Donor siblings

Potandlid

I wonder if people can chat with me about their experiences with donor siblings.

Our son is 13 months and we don't have contact with donor siblings but could. My wife is opposed - I am not but I am naturally a more curious person than she is. Being that I am gestational mom I feel like her choice trumps mine.

Our standard thought is that we want August to be able to pick his access to information. That is why we chose an open donor. Making contact with donor siblings negates him having the choice because those relationships would be built by the time he was old enough to make a choice.

We rarely think about the donor or the fact he is donor conceived. He is very much our son, and 100% my wife's boy. I know biologically other kids are his half siblings but we don't define family by biology so the thought is what's the point. That being said, I'm a curious person...

Pros? Cons? Experiences? I just want to make sure I am thinking of all sides of this to make the best choice for our kid.

Potandlid

babybaby - do you worry at all that Susan won't want that contact but you've already established it? Or is that just way overthinking things here?

Wannabeasinglemama

We also have a private "dibling" group. I love it!

Potandlid

I know a lot of people have contact and use facebook groups - I guess I am just wondering why. Why did people have the decision to have contact with these families? Why did people make the decision not to? Does anyone worry about the stuff we worry about or is this just another thing for the list of stuff I over analyze?

pixybellestarr

I love being able to talk to the moms of the donor siblings. Over the past 9 years I've been able to talk about similarities they have, health concerns, just anything that comes up. My kids know that they have these donor siblings but at this age never ask anything about it (my kids are 8, 7, 5, & 1).

MNmommas

We choose to have the contact we do because it's a part of our kids' story of origin and they have half siblings whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. Our worry was that not acknowledging it with our kids and avoiding contact would unintentionally make it seem to our kids like we did not want them to reach out or inquire when they were older. Our contact isn't deep though, just a general "hey, we know you exist, you know we exist" and FB friends with some. I wouldn't be opposed to setting up a vacation meet-up with whatever families are interested, a couple of years down the road when the kids could have fun playing together.

I guess regardless of what you choose, it's important to realize that you are making a choice for G. "Not making contact" really is just as much of a decision that you are making for him as "making contact" and affects his access to information - it's usually easier to drop a relationship you don't want than to create a relationship you wish you'd had, kwim? I sometimes wonder if I should initiate more contact with the families of our kids' half siblings. It's always a fleeting thought though because we don't think about that aspect of their biology much. I feel like I should though, because like I said, it is a part of their story...I feel like I'm shortchanging them with my laziness about it. You can never have too many connections in this world!

Potandlid

MNmommas wrote:

I guess regardless of what you choose, it's important to realize that you are making a choice for G. "Not making contact" really is just as much of a decision that you are making for him as "making contact" and affects his access to information - it's usually easier to drop a relationship you don't want than to create a relationship you wish you'd had, kwim? \

We are on the donor sibling registry and when contact we exchange full information (phone number, address, email, whole shebang) in case any information gets lost down the road as we want him to have full access to it.

Your point about it being part of his story whether we choose to acknowledge it or not is true, though. Our donor sibs are all facebook friends (because I have stalked them all...) and communicate. As you know we're pretty public about our life and with him but I guess this just feels like an extra level of sharing him with the world.

Potandlid

Oh I also think the point that us not making contact might someday make him feel like we don't want him to. But us making contact could possibly someday make him feel something negative I don't expect, too...

michelle.malott

I really enjoy the relationship we have with the other 2 donor families. There are so many ways that the girls are similar, it's neat to see. As far as amount of contact, we have all been FB friends since before our kids were born or within a few days, and we all update a lot and FB message fairly often. We fully intend on having some sort of annual get together once the kids travel better. Personally, I'm glad the other families are so open because I grew up knowing very little about my bio dad, and was intensely curious about that half of me when I was growing up. I would have loved to know my bio half siblings. Part of our desire for contact also comes from the fact that my wife and I have really small families, so the more connections we make for her the better.

Potandlid

Michelle - was J fully on board with the contact from the start/does she feel any weirdness about it?

MNmommas

When it comes down to it, it's totally a toss up - with most decisions we make as parents, right? It's hard to say right now what our kids would prefer that we'd done 10, 20 years down the road as far as contact with extended bio families go. Just watch, R & W are going to end up not giving a hoot about having half siblings or resent us for bringing it up or something. Or just be pissed that they don't have a dad and that was intentional on our part and hate us for that (I don't think they will, but I'm good at worry and over-analyzing every choice we make and that one is higher up on my list than contact with sib families).

Like everything else, you just have to go with what works best for your family, and I think G will be fine with whichever way you do it. It's not like you're trying to hide anything from him. It's really easy for me to say that contact and possible deeper relationships with donor sib families is no biggie for our family - both DW & I are birthmoms & directly genetically tied to half of the kids in our family, and both of us are also not directly genetically tied to half. If only one of us was and the other wasn't, I know there'd be different emotions and anxieties involved.

