**Sensitive post** Egg donation for a sibling…

[Crisp-monster]

Hello all. I have 2 questions here…. I am very very fortunate to already have a little boy who is 4.5 years old (after battling cancer and having to have my ovaries removed when I was 28 😔) so we had to use a donor egg. He was the 7th transfer so not an easy road. We had 4 embryos left from this round and over the last couple of years have had 4 more transfers which unfortunately all resulted in a negative test.

This donor no longer wants to donate anymore so we are now having to find another donor. I’ve had concerns over using a different donor as really wanted my sons sibling (if we were so lucky) to come fromthe same donor. Does anyone have any advice on this?

Furthermore, we have been offered another donor but she does not have the same blood type as my husband and I (we both have the same blood type) I’m not sure how I feel about this and if we should go ahead or wait until a donor with our same blood type is found?

I would be very grateful if anyone has any advice on this or if you have been in a similar situation what are your thoughts? We haven’t yet really thought about what we will say to our son in the future about how he was conceived. This is another worry. If anyone has any advice on this also I’d be very grateful.

Thank you for reading. It is always so much to deal with and while my husband has been great, I sometimes find if difficult to talk to him about my concerns as he would be happy to stop now after we’ve already been through so much. But I feel like I can do one more round but after this if it doesn’t work we really will have to call it a day. I am sorry if this post comes across as insensitive, that is not my intention. X

[StarThree]

hello, I am sorry you had such a difficult journey to your son, but I am glad you got there in the end. It sounds like you have been through a lot.

We will hopefully be using donor eggs soon and unfortunately we only have a small set of eggs, so i really worry about not being able to have full genetic siblings )getting ahead of myself of course as we don’t even have one)

In terms of blood type, my clinic haven’t mentioned this, is this something we need to be aware of? What worries you about this? We don’t know our donors blood type.

If we are lucky enough to have success, we are going to follow the advice of the DCN network when it comes to talking to the child, have you looked at this? It has been so helpful to us. There advice is to tell the children early and they have lots of story books and things to help. We have also had teams calls with their volunteers which has been so helpful

X

[Crisp-monster in reply to StarThree]

Hello and thanks for your message. I wish you all the best for your treatment. It’s one step at a time but such an emotional rollercoaster x

The donor does not have to be the same blood type as you. Sometimes it might be that they are the same type as the donor / mother / father. My husband and I have the same blood type so if the donor has a different blood type and something happens in the future and we haven’t told our child then it might cause a difficult situation. Of course I will look at what you mentioned as I have not heard of this and suddenly the years have gone by and we have not said anything to our son yet. He is 4.5 but seems a lot older! Medically the clinic told me there is no reason why you can not use a donor with a different blood type but for me it’s the reason I mentioned above…

Good luck x

[Marley15]

not quite the same I had my son using my eggs and used donor sperm, I’ve tried many times over the years to have a sibling for my son so carried on trying with my eggs and the same donor sperm, unfortunately didn’t have any luck with my eggs, so I’m now going down the route of using donor eggs but unfortunately I couldn’t use the same donor sperm, but no matter how it turns out if I do happen to get pregnant my son will have a sibling I will have a second child I have longed for. Good luck for the future xx

[Crisp-monster in reply to Marley15]

Hi and thanks for your reply. It’s so tough isn’t it 😔You are right in what you say. It’s just getting your head around everything sometimes isn’t it… would you mind if I sent you a private message? If not no worries and I wish you all the best xxx

[Marley15 in reply to Crisp-monster]

Yes of course you can xc

[Kitkat10]

hi, firstly congratulations on your little boy 🩵

I have a little boy who was conceived using OE with donor sperm as my partner has genetic renal and heart conditions. After several failed OE attempts for a sibling, i was then 43 years old and so I moved to DE with the same sperm donor and this gave us our daughter.

I don’t think we had blood type information from the donor of the eggs, so I didn’t consider this.

I wanted them to have some genetic link but I did struggle a bit at first that my daughter has no genetic link to either of us. I struggled for her and how she might feel. I couldn’t love her any more, I think she’s amazing but I did worry about how she would feel later on. The link to her brother even just via sperm donor was enough to give me some peace with this. I joined the Donor Conception Network which gave me the opportunity to meet with other people in a similar situation to ask any questions and talk through my worries.

The DCN gives good support on how to explain to children about their origins with lots of resources. They tend to recommend to start conversations early so that the children don’t remember not knowing. I am also anxious about that time but I feel like there is lots of support out there and many children in the same situation. My daughter is only 9 months but already there is such a strong sibling bond between them which gives me so much happiness regardless of genetics.

Good luck in everything going forward, wishing you every success xx