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Donor siblings
Potandlid
Posts: 350 ✭
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.
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.
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IUI~BFP (BORN STILL) AT 16w5d 4/3/14
Chemicals~IUI 7/24/14;8/21;BFNs~9/25;10/19;IVF#1-2/21/15~No embies made to blast.
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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!
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.
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Follow our journey at: www.potandlidmakekid.wordpress.com
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?
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.
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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!
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.
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!
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WORD.
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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.
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.
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.
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4.5 years!