Sharing Your Family Story: Donor Conception

Talking with your child about Donor Conception

From a parent’s perspective, the decision to disclose use of donor material (i.e., donor egg, donor sperm, donor embryo) can be confusing! Questions about when to start talking to your child about their conception story, what details to include, and how often to revisit the conversation can prevent well-meaning parents from getting started. So can worries and anxieties about how your child might react. And then there are decisions about who else to tell, outside of the immediate family.  

Without good information, how can a parent know how to begin? 

Your next steps

In our study, we are hoping to learn how to best to support parents in this part of their journey.  

Interested parents will complete surveys so that we can understand more about their thoughts and feelings about donor conception and sharing their child’s story with them.  Then, parents attend two, live half-day educational workshops with several other families, hosted on a virtual platform by two psychologists with expertise in families, child development and well-being, infertility, and donor conception. At the conclusion of the workshops, and again about 3 months later, parents are asked to complete the surveys again so that we can see how taking part in the workshops has impacted thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around sharing their child’s conception story with them. 

Interested in joining in our research? Great! Click the link below and complete a short survey so that the research team can contact you. 

https://gsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_25LebqtkffQWHu6