Books for Donor Kids
  • Telling Made Easy
  • Our Books
    • Store
    • Special Orders
  • Tips on Talking
    • The First Talk
    • Older Kids
  • Our Services
  • Ask The Counselor
  • Resources
    • Resources for Single Moms by Choice
    • LGBTQ Resources
  • About us & Contact

Is Using a Donor Right for Me?

11/9/2015 1 Comment
 
Picture

Does it really make sense?

So you've heard all the great stats on using donor eggs, or your doctor's just told you how much great the odds of success are if you use donor sperm, or donor embryo.

And you're thinking about it...

But its not just about numbers, is it?

Does it feel right?
Will you feel ok about it in the future?
Or will you always wonder what might have been?
Will you always feel sad that your kiddo is not related to both you and your partner?
Will you, if you're the only one who isn't genetically related to your child, feel like the odd man out?

These are important questions to consider, very carefully, before proceeding.

And the truth is, using donors is not for everyone.
Some people feel a lot more comfortable adopting. It makes them feel like they are on a level playing field with their partners. They may also feel like adoption is much easier to explain to the child and everyone else than donor conception.
And others decide not to have kids (or any more kids)

The really important thing is to take your time and talk to people
who've adopted or used donor procedures before deciding. 

If you feel very strongly that you would never want to tell anyone about using a donor (including your kid)then that's an indication that you don't really feel comfortable with it
and  you are probably not ready to proceed. 

On the other hand, if you're at least 80% certain that you will be all right with using a donor, then that's probably good enough. As one woman said they other day "I'm willing to take a leap of faith that this is going to be all right for everyone and that we'll all be happy that I did."

1 Comment

How to Choose the "Perfect" Donor

3/4/2015 1 Comment
 
Picture

Unrealistic Expectations?

Every day I talk to prospective parents who want a tall, blonde, athletic Rhodes scholar type donor, even if the mother is none of the above.

And I tell them:
  1. Good luck finding this donor (and if you do find her at an agency be prepared to pay top dollar)
  2. Is this really what you want? (Your child may end up looking very unlike other family members).
  3. There are no guarantees. (The transmission of physical characteristics is capricious. You certainly can't predict exactly what your own genetically related child will look like or how smart they will be).
  4. How will the kid feel if he/she is unable to live up to these expectations?

A Better Option

A better approach is to go for similar body type/hair and eye color; to read the profiles of lots of donors with an open mind; and choose someone you feel some rapport with. You want to feel good about your donor--your attitude towards her will be conveyed to your child.

And don't forget, most scientists agree that personality is formed equally by nature and nurture and you are going to have a profound influence on who your kid grows up to be from day one. 
1 Comment

Embryo donation/adoption in the news!

11/20/2014 1 Comment
 
People Magazine and Good Morning America have recently run a heartwarming story about embryo adoption from the points of view of the donors and the recipients, who have an "open adoption" arrangement. It is really nice to see this story being told in such a public arena.
Not many people are aware of embryo donation/adoption (even though its been going for years, given the tens of thousands of frozen embryos from IVF currently in storage).


Some clinics are unwilling to be involved in anything other than strictly anonymous embryo donation--which, in my opinion, is definitely not in the best interest of the children, who are very likely to be extremely curious about their donors (and siblings as well), but who will never be able to locate them in the future.


Other clinics and agencies treat the arrangement like a regular adoption--requiring "homestudies" of the recipients and, in some cases, encouraging the donors and recipients to meet one another prior to the donation taking place.


In still other circumstances, the agencies/clinics facilitate a partially open relationship between the two parties and contact is generally limited to child's desire for contact, or changes in the donor's medical history.


Congratulations to Liz Krainman www.wishingonasnowflake.com, and Libby Kranz--not to mention People Magazine and Good Morning America! www.people.com/article/embryo-adoption-liz-krainman
1 Comment

Why it Matters to Tell the Truth Early

11/14/2014 1 Comment
 
How long can you safely wait to talk to your kids about IVF, Donors and/or Surrogates?
While there is no absolute answer to that question, there are a number of reasons why talking about it "early and often" is the easiest and most beneficial way to go.


