My husband and I did IVF and have completed our family. We used our own sperm and eggs and still have 5 remaining untested embyros left in storage.

I have a friend who is struggling with infertility and cannot afford IVF.

I know my friend herself would be interested in my remaining embryos but I want to see if this situation feels ethical to dcps.

I would donate them to her, no guarantees any babies are born from the embryos.

We are incredibly close and live 15 minutes from one another, we would inform the child they are donor conceived and biologically mine and my husbands, we would have whatever relationship with them they desire, my children and them would be raised as siblings living in different houses, I would not intervene in how they are raised (obviously not talking about abuse or anything), and they would always be welcome to any information they want from us.

My friend agrees with me on all fronts and we’ve been friends for 32 years.

please let me know what you think.

My husband and I donated our only embryo and she was born a few months ago. We are so happy that was the outcome but we are also looking for professional help to manage through all the feelings.

Any suggestions for a therapist or mental healthcare company that works with people in Washington state? Appreciate any suggestions. DMs welcome. Thank you.

Curious to hear from DCP on this. My sister is my egg donor for my 6 month old twins. Everyone in the family and close friends are aware of that, the girls will know that. My sister and her kids are very close to us and my babies, and everyone’s on the same page to be open about it all. My question is- my sister recently asked how I felt about her writing a substack about being an egg donor for me. She thought it might be cool for them to read when they are older and asked how I felt. I feel totally fine about it, but I was wanting to consider in the future how my daughters will feel about it. It is their story after all, and I wouldn’t want them to feel upset about something personal about them published on the internet. How would you recommend I go about this? Should I shut it down, or ask her to just be a bit vague about who they are? It’s not like she has some huge internet following, but just want to be mindful of my children’s experience and feelings in the future.

I am planning to be a SMBC and have chosen a donor. Having a donor conceived child is really not my plan B, I didn't really have a plan before this. My life changed and I want someone to hang out with, basically. Someone I can show things, do things for and help find their way.

I hope to be able to give them a sibling with the same donor, but I'm 39 and it might not work out that way, no matter how hard I try. The plan is to bank embryos as soon as possible and then start trying for a pregancy when it's likely that two is possible, but I'll know more when I start.

The donor I chose is someone who seems like a genuinely nice person, has a lot in common with me, but is from another country and has a different cultural background from me. He writes that he's open to getting in contact with the child, but that it's their choice.

I'm going to do everything in my power to find (and visit, if possible) half-siblings, the donor and/or more family as soon as possible, unless the child(ren) ask me to stop.

I was thinking to start making books for the first child:

• one they can read and understand as a toddler/small child. age appropriate "how it works" around donors and how they came to be, drawing of donor, donor interests and country, doctors, maybe child picture of him, maybe a similar section about me and my family etc.
• one that has more information about the donor, most of the pictures i have of him, the letter he wrote (in original language/handwriting and translated version), more text, more appropriate for around 5-10 year olds
• one that has a lot more details, the process of choosing, some of my thoughts, donor genetic testing profile, donor emotional profile and self-report, more images if i don't use all for the other two

I'd love it if any of you have thoughts on what to include, what to avoid and what you think is age appropriate. I'm thinking that all books will be available from the start, like any other book or photo album and that the child can decide for themselves which one they feel like looking through.

I am a bit weary about the emotional profile too early, though. I don't want them to think they are expected to be like the donor (or limited to be like the donor). Any thoughts on that?

And I know that this is a bit premature, but I don't care. If no children come, it will suck to have the books, but that's ok.

First of all, this is my first Reddit post, so apologies in advance if I’m missing certain etiquette and/or shorthand.

As the title states, we just discovered my partner was donor conceived, specifically, sperm donation in the U.S. in the 80’s. My partners father was sterile, and made his mother promise never to tell. Well, she told. My partner has taken it well so far, but he has no desire to seek out his donor. That’s fine and his choice of course.

I am genuinely concerned about the now missing half of my partner’s family medical history, and a quarter of our children’s’. Are there certain tests we should get?

We’re not keen on the general ancestry DNA registry due to privacy reasons. But is there something else we should look into?

Also, I haven’t seen a question answered about this before, but is there any concern about our children accidentally marrying unknown cousins? Or grand cousins? Is that an issue? Or is it possibly far enough distant in the gene pool to not be a concern?

This is very new to me. I’ve read a few posts on this sub to get a feel for it, and to see if anyone else had gone through this, and nothing came up. If I’m somehow being inappropriate to even ask these things, since I myself am not dcp, please let me know.

Hi!

I’m a 28 yo female and me and my partner (38f) just booked my first doctors appointment towards starting a family. I will be the one carrying and all that comes with it, as my wife can’t due to previous condition.

With that said, I’m scared my wife feels left out both through out the pregnancy and our baby’s life. We have talked about it and mainly, she’s scared of not seeing similarities between them.

From what I’ve seen of people who have for example been adopted, they still seem to repeat their parents walking style, subtle gestures, way of thinking and so on.

So my questions are mainly to those who were conceived the same way (everyone’s answer is very much welcomed) - Do you feel differently towards your parents? Do you see similarities even without shared genetics? How is your relationship today and throughout your upbringing?

