Episode 184: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception

Mark Leondires: Parents naively go into the process of well, I’m going to find somebody who I like the way they look, right? But that’s not really the right way to search for a donor, the takeaway from the book comes down to, you know, flipping the script, on how to choose a donor.Medically choosing a donor, you want to think about your own family history, and the donor’s family history. You are not getting that person — you’re getting their paternal and maternal generations, probably five back. And, and it’s naive for you to think when you look at that nice picture on Facebook, you’re going to have a child that looks like that person. And looks are less important than medical well-being, right? Within our own genetic code, we have 46 chromosomes, 52,000 genes, and we all likely carry some genes that are broken. And using recessive carrier screening to look for genes like cystic fibrosis or Tay Sachs disease is essential to moving the needle towards your child’s health. You don’t want to magnify or replicate the risks that you have in your family, in the donor you choose. You also want to be sure that you’re not donating a broken gene in your family tree without being sure that the donor doesn’t have the same broken gene. Because in that case, there’s a 25% chance that that child has that disease.

Dan Bulger: One part of donor conception that is sometimes overlooked is the children themselves, but there’s actually a good amount to think about when it comes to communicating with children about their conception and backgrounds.

Mark Leondires: I learned from Lisa, because Lisa does a program for donor conceived adoption children, about the things that the kids struggle with. Right. And, you know, writing this book brought me back to some stories about my children being approached at the playground. We thought they understood how they came to life, you know, kids don’t always remember things. They came home one day and asked if they were adopted. Which is not their story.

Lisa Schuman: I think there’s a whole spectrum of grief. And yes, there are some people, I had a patient who said, you know if I had to make a cake, I would make the cake the same way from scratch as I would Betty Crocker, it doesn’t really matter, a cake’s a cake, and she really had no issue stepping into the donor conception world. But I’m sure there were moments where she felt: I’m not going to be using my genetics. And what’s it going to mean for me? What’s it going to mean for the children? What’s it going to mean for my relationship with my partner? And is the child going to love me the same? Am I going to feel the same about the child if I’m not genetically connected? So, I’m sure there were some moments. That’s on one side of the spectrum. And then you have people in the queer community, single parents, all kinds of people in this world who just kind of know that they’re going to use donor conception for a long time. They’ve wrapped their mind around it, and it’s part of their life, and they come into the office in a different way. And then you have people who are grieving over the loss of the genetic connection. And then you have people who can’t do it, who just say, you know, if I’m not going to parent with my own genetics, I’d rather not be a parent. So, I think there’s a very, very wide range of people’s experiences.