What about the contact is L opposed to? Do you think it's mostly that she would prefer there not to be a focus on genetic family or something different?

michelle.malott

Actually, she was not on board at all but I did it anyway. She changed her mind totally once she saw the other kids though, and is now just as into it as I am.

Shanny

I agree with what others have said - we have a FB group, we exchange info or ask questions at times, no one has ever crossed a line, we talk about getting together with certain families someday. We are all FB friends in general but everyone knows to what degree people are "out" about using donors so no one tags each other and says "don't our kids look so much alike". There is definitely respect amongst the adults in that regard. I did it because these people are biologically related to her. It may not be how we define family, but they are related regardless. There is something to be said for that. Her donor changed his mind to unwilling to be known. I'm not having more children. I have 3 full blooded siblings and a step sister, I can't pretend to know what her experience is going to be like. I was also aware from a young age what her personality was (social) and that in all likelihood she would want a base level of information at least. She sees pictures of them often and sometimes ask questions. She likes to tell people at school that she has 12 brothers and sisters which I find highly amusing!

Potandlid

Thanks for the replies! Here is our pros and cons list:

My biggest pro is that I feel like it demystifies the information. If at 8 (or whenever) he asks then I feel like saying "Here's all the contact info and let's find out more" makes it a bigger deal than "Yup, he lives in ____ and has a dog like you and he likes soccer but you like hockey" or whatever. The information you get from somewhere like facebook makes this a more natural conversation than not having it.

The biggest cons are 1) the comparing. We don't have any desire to compare pictures or whatever and I don't want someone commenting on a picture of Gus that he looks like their kid. I don't care what they think but I don't want them public. (It sounds like you have good experience with that, Shanny) 2) Language. L says there is something uncomfortable about having these kids have more biological connection to her child than she does, which totally makes sense. The issues is there are family words for it - sibling, brother, sister - and even with "donor" or "half" in front of it there is still no way to define those people without the proper words. So it's hard to say we don't define our family based on biology but then have family words for people based on biology.

So ultimately our decision is that I can do what I want and she can do what she wants and we can continue to reevaluate. I can have the contact if I want it but I can't force her to have the contact. I get that but me making the contact and never discussing it with her feels awkward, too.

sara291

We have basic contact with a private face book group. We don't really talk much other then a few basic updates here or there. I like it though for he fact that it's some more info I can pass on to my kids at some point way way down the road. Not all families may want the info share which I would respect. So right now it's not a big deal to me . . It's nice knowing I have basic contact if for whatever reason it's needed. . It doesn't mean anything has to happen. I don't sit here and think of he donor siblings or anything . . Just here or there I get up give a little update and we share photos . . It doesn't mean the children have relationships. I've never even talked to my kids about the donor siblings but I never know what he future holds . . Maybe when they are all 18 and want to know more at least it may be an option because of my basic contact.

fisch

We are Facebook friends with both of our kids donor sibs. Two for Jack and one for Em. We have found value in connecting with these families. Especially in relation to health and personality discussions. We've met two of the families. Having two kids by different donors, each of us a birth mom, has given us a different perspective though. all three of the other families have one child. It is hard to explain to a child, who is growing up with a sibling, that they have other siblings. For Jack, who is a very concrete thinker, this makes little sense. We have been careful using the word brother or sister as we don't want to negate Em and Jacks relationship with each other. The other families have embraced the terms more easily as their kids have no other frame of reference. For us, we speak on terms our kids will understand. We talk about sharing a donor and what that means, mostly we don't refer as siblings or brother or sister. Neither of them have shown great interest. Only ask questions when prompted. we would love to set up visits someday, but will wait for the right time, if that time arrives. Needless to say, it will be their choice. We simply opened the doors. We felt that was important. At the same time we are thoughtful and conscientious about the information we have.

K&H

We have contact with other families who share our donor. We don't call the kids siblings, or diblings, or any other such word. In some of the very few conversations we have with E we talk about how she shares some of the stuff that makes her who she is with these other kids. It doesn't really make sense and we need to think about it more. She knows about sperm and egg, but I don't think that she has any sense of biology=parent.
We have met two kiddos and they have clicked really quickly and really enjoy each other's company. I think that, as an only child, she would love to claim them as siblings.. but we aren't really up for that. It's nice to be connected on fb and see the kids as they grow and know who they are. We recently connected with another family and it was surprising as I had thought we had info about all of them. It felt kind of sad that they hadn't been connected for all of the "did your kiddo show a reaction to this food?" and "how was teething for your kiddo?" conversations.
I, as the non-bio parent, have been the one to contact and organize all of it. I don't feel that it threatens my relationship with E in any way. And, bonus! We have gotten more vials of our donor from these families which hopefully will make another addition to our little group!

old mama

When I was PG in Aug. I made contact with a sibling family because she mentioned her donor # in her posts. I loved the short while I got to be in contact with her. She even sent me a photo of her daughter. I put the little girl's photo in frame in the nursery and was looking forward to a long casual relationship. I am sad that I chose another donor this time so there won't be a connection. If I am fortunate enough to have a bfp I will certainly register again and be open to a relationship if the families want to. But I understand how hard this would be for some families. I have a huge adopted family so maybe that makes me more open to relationships with families.