The world is a wonderful, awesome place to young children and they
are open and non-judgmental
.


The longer you wait to tell the  longer you have to get anxious about it (or worry that a well intentioned friend or family member will mention something before you do).

The sooner you start telling your child about how much they were wanted and loved (and the extraordinary lengths you went to have them the better.

The longer you wait the more your child will wonder why the information wasn't mentioned sooner: is there something wrong with coming into the world this way?

For more click on this link:
Psychotherapist’s Innovative New Picture Books Help Donor, IVF & Surrogate Kids Understand “Where They Came From”.


1 Comment

IVF births up to 5 million and counting

11/5/2014 1 Comment
 

Hard to believe but over 5 million children have been born through Assisted Reproductive Technology in the past three decades, and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in particular. 
 The numbers of donor conceived kids is a harder to calculate but in the US in 2012, there were 165,172 IVF cycles in the US alone, and 51,267 of these resulted in live births. Its believed that about 8,000 were egg donor conceived births but with the high rate of twins in Donor Egg IVF there's a good chance that almost half of these births were twins, which would make the number closer to 12,000 in only one year.
Rough estimates on the number of donor sperm conceived children born each year in the US is 4,000-5,000, bringing the the total in a single recent year to 16,000! That's alot of kids!

1 Comment

How to begin talking about donors/surrogates

10/15/2014 1 Comment
 
Even if you decided to talk to be honest with your child long before they were even conceived, it can be a daunting prospect to broach the topic for the very first time. Your "plan" to wait until your child started asking questions about where babies come from, or where they came from, may not have panned out. Although your kid may notice pregnant women, and know that "babies grow in mommy's tummies" he or she may express little or not interest in discussing the topic further.
   
This is where buying an attractive storybook for your child, and telling them its a special story you want to share with them, can save the day. Some parents prefer to avoid the words egg and sperm, and simply read books that refer only to "the special lady" (or man) who gave their parents a wonderful gift that enabled them to have their child. Then you can mention the fact that  your own family had "a special lady" (or man) who helped them to have you!
   
When a child gets a little older, however (ages 4-5) its important to give them a little more information about "how babies are made". No mention needs to be made of sexual intercourse but even very young children can grasp the notion that eggs come from women and sperm come from men, and that putting the two together is what makes a baby start to grow. This more concrete information introduces concepts to your child that you can build on later on. It also gives you the opportunity to talk about the very nice lady (or man) who had eggs (or sperm) they didn't need and that the donor wanted to help the family have the child they wanted so much.
1 Comment

Its normal to feel nervous...

10/6/2014 0 Comments
 
I got a call the other day from a woman who has boy/girl donor egg twins who just started kindergarten and she said she felt "terrified to tell them about their donor."

She said she had always intended to tell them as early as 3 years old but she kept putting it off and putting it off
and now she felt like she had to tell them but she was afraid they were going to get really upset or ask a lot of questions about the donor that she couldn't answer or look at her "like I'm not really their mother."

She had books to read to them and had even rehearsed what she was going to say but she was still scared to death.

I assured her that it was highly unlikely that her kids would get upset by this information (especially if she presented it in an upbeat way). I also told her that although they might ask who their donor was, they were also very unlikely to ask many more detailed questions at this age.
She could answer the "who is my donor" question by saying "We never met her but we know she must have been a very nice person who wanted to help us." (Only when they are older would she need to get into more details and share whatever information they had).

By the time we finished talking she was "still stressed" but just "wanting to get it over with." I hoped she'd follow through. She was feeling so guilty about not telling with each passing day, and the longer she waited the bigger it felt.

A few days later we talked again. She was overjoyed to report that she read the book to them and talked to her kids about their own donor story. Both twins listened and her daughter asked "Does everyone have a donor?"  "Not everybody," she answered, "But alot of people do." "Oh," her daughter she said. "What are we having for lunch?"


0 Comments

Genetic Searches and Why Talking about Donor Conception is so Important

10/1/2014 1 Comment
 
Interesting article a few weeks back at vox.com "With Genetic Testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce" about a stem cell and reproductive biologist who decided to send off a saliva sample to 23andMe to find out more about himself on a genetic level and possibly learn more about his ancestry.

