a big fear of mine, but I’ve heard this a lot where people feel like they might not have as strong a bond because they don’t share genetics, and I’ve not found that in our case. Matt has always been supportive, and I have found that, in some ways, I feel like maybe I’ve got a stronger bond with them because I’ve spent more time with them, and I’ve been that primary caregiver, and I am the one who understands what they need and anticipates what they need ahead of him and that’s that is just how our roles have played out, so have been able to breastfeed and through those early days that helped me with my bond. I did put a lot of pressure on myself to do that, but that helped me feel like I was providing for my child and then just ever since then Matt went back to work after two weeks, and I was kind of the one left holding the baby and I think we can underestimate time spent together, the role of nurture, and all of those other aspects that placed such a role in shaping and developing our children, and building the relationships that we have. I don’t feel like there’s any difference between the relationship between Matt and the girls and between me and the girls.
I think it’s just like any other typical relationship. Furthermore, I think genetics, in society, we give a lot of weight to genetics and the role that they play. They do play an important role, but we often overlook the role of nurture and I genuinely have seen that in action and how they are like me, and they’re connected to me, and they need me just as much as I need them. It’s really special, and I think it is easy to worry about those things when everything is still so unknown, and even in the early days as well, I think bonding is a process with your child, but over time, I’ve just felt more and more secure in that role.
Yes, there is occasionally the odd pang of grief that comes back that you don’t share that genetic kind of link. I think it’s really important that I’m honest and share that as well, so amongst all the overwhelming joy and love, and everything else that we share. For example, the other day Matt was playing with Mila, and he was looking at her and said, ‘Mila, you’ve just got my eyes, you look so much like me’, and I just felt this pang of, ‘Oh, I’ll never get that feeling’, but like I say it gets easier, and you learn to live with it, and you learn to accept that that is the way that those children came into your life and I would not change them for the world and I wouldn’t change how I came to have them. It’s a process, but I do think time spent together is so important.
I can relate to this, it is not an easy one, so I too have watched, listened to, and observed some of the Facebook groups around donor conception and, yeah, they can be pretty brutal, and I’ve been through my own process of grief around that I think.
I remember last year, I struggled, and I went through a time when I did share a little bit more about using an anonymous donor and received some quite heavy backlash myself. It’s not easy when you hear people talking about those opinions and their lived experiences, and I think it’s really important to listen to those voices and to understand that their views are also very important. I think it’s only now that we’re kind of later on down the line that these thoughts and feelings are starting to be shared, and social media is a great platform for that, but I also try and maintain perspective around this. What I have come to learn, and I’ve spoken to several donor-conceived people is that what you tend to find in some of those groups are the people who are feeling negatively about donor conception, and there was a lady who spoke on a path to parenthood webinar at the end of last year about how might my child feel who was donor conceived. She was from the UK, it was an anonymous donor as well, and she said, ‘because I kind of feel okay about it, there’s no major issues, I don’t feel the need to be on these Facebook groups’.
So, one of the things that I recognize is that that is a platform for the people who are generally feeling aggrieved and, in many of those cases, I’m not saying all, but many of those cases they have found out late in life in a very traumatic way, and I can’t imagine how that must feel to find out that your identity isn’t quite what you always thought it was and that your parent isn’t your parent in the same way you thought they were.
I’ve read many books and long-term research, and I’ve also held a webinar around what matters for parents and children that was with a long-term researcher Susan Golombok who has conducted research across the past 40 years into donor-conceived families. She’s gathered longitudinal data all around what matters for those families, and it’s pulled out the themes around telling early is best, but also it’s pulled out research that shows that these families aren’t negatively affected in comparison to families who have conceived naturally or through standard IVF.
I would advise you to kind of broaden some of the reading that you’re doing or listening to and whether you want to join Paths to Parenthub. This is a topic that comes up a lot, and I held a support group with a therapist just recently around anonymous donation and some thoughts and feelings around that. There are a lot of parents at the moment who are feeling very much like this, feeling guilty for making that decision and worried when, in many ways, it was the only decision that was ahead, that was laid out in front of them. So, it’s a complex one, but I would say you’re doing all the right things now, you are researching, you’re reading, and you are already trying to prepare yourself for your child. You’re not burying these things and just making decisions without thought.
I do think you can go down a rabbit hole, and it is petrifying I have cried many tears reading some of the things that can be shown on Facebook and had some of those things said to me personally too, but I come back to my own family, and again it’s perspective, and you hear some of those views and those discussions, and it’s really difficult, and you imagine having those conversations with your children, but in reality, those things you’re hearing are from strangers.
In reality, I think about the conversations I have with my girls and the relationships we’re building and built on trust and openness, and the willingness to support them however they feel. It won’t be like having a conversation with a stranger or if they have questions, it will be an open conversation between two people who love each other, and I think that’s a really important thing to remember as well.