2texasmoms

The only contact I've had is through other people on the forum who I know share our donor, and in selling our remaining vials after we got PG this second time. My wife doesn't feel comfortable, for similar reasons you described above. She knows I use this forum and am aware of who some of the other donor families are. But we don't really have regular contact at all.

If our kids are curious when they get older, we have the forum and the sibling registry with contact info so they can get in touch if they want. My feeling is it should be up to the child, because it's their story and their origin.

StephnHeids

I don't have any input other than August is adorable and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE his MSU outfit!

Potandlid

1) I love hearing that other people who connected have similar hang ups and boundaries. Especially around the language of it all.

2) 2texasmoms - thank you! I feel like not connecting is the outlier here so it's nice to hear that other people feel similarly.

3) StephnHeids - Thanks! He has two Spartan mamas.

So I did it and connected. It's not too weird and I'm having honest conversations with the other mamas. In the end I guess it comes down to this: I never want him to think anything about his biology is weird so I need to check if I am the one making it that way. Here's hoping this isn't the thing that screws him up!

K&H

If you think about it, you don't get to choose who your cousins and aunts and uncles are either.. But even after you know who they are you can choose how much connection you want.

Potandlid

K&H wrote:

If you think about it, you don't get to choose who your cousins and aunts and uncles are either.. But even after you know who they are you can choose how much connection you want.

WORD.

EMG_REL

Our contact has also been limited to "we know you exist, and you know we exist." Neither of us has a Facebook account (for lots of reasons), but I have reached out to all of the known families through email (with the help of forum members who are in a Facebook group). I think there are maybe 10-ish families? Anyway, I wanted to establish the contact for possible future use, but I don't want regular contact.

My wife isn't interested at all, but she is a very private person. She's squeamish about the whole subject. If it were solely up to me, H would already know the word "donor", but he doesn't yet. Nor has he asked.

Your wife's feelings about biology are completely valid, and I relate to them very much. It wasn't until I had B that I was able to feel an inner peace with being a "mother" in my own eyes and the eyes of others. Your wife's journey is her own, and it really is weird to think about these little people who are ours and so precious to us being biologically related to strangers. It makes me emotional, actually, because I guess I wish it didn't have to be true. But it is, and I want our boys to be able to choose whether they pursue it or not. That's why I established basic contact but do not keep in regular contact.

che_arami

I think I'm in the minority here, but I really feel absolutely no connection to other kids who came from the same donor (i don't even especially want to use the word siblings). I actually feel a greater level of connection to EVERYONE here in this forum because of our shared experiences, knowledge, support, etc. I also donated eggs several times in college and I would be happy to be contacted by them, give any info they need, etc, but I never think of them as my biological relations.

I think for me the reason has a lot to do with two things. one, I really am not impressed with my biological family and don't stress myself to have contact with them at all (after a long time trying to make things work), so I guess I don't put much stock in that type of family. second, I really highly value celebration of difference and I'm excited to teach ds about his donor and how that's different from a parent but completely awesome in the same respect.

I really am all about the connections (and would love to meet all of you in person!), but just not structured by the usual definitions.

Potandlid

I love the responses from the "eh, no real contact" side because I feel that side is never represented. This whole thing is so simple and so strange at the same time.

I made contact, my wife did not. It's nice to have I suppose but I really feel nothing about it. I think it's great when people have the connections they want and now it will be easier if Gus wants that. I think in my head it was becoming a bigger thing than it turned out to be.

EMG- Those boys. For the love, you should put a warning on your pictures because I'm pretty sure my ovaries just exploded.

TxMoms2B

I have had contact with donor sib families since before my son was born. I actually enjoy finding the similarities between the kiddos. I also like that I have basic information about the kids that when/if ever asked about, I can provide by son with. My wife is more on board with it now than 5 years ago. We've met 1 family 3 times. Our kids play really well together. The other families we keep up with on FB. No secret group or anything, just the mutual respect that my family is mine and your family is yours. There are a couple of families that have reached out but generally don't want any contact (they just wanted access to more vials). However, I'm really glad we've made the connections we have because I feel like I have made friendships as well as my son.

EMG_REL

Ha! Thanks. They are scrumptious little guys.