Preparing you and your family for the possibility of contact: Questions to consider

• If you are an identity-release donor and you’ve kept your address details up-to-date with the HFEA, then you may first receive a letter from the HFEA to inform you that someone born from your donation has requested your identifying information. Bear in mind, that they might not subsequently choose to contact you or may wait some time before doing so.
  

   

• It is possible, but unlikely, that a donor-conceived person will make first contact by knocking on your door. (This tends only to happen when people have had no response from other attempts to get in touch with their donor.)
  

   

• It is also possible that someone related to you through donor conception will try to contact you using out-of-date information (for example, an old address held by the HFEA).
  

   

• If any of your relatives has used an online commercial DNA test, someone conceived from your donation may identify you through that relative, particularly if they are easier to trace or contact and the initial approach may come through them.

Donors often feel that they should follow the lead of the donor conceived person in terms of how contact happens.

However, it may be helpful to explore your own feelings and preferences too.

Things to consider:

Your hopes and expectations:

• What are your own hopes and expectations in respect of contact with the donor conceived person?
• What would you like to know about them, or ask them?
• Do you have any worries or concerns?

Boundaries:

• Have you considered whether you want to establish any boundaries, and what your boundaries might be?
• It is OK for you to feel that boundaries are necessary.

Your current circumstances:

• What is going on in your life right now?
• Is this a good time for you to have ongoing contact?

Postponing or declining contact:

• Have you considered that you might want to turn down or postpone a request to meet the donor conceived person if they contacted you?
• How would it feel like to do this?

Physical resemblance:

• How might you feel if the donor-conceived person looks very similar to you or a family member?
• How might you feel if you are very different?

Differences in background or circumstances:

• You may not have anticipated each other’s lifestyle or circumstances, and they may not have anticipated yours.
• You may differ in areas such as sexual orientation, family set-up (for example, single parent or divorced/separated family), social, educational or cultural background, or life experiences.
• Your first languages may not be the same.

Being contacted before the age of eighteen:

• How would you feel about being contacted by someone conceived from your donation before they are eighteen?
• This may happen through online commercial DNA testing or if they are the younger sibling of an adult conceived from your donation.
• How would you respond?

Genetic half-siblings:

• A donor-conceived person may also be interested in genetic half-siblings.
• You may not have any information about them; if you do, consider whether you could or should disclose their identity.

Meeting in person:

• If you have agreed to meet with someone conceived through your donation, how would you feel if they brought someone along with them?
• If you decide to meet a donor conceived person, think about whether you would want to take someone with you for support.
• Who could you ask?

Your partner:

• Is your partner aware of your donation?
• Have you considered what impact this might have on your relationship with your partner?

Your children:

• Do you have children, and are they aware of your donation?
• Are they aware that a genetic relative may make contact?
• What are their feelings about this?
• They may see these connections differently from you.

Your wider family:

• Have you considered how your wider family might feel about the possibility of contact?
• How will you manage things if your parents or relatives see the situation differently from you?

Family involvement:

• What expectations do you have about your family members’ involvement in any contact?
• Do they feel the same way?

If you and your partner donated an embryo:

• Any donor-conceived person would be fully genetically related to your children.
• What might this be like for all of you?
• How do you feel about this?

If you do not have your own family:

• Have you considered how contact may affect you?
• You may experience a range of emotions, such as jealousy, envy, anger, sadness, happiness or curiosity.

If you have recently been bereaved:

• Contact may lead to renewed feelings of grief.

• Not all donor-conceived people will be interested in making contact with their donor, and those with identity-release donors will not necessarily choose to do so at age eighteen. How would you feel if you are not contacted?
  

   

• Not all donor-conceived people know they are donor-conceived, and this may be another reason why you are not contacted.
  

   

• People conceived from your donation may be more interested in contact with donor siblings than with you, the donor. How might you feel about this?
  

   

• Have you considered how you would feel if you were notified by the HFEA that a request has been made to release your identity, but no one contacted you afterwards?
  

   

• As well as preparing your family for the possibility of contact, you may want to discuss with them the possibility that contact does not happen at all.

• Do you know, or can you estimate, the number of people who have been born from your donation? Consider how you would feel if you are contacted by several donor conceived people, and that contact might take place over a number of years.
• Is it important to you to offer everyone who gets in touch a similar kind of relationship? Consider what is possible for you, practically and emotionally.

• If a relative of yours has used an online commercial DNA testing site (such as 23andMe or Ancestry) it is possible that your relative(s) may be contacted by a person conceived from your donation before you are.
  

   

• This is possible even if you have never registered with an online DNA testing site but one of your relatives has (depending on the privacy settings they have chosen).
  

   

• Where people have been ‘matched’ with you or your relatives on an online commercial DNA test you may be contacted by people conceived from your donation (and/or their parents) before their eighteenth birthday. This is because the HFEA rules about age and information disclosure do not apply to online commercial DNA testing sites.
  

   

• Have you considered the possibility that the people conceived from your donations do not know they are donor conceived? If they discover that you are a ‘match’ from an online commercial DNA test, they may not know how you are related to them. If they contact you, how would you feel about disclosing that information to them?