# Inadvertently finding your donor/recipient through FF - what to do?



## Wendeth (Sep 8, 2007)

Here's an interesting question -what should happen if a recipient figures out who her donor is just through information on Fertility Friends or the other way round; that a donor realizes who her recipient is?

Would you as the donor be interested in finding out more and want her to contact you? or insist that we all maintain the confidentiality of it all. And as the recipient, would you want to thank your donor or ask questions or just keep completely quiet?

It's an interesting thought and one, as a recipient, i had never given much thought to but i'm sure it might generate an interesting discussion. I would be fascinated to hear other people's thoughts as I think i've located my wonderful donor on FF but my gut instinct is one of complete confidentiality and to not let her know.

Wendeth


----------



## olivia m (Jun 24, 2004)

But what would any child you conceive using your donor's egg want you to do?  That may be a guiding principle in deciding on contact or not.
Best of luck with this one
Olivia


----------



## Wendeth (Sep 8, 2007)

Olivia, that is a very good consideration indeed.  

This is all hypothetical as my embies from my shared-donor didn't make it anyhow.  I know she's there and she's amazing and she knows how grateful her receipient is as she received a card from me at the time so this is a kind of pandora's box sort of question I guess.  i will never tell her who i am but I wondered what other people would do in the same situation.  

From a child's point of view, i will be their mum so there's no problem there - they will know someone very special helped me and their dad to make them but that's where it ends for us now.  We are off to Spain, with complete anonymity - no chance at all of any little one i might produce being able to trace their biological egg-mum one day - and we will only find out blood type and age of the donor on the day of transfer.

Knowing who is the donor is very different from having a known-donor in the child's life.  I guess the can of worms that would be opened up is really one of protecting your child from anything that might emotionally damage them - so perhaps that would also depend on the donor's reaction - particularly if their cycles had failed but your's had worked.  I think the anonymity laws are excellent in that respect as it maintains the privacy of your family.  If the donor could trace the recepient, it may not always be a healthy thing particularly if they are tracing because they feel the egg they gave is still theirs and the child is somehow 'theirs' and they want some kind of bond with her/him.  That's too weird.  I definitely had closure with my shared-donor by sending her a heart-felt card but others may not be able to bring closure for their donated eggs and are forever wondering about the donor.

It's just such a wide open issue to discuss and one that fascinates me. I'm not sure if the words i'm writing are making sense yet but I'd welcome any other thoughts.

Wendeth


----------



## rtsaintly (Oct 19, 2007)

Hi,

I was just thinking about this this morning! Only because I am back using ff after a long break, and we are just starting our treatment with a donor. As I am mixed race, there will be far less people who it could potentially be, and so I did consider it before I logged back into ff. I have no idea how I iwould deal with it if I had an inkling, I dont know whether women donating actually want to know, and whether it would be breaching their right to confidentiality?

I am definitely in the 'tell' camp. For me, my heritage (Guyanese) is very important to who I am, for our potential child, their heritage (Jamaican) will be just as important, and I would not want to take that away from them. 

Rachel xx


----------



## parveen1 (Jan 11, 2008)

Wendeth

Hi there. I have thought about this for over a year.

We have recently received eggs through a UK egg share programme and I must admit that as we were given donors to choose from I did wonder whether they had posted anywhere on ff. We were offerred a Brazilian lady, a Portuguese lady, Turkish, Greek etc. I'm really really happy with the donor we chose as she is so similar to me genetically. I didn't look any further into but I do wonder when I go back to the hostpital for scans and bloods whether the donor has been there. I do spend a lot of time wondering what she looks like and whether she too is exactly as pregnant as me. We were given so much information about her, which is both good and bad. We still haven't decided what we are going to tell our child. Its such a difficult thing.

I have to say that if I came accross someone who I thought was the donor I would find it really hard to resist finding out more. However, it is almost certainly best not to dwell on this. Obviously easier said than done.

Parveen.


----------



## Just a girl (Mar 6, 2008)

Ladies how strange I have thought about this loads too and I think about it from the other way round as i'm the donor (going to be having tx for the first time soon and really excited to start!)  
I'm really comfortable about donating my eggs and I'm really pleased to be able to help somebody fullfill their dreams too but I don't know how I would feel if someone contacted me directly, I guess I couldn't really say unless it happened.  Im a very curious person so in theory I guess I wouldn't mind if they just wanted to know more about me as filling that green form is really hard and I know I will not cover everything the recipient wants to know, actually ladies whilst your all here - what did you really want to know about your recipient, tell me please as im struggeling with what to write? 
Back to the original question - its a hard one hey, how would you all feel if one day you a recieved a pm saying 'Hi, I think you recieved my eggs'?? ??

My post prob hasn't helped at all - Go with your gut feelings!!

Hayley x


----------



## ~ MJP ~ (Oct 16, 2006)

I have donated half of my eggs twice. If my recipients were posting on FF and had worked out that I was their donor I'd love them to contact me and let me know how they are doing. My clinic told me that both my recipients got pregnant from my eggs but sadly later miscarried    We have been very very fortunate and it would be fantastic to hear that they've also been successful since


----------



## Skybreeze (Apr 25, 2007)

I did a egg share cycle in the last couple of months. And have thought about my recipient alot.. Unfortunately my cycle failed last week, so my recipient would also know the out come now... I am praying that the tx did work.... 

If* we were both on FF and one of us worked it out about the donation, yes I would love to hear from her.. But I do understand that some recipeint of DE may not want to be contacted and I respect that totally. If my recipient is pregnant   and she was reading this, I would want to wish her a happy family life. 

I would never want to interfere with my recipient life.. I have done my bit and donated my eggs, I just wish her well.

