IMAGINING THE DONOR-RECIPIENT RELATIONSHIP

Jenny and Erin, to whom we hoped to donate our embryos, wanted to know about our preferred relationship between donor and recipient families and the role of religion in our family. My wife, Sonia, having been raised Episcopalian, shared her experience raising Jewish children. She also spoke from the perspective of someone who had donated eggs to another family whose children were thus genetically related to her. Jenny wrote back:

"Sonia, thank you for the wonderful perspectives. I think from what you have described, that we do have a similar vision of what "knowable" donors entail. We of course were giving our "ideal" relationship with the donors and any variant of that would be acceptable. I also think that it is great that you have experience with having “family” in all different types of association.

Katie and her family sound like exceptional people. We completely
understand the need to continue her family’s legacy. If we were to be chosen to receive these embryos and children were born, I can say with certainty that we would gladly expand our knowledge (because they would be our children and part of us at that point), educate the children on their heritage, and allow them to express and celebrate their bloodline. This is something that I feel very strongly about.

We were getting closer to common ground with our potential recipients. It was time for me to lay out what I saw as an ideal donor-recipient relationship.