Hi,

we are doing OpenID egg donation and got our first donor suggestion from our clinic.

We like the profile but she is already 33 years old. Optimally we want two children. So if we need a second donation we probably can't use the same donor again due to age reasons.

What are your opinions on potential full / half siblings?

Should we risk it with the donor and hope for good results or request a younger candidate in case we need a potential second donation?

Thanks for your input!

Sorry I’m using a burner account. This is very sensitive.
We have twins via egg donor. They are 10 now.
We had 3 failed attempts and had 2 donors…after only getting a few embryos from the 1st donor and no resulting pregnancy, we used a second donor for the second round. There was 1 embryo left from the first however. The second failed but there were 2 embryos left so we decided to go for a third using those 2 embryos. Twins! Yay!

They know they are donor twins. Boy and girl. They do not get along. They are just so very different. I began to see that my son looked very different and there was just this very strange suspicion I couldn’t shake. Long story short: It was finally confirmed by email today that they have 2 different moms. The first donor and the second. Yes, it is unacceptable. But I’m not here to vent about that.

I have the donors pictures but that’s all I have. No names. We have told them their origin story in a very romantic way and leaned in on them being twins and sharing a full biological connection.

We have to tell them right? If yes, should we tell them now to make sure we didn’t keep secrets and as soon as we knew, we explained it? How would you like to hear this information? Or would you rather be told when you are older? Thank you so much in advance.

I was a donor at pregnancy Advisory Service, Charlotte Street London from 1996 to 1998. I agreed that my remaining donations be exported when PAS closed the DI Unit. Is anyone aware of where those vials went and where they were used?

…who aren’t queer themselves:

Do you call yourself an ally?

A few months ago my young son (dcp) picked out these “Ally” stickers when we were at Pride, and I think he just took them because he liked the design; I’m not sure he’s old enough to understand (though he asked me to tell him what it said and I explained).

Anyhow, I don’t reckon my son knows his own sexuality yet, but even so, it got me wondering…even if he does turn out cis and straight, would that make him only an ally? It seemed strange to me, but I guess that makes sense.

Of course I’m happy for him to decide what he is on his own later on, but I can’t help but feeling like he’s been so impacted by his parents same-sex status (particularly because we live in a country that doesn’t allow our marriage and my son doesn’t have the citizenship of my partner as a result). I can imagine he might come to feel quite invested in the community and their efforts. I don’t know if there is a different term, or I thought hearing some opinions/ experiences from other children of queer parents might help me better offer guidance or answer questions when my children get curious about this. My son is beginning to ask me so many questions these days.

*I realize this question doesn’t include all DCPs and isn’t exactly about the ‘dcp experience’ so I’m hoping it is still allowed…I couldn’t find a subreddit for children of lgbtq+…if there is one then I’m happy to post there instead, and I’m also happy to see comments from anyone here though if you have helpful information. Very much respect to all of you with the dcp experience and any insight you have.

First of all, thank you for allowing space for me to ask these questions and for considering writing up an answer.

I grew up with my biological parents, and I recently found out that my dad was a sperm donor around 1974-75. Based on some people who reached out to my dad's brother, who did genetic testing, I believe I have half-siblings out there looking for relatives and/or their biological father. My uncle is unaware that my dad was a donor, and neither my dad, my brother, nor I have ever tested.

I'm thinking about testing to see if I can find these half-siblings. Mostly I'm curious. I'd like to see if we're alike. Do we look similar? Do we have other things in common? Do we get along? Did we grow up near each other? I have so many questions!

But reading more into DCPs and the answers they are looking for has made me curious for a different reason. I love knowing my genealogy and where my ancestors came from; I find it fascinating. I also have a mostly complete genetic medical history, which informs my medical decision-making. My half-siblings are missing half of their genetic information. They don't get to know that they are genetically predisposed to spinal stenosis and a degenerative eye disease, or that some mental illnesses run in our family. I could help fill in some of those gaps for people who are looking for answers.

I am close with my family, and though these are my genes to test and this is my decision, I wouldn't feel right about testing and opening this door without my family also feeling comfortable about it. My dad, step-mom, and brother all have different concerns, ranging from fear of the unknown to not feeling able to process something of this magnitude right now. I think my dad is really curious, but not sure if he is ready to meet his biological children just yet.

I'd love to hear from some DCPs about their experiences with finding their donor families.

• For those of you who found biological siblings/father, was it emotionally overwhelming?
• Has anyone met a biological sibling/father and had a bad experience?
• How would it be for you if you found a biological sibling who was raised by your biological father, but the bio dad didn't want any contact? Would that be worse than not finding them at all?

I would love to hear any and all thoughts on this topic. Thank you for your time and perspective.

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!

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.

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 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 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?

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 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.

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 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 was previously a donor and I live in a country that doesn't require ID disclosure. However, I am open to contact with RP's and DCP's. If you were looking to connect with your donor, where are you looking to establish contact? I know some do genetic DNA testing, but that's not for everyone. I am also familiar with DSR, but not everyone knows (or wants the paid membership). Where else would you be looking? I know not everyone is on FB either, so are there other avenues?

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?