Natalie xxx


----------



## Caz (Jul 21, 2002)

I am also here to put an opinion of an egg donor. I egg shared 4 times and I know the second cycle resulted in a live birth for the recipient. Unfortunately, that same cycle I also got a BFP but miscarried so, as you can imagine the due date of my recipient's baby has always been fairly accessible in my thoughts so I would probably have a good idea of who my recipient was with some fairly basic information if she were quite active on FF. Likewise I am sure she could fairly easily find me too as I am a fairly active member here and all my details are in my profile.
That cycle was pre April '05 when the laws around anonymity had yet to change so I am still an anonymous donor for her, although I do remember being asked if I wanted to "opt out" of that as it was so close to the change in law and I did fill out the big green form that was introduced as a result of the change in the law. 
Personally I would not have a problem at all if my recipient wanted to get into contact with me but I have since has successful tx myself so I think the pain of childlessness is not quite so raw for me (although I suspect infertility will always hurt in some way when you have gone through it). However I don't think I would like to get a PM directly from my recipient, no. To open my inbox and see "hi, I had your eggs!" might be a bit uncomfortable and I wouldn't know how to reply....well, at first! I think it would be even worse if said person had yet to have successful treatment and even if they had they may not want to know!  

Wendeth I am not saying don't make contact because I think if you feel that you want to say thank you personally then that is a great thing to do. But I would suggest that you think carefully about the emotional implications for both of you if you go ahead and that it might make FF a very uncomfortable place for either one or both of you if things don't go well or you don't get along - think of it like meeting a long lost relative (i.e. an adopted child meeting birth parent for the first time); you're not both necessarily going to want to meet or even get along and if you don't it may "taint" how you feel about the cycle and any child that results from it. 

Perhaps you could contact one of the Admin team about your suspicions and see if they can advise or, perhaps speak to this person on your behalf. It is more likely that they can make enquiries as to whether the member in question is open to conversing with you and how they would react. Failing that, speak to your clinic and see if your egg share/donor coordinator or the clinic counsellor can offer you any advice or support.

Wishing you all the best! 

C~x


----------



## Wendeth (Sep 8, 2007)

Hi Caz and everyone else.  It's a thoughtful topic, isn't it.  I have absolutely NO intention of getting in touch with my donor.  When I first realized it was her, i was just amazed (as we've posted on the same thread before now!) but now that's as far as it goes.  I was not successful with my tx and now we have 7 embies waiting in Spain for us - so my UK treatment is definitely in the past.

Keep up the interesting comments!

Love Wendeth


----------



## lulu28 (Dec 9, 2006)

I egg shared at Bourn Hall are you able to find out if the receipient had success?? then i've always wondered I really hope so!!


----------



## olivia m (Jun 24, 2004)

Hi Lulu
Under UK rules you are definitely entitled to know the outcome of your egg share recipient's treatment.
Just be very clear that you cannot un-know something once you find out.
Best wishes
Olivia


----------



## jakesmum (Feb 10, 2007)

I agree with Oliva's comment that you can't unknow something.  When my first eggshare cycle failed, I asked if the receipient had been successful and I wished I hadn't!  She was successful, and whilst I'm very pleased for her, I was very upset for myself.  I was so amazed that I reacted that way - I was completely devestated.  

Saying that, I'm part way through a donor cycle, as I'm not ready to have another go at IVF yet!  I think for me, it was more the devestation that it hadn't worked for me, but from the same cycle had worked for someone else if that makes sense.  

I'd advise if your eggsharing not to ask about your receipient unless you get a BFP yourself!


----------



## watn1 (Mar 14, 2008)

Hi Ladies,

  This is a very interesting topic and it is something i have thought about on a few occasions mainly because i the clinic i am being treated at has it's own forum too which i use and i could well speak to her on a daily basis... Who know's.. I don't think it would be hard to work out who your receiptant/Donor is through FF especially if you are both active users.

For me i personally wouldn't mind if she contacted me directly if it were to ask question's etc,  & that mainly is because if the thread "what would you want to ask your donor" I read through it and only at that point realised that other things other then my height & weight were thought about from my receiptant. I did try to include as much as i possibily could on my 'Green Form' Even adding another page with the help of that thread.

I think what has helped myself is that fact that i have already completely dittached myself from the egg's that i will be donating even before it has happened. I have said this before but, there is nothing at all to say that the egg's i donate to this lady would work for me & vice versa, Obviously there is a lot more involved then just the egg, & i see it just as that 'A EGG' nothing more, nothing less.

I don't know how i will feel when the time come's to know whether the treatment was succesful for her... But to be honest i truely believe i will be happy for her. After all i probably have a few thousand eggs (if not hundered thousand) knocking around so why not donate a few.. I am still young.. I am under no illusion that the 1st, 2nd or 3rd cycle might not work for myself but i do feel that i really hope any receiptant gets a BFP and would have made it all worth while.. & i would wish her all the luck in the world.

Maybe it has helped also that my Aunt is going for DE treatment & i know what it means to her to reach her goal, & i will happily help anyone achieve this.

Of course this is MY opionion and i am in no way saying this is how everyone should feel.

Good Luck to All.xx


----------



## Wendeth (Sep 8, 2007)

Thank you all for responding.  

When we went out to Spain in July for our DE cycle, we actually saw our donor waiting for EC in the waiting room!!!  We'd arrived  1.5 hours early so the clinic weren't expecting us to be there. I am not sure if she noticed us but it was a great relief to see her, as she was the spitting image of me 20 years ago and it has made me so calm just seeing what she looked like.  I just wish i could thank her but i don't think the Spanish clinics pass on cards to donors, unlike Bourn Hall ( which is how i identified my UK donor in the first place).

Good luck to all of us going through treatment    

Wendeth


----------