What he found out is that he shared 22% of his genome with a person named "Thomas" who had also registered with 23andMe.
This is a huge percentage and it took him awhile to figure out that he and Thomas shared the same genome with the author's father. When his father tested himself he found that "Thomas" was a 50% percent relation to him and a "predicted son".

The author didn't know what to do. He contacted Thomas and found out that he had been adopted at birth and had been searching for his birth parents for many years. Thomas also had a daughter who had no access to half of her family's medical history.
The author finally decided to tell the family about his discoveries when he realized that "Thomas had a right to know about his family's medical history, who am I to stand in the way and say 'You can't talk to my Dad--it might hurt his feelings?"

However, when he did tell, "years of repressed memories and emotions uncorked and resulted in tumultuous times that" tore his family apart.
Its a very sad tale, but one that we are likely to hearing more of as genetic testing becomes more and more common. And it underlines the fact that donor conceived kids will likely discover their true genetic origins sooner or later. How much better to be told by their parents than to discover in this way!

Click here to see the full article:  
"With Genetic Testing..."
1 Comment

Surrogacy Controversies

9/18/2014 0 Comments
 
There's an article in yesterday's New York Times today at  on the continuing controversies re: gestational surrogacy and the lack of consistent laws governing it from state to state and country to country.  To read it click here

Opposition to surrogacy from the conservative religious right and some women's rights groups (including the National Organization of Women) continues to influence legislators in certain states, while intended parents and surrogacy agencies argue that when the needs of all parties are attended to surrogacy is a huge benefit to all involved.

As a result, there are huge discrepancies from state to state (in six states surrogacy contracts are void and unenforceable while in others in surrogacy is legal, and in many others there are no laws one way or the other).

I've heard the argument that surrogacy should be banned because  surrogates are coerced by the financial compensation exploited by the arrangement (and I must admit that from what I've heard about surrogacy in India--where destitute women are required to live in dormitories throughout their pregnancies--this can sometimes be the case!)

But the surrogates that I know are not desperate for the financial compensation, and actually drive a huge emotional/psychological benefit from being able to fulfill the long-cherished dreams of the intended parents.
Psychological screenings to determine whether this is the case for any particular prospective surrogate is critical in determining whether this is, in fact, the case.

At the clinic where I work, extreme financial need would disqualify the woman from becoming a surrogate because the risk of exploitation is simply too great. And the surrogates who do enter into contracts with intended parents are very well cared for emotionally and psychologically by the agencies they work with.

And the intended parents are also  screened  to insure that their is a true medical necessity for the use of a surrogate (and not a simple preference not to undergo the inconvenience of pregancy) they are not emotionally detached from the surrogate and her family. 
0 Comments
    Picture

    About Me

    I'm a former infertility patient, psychotherapist and  author of Unspeakable Losses (WW Norton and HarperCollins).

    I 've been working in the field of reproductive medicine for over 20 years both on staff at large fertility clinics and in private practice.I still find everything about this field fascinating and compelling.

     Personally familiar with the emotional rollercoaster of infertility and I find it thrilling to see that miraculous transition from despair to joy that happens when the struggle is finally resolved!

    Archives

    November 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

About

BOOKS for DONOR KIDS was founded by Kim Kluger-Bell
in 2008.
She is a psychotherapist specializing in reproductive issues. A former infertility patient she is devoted to helping others resolve their struggles and build happy families!

Learn More

Books

Picture

Get In Touch

303 517 3702
kklugerbell@gmail.com
www.KimKlugerbellLmft.com.

Submit A Form

Copyright © 2018 Books for Donor Kids
Website by Weebly Expert
Website by Weebly Expert
  • Telling Made Easy
  • Our Books
    • Store
    • Special Orders
  • Tips on Talking
    • The First Talk
    • Older Kids
  • Our Services
  • Ask The Counselor
  • Resources
    • Resources for Single Moms by Choice
    • LGBTQ Resources
  • About us & Contact