Donor Dilemma

Have I mentioned lately how absolutely head over heels in love with my boys I am?  I'm ever to grateful and excited to have them, and I feel truly privileged to be their mom.  And I am ever so glad that Amy gets to be their other mom, cuz she's an amazing mom. 

The decision to create our little alternative family wasn't hard at all.  We knew that most other families would not look like ours, and our children would have to face some challenges coming from a two-mommy household.  All kids are faced with some challenges, it's part of life.  And it's easy to think about the issues they may face when they are just theoretical, and we don't actually have to make any moves at the time.  We also knew pretty certainly that we wanted to create our family through an anonymous donor.  We didn't want to know the person who offered up half of the genetic material to our kids.  We wanted to know about him, for sure, but it wasn't necessary for us to be able to point to an actual person and show our children the person who gave sperm to make them.  Our children are the products of a love that Amy and I share, and will be built from the experiences we offer them through life, relationships that are real and tangible. 

I am not naive to the fact that our boys will be curious about their biological roots.  And in all our theoretical musings about how we will handle their questions, we have just decided to be honest with them and answer any questions they may have as they arise.  We don't believe that it will take very long for questions to start popping up, it will be obvious to the boys that they have two mommies and most of their friends will have a mom and dad.  There won't be any way to hide the fact that they came from a donor from them, and we certainly don't want to.

As we are nearing the end of the boys' first year, it's still relatively easy to ignore the donor issue.  We live our lives from day to day, and it doesn't ever come up.  But I went to a website the other day (Super Nanny, if you must know, yes we are learning parenting techniques from prime-time television, but what can I say, she rocks...) and there was this article entitled "Donor Children, When and What to Tell them" or some equally eye-catching title for a mom with donor children.  Basically, tell them all you can as soon as you can seemed to be the main point.  And of course, they linked the the Donor Sibling Registry as part of the resources in the article. 

We were aware of the Donor Sibling Registry as a part of our research into banks and resources for creating our family.  So to all of our kind friends and family that call or email us every time the Oprah episode about the registry re-airs on TV, we already know about it, you can stop bringing it up.  The first time I visited the site, we didn't even have children on the way yet, and as far as I could tell, you had to pay a membership fee to see any listings on it.  I thought it would be a great resource for our future children one day if they ever cared to look it up, and pretty much left it at that.  I found myself on the site again just a few days ago, and it turns out you can look for listings without paying the fee, although to get much information beyond the basics, you do have to fork over $50 (that we don't really have right now).  The information that I found has been stewing around in my brain ever since, and has started turning some of those theoretical issues into tangible dilemmas. Yet again, it's easy to theoretically think that the boys have genetic half-siblings out there somewhere, and forget all about it.  Turns out it's not as easy for me to just not think about it when I've discovered that they have genetic half-sisters out there, including one set of twins born the same year they were.  If I take action now, they could possibly grow up having a real relationship with others who share the same donor, rather than discovering them down the road when they become curious enough to start asking questions.

Truly, I am torn.  I have always said that the more people who love my children, the better off they will be.  But I also have this (possibly irrational) gut reaction that these are my children, and I don't want to share them.  What if they decide that the other families who happened to use the same donor are cooler than theirs, and they start resenting us?  What if the parents of their genetic half-siblings turn out to be total asses, and I end up regretting having made contact?  What if I do nothing now out of fear or ambivalence, and our boys miss out on knowing pieces of their genetic puzzle? 

What would you do?  What would you want to know if you were a donor child?  For now I'm just gonna sit here and stew.  But if you have any comments or insight, I'd really really like to hear it.  And if you don't want to leave your comments publicly, email me.      

Comments

[Paula]

Interesting that you should post this now. We are also wrestling with this issue and more. I will e-mail you soon!

[Stacy (Dautel) Johnson]

Hi Amy it's your long lost cousin Stacy. I am so happy to see your cute family. Your babies are so cute! My 4th baby is in the NICU where Lynnell works. She gave me her blog address and I found yours on Melanie's. I am so glad to see that you are happy. Please keep in touch. Check out my blog johnsontough.blogspot.com I love and miss you! May you find all the happiness you and your family deserve!

[Ash]

Well, I'm sure if you wanted my not-yet-a-mom opinion this would have come up at work ;P but since I stumbled upon the cutest baby pictures in the world on your Ravelry page and found myself here...my two cents are this: Of course someday, maybe in the nearer future than you'd like, they'll have questions about their roots. But my gut reaction would be that introducing them to other kids that had the same donor as siblings might be confusing for them at a young age, set them apart from their peers more. If Ben and Grayson are brothers, and Mommy and Mommy are...mommies....then where do half siblings xy and z fall into the family structure? Then again, this coming from the girl who won't get another cat for fear that she'll crush her poor Tinker's psyche...maybe I'm overly paranoid? Anyway, you two are doing an amazing job. They're going to be smart cookies :)

[one of cole's moms]

I would not try to make a connection with Cole's "siblings". My son has two great moms that love him. 4 grandparents that brag about him. Aunts and uncles that won't let us hold him when they're around. Cousins that spread the word about their cuz with two mommies. He has family. And so do your sons. I don't feel the need to introduce him to other kids that have the same sperm donor. The donor is not cole's father. He's a man that, with the goodness of his heart or (let's be real) the paucity of his wallet, gave us the wonderful opportunity to become parents. His donor siblings aren't his brothers and sisters- just like the the kids concieved on the same day or born on the same day or delivered by the same doctor or in the same city or with two moms are not his brothers and sisters. Why try to integrate strangers into your sons' life?