KNOWN DONORS

As we continued to wait for the final embryo donation contract I wondered what made Jenny and Erin different from the other embryo recipients who had contacted me. Everyone else wanted our embryos and seemed to view us as an intrusive necessity. I was leery of intruding with these families because the sense I got from them was that ideally we would hand over the embryos and never contact them again.

Because embryo donation is NOT an adoption, people who have children using donated embryos need not worry that the biological parents will try to get "their" children back. Embryo donation is a property transfer, not an adoption. No children exist when embryos are given away and none may ever exist unless the recipients have very good luck.

With their rights fully protected, embryo recipients need not worry about their legal parenthood. The only state that elevates the rights of the genetic parent over that of the birth parent is Nevada. In all other states the person giving birth is the mother.

So the secrecy and coldness I felt from most recipients does not protect them in any way. And it did not spark my interest. I wanted a couple that felt good about themselves to the point that they could give their child permission to know all the factors that shaped her.

I wanted to know why Jenny and Erin seemed so much more self-assured and child-centered than the other recipients who wanted our embryos:

X"I guess to both of us, we want to be able to look that child in the eyes and always be honest. Honesty will include telling them that we did not provide the genetic make up that they have. A known donor will allow us to be honest and also have the resources to answer any questions that they may have that we can't answer.

I did not know my mother's mother. And I strongly believe that many of my characteristics come from her. I think to have a true understanding of who I am, I have to know who she was. To me, it's kind of like therapy of some sort. The mindset of “You can't treat an illness if you do not know the etiology”.

I believe couples feel a stigma for being
infertile. It’s interesting to sit in the lobby at our fertility clinic. The men always seem so nervous and sometimes ashamed. I am just thankful that there’s a clinic to help us. Erin did cry one time because she felt that (in her words) she had “failed”. That of course broke my heart.

I think that most people take fertility for granted. Erin is the picture of health! I think it was devastating to her to find out that the one thing that was wrong with her body was the one thing she wanted so badly. She was, of course, in true Erin style, joking about it a few days later as we were preparing deviled eggs for Thanksgiving dinner, I overcooked them and while we were peeling them big chunks were coming off. They looked kind of sad. I asked Erin if we should cook more and she said of course not, that we would just proclaim this “the year of bad eggs”. So, in good spirits we gladly go forward!"

This positive attitude had attracted me to Jenny and Erin. They were focused on having a child and any children they have will be "theirs" no matter what DNA they have. Secure in this knowledge they do not see a reason to cut their children off from a full picture of where they come from.

I was again buoyed in my feeling that these were the right recipients. I waited impatiently to sign the embryos over to Jenny and Erin so they could get on with their plan to become moms.

DONOR-RECIPIENT RELATIONSHIPS

As Jenny and Erin thought more about using our embryos to start their family they wanted to know how I envisioned the ideal relationship between the donor and recipient families. This is what I told them:

"When I think about possible contact w/recipients & their kids I see it from several viewpoints.

First, I think of our experience with our sperm donor. We have great kids thanks to him but it's a huge drawback that he's anonymous.

He did provide a detailed family history and wonderful essay but I know our kids will want to know more about him. I wish we had an adult photo to show them.

He has 2 other reported pregnancies. If we could swap medical info, at the very least, with the families of our kids' genetic half-sibs it would be helpful.

Then I think about how meaningful it is to my wife Sonia that, though adopted anonymously, she now knows her birthmom. There's something very satisfying about it and getting the info on medical issues in the birth mother's family is extemely helpful.

I also feel strongly that the recipients are the only parents. It's inappropriate for a donor to try to dictate how the children are raised. Once the donation is made the donor has no say in anything else. If we wanted 3 or 4 kids we'd use the embryos ourselves!

Still, it seems nuts to me that your clinic insists on anonymity with embryo donation. I don't understand the upside to this. We each have our own families. Legally the donor has no rights or responsibilities. What is the problem with being in touch?

