CARE Fertility Bulletin Board

Birdie · 23 Jan 2012

I'd be interested in your views on this - how important is this? What effect will it have on you, your partner (if you have one) and the child?

Birdie

Jacquie6 · 03 Mar 2010

Hi Birdie,
To be honest I think it depends on how you feel about the whole thing. For me the timing was right and I was all ready to go mentally. My donor was nothing like me; wrong hair colour, height, build. The only thing we had in common was our eye colour. But, I got two beautiful children from my cycle. With hindsight I might have waited but then it might not have worked if you see what I mean. My son looks nothing like me but is his dad's double. My daughter looks just like my son but people say she looks like me. Work that out!! I think people see what they want to see.
I hope you get some other replies as what matters to people can be very different. Good luck with your treatment. I really hope you are as lucky as I have been.
Jacquie x

Birdie · 23 Jan 2012

Thanks Jacqui. I had in my head an idea that it would be lovely to have a mini me little girl in terms of colouring, but I don't know why! I cannot see that it would make a difference to how much I'd love her or him, I'd want them to grow up knowing how they were conceived, and I agree people see what they expect to see. N

Birdie · 23 Jan 2012

Oops, posted accidentally before I was finished. Not sure how much we'd tell others. But I wonder if I'm being naive and would feel differently when push comes to shove. Others' insights very welcome.

Birdie

Squeeza · 23 May 2007

I can't speak as a recipient but I am in a same sex relationship and we have two children who are from my eggs.

Ned is quite like me in character , but Hettie is EXACTLY like my DP in looks and character. People are genuinely amazed! Even close family forget she is not genetically related to my DP .

They have two cousins, who are biologically related to DP - but not genetically to our two. Hettie looks just like Arabella, but Iona and Arabella (the cousins) look nothing like each other at all despite sharing the same genes.

We know very little about the sperm donor, but he didn't have the same colour eyes or hair colour as my DP.

I guess what I m saying is that there are no guarantees with donors - we have two children from the same donor who are very different in character but similar in looks - although Ned does nt look like DP and Hettie does! Strange.

The very best of luck with whatever you decide x x x x

maryrose · 04 Apr 2006

Hi Birdie,

I think the answer to this is how much it matters to you, to be honest.

Here is a summary of my DE story.

We got matched far more quickly than I had anticipated which gave me a bit of a shock as I didn't feel totally prepared.
The lady was very different to me on paper and she did not have the 1 striking feature that both DH and I have [and which runs in both our families].
I wasn't entirely happy, but I felt it was spurious to refuse the match, on those terms. We went ahead.

It all went horribly wrong! I was down-regging for ages longer than I should have been and it made me poorly [migraines].
Then, when we got to egg collection, she did not get enough eggs to share. She made the decision to keep them all.
We were devastated, but quickly rallied, telling ourselves that it was not meant to be.

We were matched again almost immediately and this time, the lady was a carbon copy of me on paper [younger, lol!]. So much so, that I asked the co-ordinator if she hadn't got muddled and read my own details back to me.

I had such a great feeling about it. It all felt right.
The cycle went like clockwork, we got lots of lovely eggs and a fab number of grade 1 embryos.
The cycle resulted in my gorgeous boy, who really is my life.

Sadly, we were not as lucky as Jacquie and a cycle with frozen embryos in 2010 resulted in a miscarrigae, which was hard.

Here is the twist to the tale - my boy does not look anything like me BUT he soooooo looks like my 25yr old son, when he was a tot and small boy.
Its quite extraordinary and people who knew my older son as a little boy comment all the time.

Last weekend we had a family reunion. I have told none of my family about the DE as they are a judgemental lot.
It was my Mum's birthday and she had all the family photos displayed on the sideboard. It so happened that the preschool one of Olly was right next to one of my big boy, taken when he was 4 or 5, at school.

Honestly, it took my breath away!
The features are identical - the coloring different and Olly's hair is curly [which runs in my family], but Oh My Word, you would never guess that they do not share any genes as they have different fathers too.
The smile, the cheek creases, even one eye slightly bigger than the other. It freaked me out!

So who knows what forces are at work. I am not a believer in epigenetics if I am truthful, but the resemblence between my 2 boys is remarkable and not just noticed by me.

In my honest opinion, I think that you should be comfortable with your match to accept it, as you will have misgivings all the way through your tx and beyond, otherwise.

Lots love and luck Maryrose xxx

charliegirl33 · 19 May 2012

Sorry to jump on your thread, but you're talking about somthing I've been thinking a lot about myself...I am hoping to receive donor sperm & have just lined up my appointment with the 'donation nurse'. When I asked others what happened at this meeting, I was told it was to talk about characteristics etc & it got me thinking.....what do I want them to have? I don't want to have a long list & reduce my chances of finding a donor....& no one knows what will happen anyway....I have a son from a relationship 9 years ago....both his father & I have really dark eyes, yet our son's are as pale blue as you can get...wheich I think comes from my mothers side.

So If for example I request dark eyes from a donor, there's no telling what would happen anyway Smile

I'm all for gut feelings I think, thats what usually does me right Smile