Hi all,

I strongly believe people should be honest with their children. As others have said - eventually the child may find out. I have spoken to an American couple (through another site) who are looking for a sperm donor and they want one who looks like the husband and has same blood group etc and plan on never telling the child and figure that if they choose the right donor the child will have no reason to ever find out. This worries me because I think what if the child meets someone else who was concieved through the same donor and they don't know they are related. It has happened that donor siblings have had sexual relations or even got married without knowing they are related.

I think there is a good chance that eventually the child might find out and then how will they feel? A friend of mine has an older sister who was concieved through another man. She was bought up to believe her father was the man her mother married (and who her siblings were concieved by). It wasn't until she was in her 30's that she found out (through an estranged relative) that her mother had already been pregnant when she met the husband. My friend's sister was shattered to think that she had been lied to her whole life. It caused her a major identity crisis and wondering if the man she had thought of as her father had ever really loved her, and if she could ever believe her mum again, whether her sisters had known all along etc. Eventually she worked through these issues and on the surface everything appears ok (but who knows how much resentment she might still be holding onto). I think if her parents had discussed it with her when she was perhaps a teenager and told her that the man she considered to be her father had loved her and her mum so much that he had married her mum even though her mum was pregnant to another man, and that he had loved her as his own, it wouldn't be so bad. I think the biggest issues she had was around being decieved.

I have had 3 attempts of donor insemination (using a known donor) and am now on my 1st IVF cycle (with a clinic donor). I had collected alot of information and kept copies of all emails between me and my known donor so that if my child ever asked I could provide them with alot of information about their donor. Unfortunately now that I am using a clinic donor I only know sketchy details about them - I find this part of it hard to deal with. As I am going through a clinic the BD&M office will have details of the donor and when the child is 18 they will be able to make contact with their donor if they wish. I wonder about what the donor will be like - whether he will be welcoming of such a meeting etc. The known donor I had been using was very happy to have contact if the child requested it any time after they turned 13.

As I am a single mum my child will always know. I will tell him or her how much they were wanted and how lucky we were that a kind man helped.

My 13 yr old daughter was concieved through a hetro relationship but we split when I was 16 weeks pregnant and he has never met her. My daughter knows about him and has seen photos etc. At school she made up stories about her father when she was prep but by the time she was in grade 1 she was happy to tell people that her father "ran away when I was in mummy's tummy" and she didn't care what any one said because she felt confident in herself and didn't feel like she had anything to be ashamed about. If I had lied and told her stories about her father and then she had found out the truth imagine how hard it would be for her to not feel embarrassed or ashamed about it.

Lori