I think a lot of straight couples are ashamed of needing fertility help. Lesbians always have at least one partner who is not genetically related to their kids so we're often more open.

My goal is to find the right parents and get the embryos out of the deep freeze and away from my responsibility.

My hope is that my info about the donors' kids won't end with the donation. I'd love to see photos. It would be great to meet the parents and their kids. The kids from both families would probably love to meet each other. My crucial issue is to share medical and developmental info.

We see the twins [from Sonia's egg donation to our infertile friends] every few months. It doesn't feel like they're her kids but it's cool to see how they are developing. We would never dream of commenting on how to raise them!

What I think will happen is that the new parents of kids from these embryos will want to get an idea of what to expect with their own kids' milestones by checking in with us. Did our kids walk early? Teethe at 4 months or at 14 months? Did their eye color change?

I hope we'll ultimately be friends with our recipients but we would never tell our friends, or our recipients, how to raise their kids. The minimum I'd hope for is the occasional photo or email update.

Ideally we'd like to serve as a resource or reference point and be a sounding board. Our recipients could do the same for us. This would probably be all thru email or the occasional call. I'd be happy with even a yearly update or more frequent emails. I'd let the recipients set the pace.

If you have kids from these embryos, it would be nice to swing by on one of our yearly visits to see Sonia's family in your home area if that feels comfortable.

The kids may eventually want more contact with their "cousins" or feel weird and want less to do with each other. We have a storybook for our kids about the nice man who gave us the cell we needed to have a baby. We would explain our own donation the same way. Our kids will know about the donation starting in the 3rd trimester of the resulting pregnancy.

How did this sound to the potential recipients? We were very flexible, as long as the last information we had about the existence of the embryos occured after birth, not before.

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.

MY WIFE'S PERSPECTIVE

Jenny and Erin, my chosen embryo recipients, had some questions for us. They needed to know us well enough to make an informed choice to accept our embryos.

My wife had been avoiding writing to the recipients, preferring to wait to involve herself until they were pregnant. But she had the experience that Jenny and Erin needed to hear so she wrote to them on her own to share her thoughts on possibilities for the donor-recipient relationship. They had asked about my health and personality and that of my relatives. It is hard to describe yourself so I asked her to do it:

"This is Katherine's wife, Sonia joining in this incredibly interesting discussion. Katie is right that we are making this decision together, but I'm letting her make the initial contacts and see how she feels about people before I get involved. The embryos are legally both of ours, but I give Katie the lead in this process, as they are her "blueprints."

I am actually very happy that you prefer "knowable" (however we end up defining that) donors; years ago, before I met Katie, I donated eggs to 2 friends of mine (hetero): they had boy/girl twins and live in a neighboring state. My friend is completely open about the egg donation with friends, family and her own kids, and it has been incredibly fulfilling to see the children grow over the last 6 years and to know that they think of me as sort of an extra-special aunt.

I agree with you that children are driven to know their genetic origins. I myself am adopted and found my birth mother when I was 18. We have been quite good friends ever since, though it is sometimes years between visits. I mention all this to say that Katie and I are fairly proficient at negotiating the waters of being related to people but not in their family, or of having "family" include some pretty low-key, far-flung relationships.

Since I have family in near your home it might be convenient to meet up every now and then when we bring the kids to see my relatives (usually no more often that once every year or two), but of course that would be totally up to you. I think it would be great for our kids and the recipients' kids to be sort of like cousins and you know that relationship can be close or far, depending. The point is, we're flexible, but I think it would be great to keep in touch.

About our family: Katie is an avid cyclist, and has completed many 100 and 200 mile day-rides and long tours when she lived in the West. She tries to fit biking in whenever she can in our city, though it's not great biking territory. She's healthy, and comes from a healthy and long-lived family. I've become quite close to that family. Katie's mom was a great beauty and Katie inherited her fine bone structure, perfect eyebrows, and beautiful eyes.

Oh pshaw! Sonia had more to tell our recipients but this was enough for them, and you, to think over for now. More tomorrow...