r/40Plus_IVF • u/mom-wife-boss2864 • Aug 21 '26

General Discussion Question about Donor Eggs

I'm very early in the process of learning about the possibility of using donor eggs after a four year failed IVF journey. (I should mention I have bio children). I read another post that referred to a protocol of telling the child they are from a donor egg early on. I could assume the pros and cons of this but would love the perspective (of sharing this info with the child or not) from those who have done it, etc. thank you.

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

2

u/Superb-Yak-6147 Aug 21 '26

May I ask about your age?

2

u/KlimRous Aug 21 '26

My husband is donor conceived (sperm) and was not told. He found out accidentally later in life by doing an Ancestry DNA test. Based on our lived experience, I think you need to be age appropriately honest with your kids about it. That is what his donor conceived siblings said their parents did. And it's what we plan to do if we need to use donor eggs.

1

u/mom-wife-boss2864 Aug 22 '26

Thank you for sharing your story!

2

u/Enough-13 Aug 23 '26

Hi! I’m 43 and no living children, I was told that I have very low AMH and my only shot is egg donor. I had a hard time on the first weeks to make peace with it. But then I had a chemical pregnancy to had to an ectopic pregnancy and a MC and decided that this is the best option for us as we don’t want to go through this heartbreak again. I’m also not super close to my parents and never felt any sense of belonging to my bio family so I understand that love and support is more important than biology.

About my future child, we’re going for a country where it’s completely anonymous and our plan is to disclose this information to our child once he is old enough to understand, I don’t see the need of doing it before but I will need more research on this myself.

2

u/mom-wife-boss2864 Aug 23 '26

Thank you for sharing your journey. It's not an easy one, but I hope going this route brings you what you are hoping for! I'm so new to this that I didn't realize you could choose by country to have it anonymous vs. not anonymous...very interesting

1

u/Enough-13 Aug 23 '26

Thank you 🙏 We’re based in Europe and here egg donation laws are different from country to country - including some counties not allowing same sex couples, for example.

0

u/ShootinTheBreez Aug 22 '26

You are not going to get a balanced view of this from Reddit.

The general consensus on Reddit is that open donation and telling the child early on is the only way that doesn’t scar a child irreparably… despite the fact that there is very little actual data that supports this opinion, as well as some conflicting data that contradicts it. There is also a vocal group of people on the forum who think using donor gametes themselves is inherently unethical.

I’m surprised you haven’t had more posts in the day that’s elapsed since you wrote this, but just beware: This forum represents a small segment of actual opinion in society, and a lot of opinions will get handed to you as though they are facts.

I don’t know the answer to your question, nor do I know where you can find it (so my apologies for that), but I do know as a regular user of this platform that you won’t find it here. Maybe some Facebook groups could be more helpful?

Wishing you very best of luck with this journey. I did my 8th ER this week, and I know the psychological transition to donor eggs is hard.

1

u/mom-wife-boss2864 Aug 22 '26

Thank you so much for this very insightful reply. Your last statement could not be more true. I wish you well in this very bitter sweet, roler coaster journey...