When is the right time to tell a donor conceived child where they came from?

If you need the help of donor sperm or a donor egg to have a baby, then one day you’re going to be faced with telling your children how they came to be born. It’s one of the many things we discuss with our patients during their counselling sessions. It’s not an easy question to answer. Is it a matter of choosing the ‘right age’ to tell them, so they will understand? Or is it a case of the sooner the better?

A study conducted by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, and the Donor Sibling Registry in the US found that the age at which children were told made a great difference to their attitude.

Thirty percent of the 165 children questioned had been told before the age of three, and as such simply felt curiosity about who their biological parents were. The 19 per cent who had been told as adults, after the age of 18, however found the news traumatic, as did children who discovered they were donor-conceived in their early-teens.

Perhaps the best way to look at it is this: Having a problem with your fertility is nothing to be ashamed of. Using a donor egg or sperm is not a ‘failure’ and something to be kept secret. If it results in a much longed-for child, that child deserves to know its origins – hence why the law was changed in 2005 to allow donor-conceived children the chance to know where they came from. But that child also needs to know that a mother or a father isn’t always the person who provided the biological means of their life, it’s the person who loves and raises them.

If you need advice, a good place to research this complex issue is the Donor Conception Network based in Nottingham. It has a wealth of information on its website www.donor-conception-network.org, including downloadable ‘Telling & Talking’ booklets on how to tell ‘DC’ (donor-conceived) children about their parentage. It was created by people who had used donor sperm and eggs to have their family, so the advice is especially invaluable.

Tagged with: Baby, Children, Counselling, Donor, Egg Donor, Family, Fertility, Manchester Fertility Services, MFS, Parent, Research, Sperm Donor