The donor egg dilemma

This post has been brewing for a while.  I find it hard not to tell people that I conceived with a donor egg.  Mr.Right and I have decided that we are only sharing that fact with immediate family until our son is old enough to understand.  We did not want a situation where everyone around him knew, but he didn't (or couldn't understand).  So, we're not telling people, generally.

But, here's the problem.  I'm part of a moms group and have had several conversations over the past year with various of my friends there about infertility, E's birth story, etc.  It's kind of like sharing war stories.  And in our area, you find out that so many people ended up going through fertility treatments and losses, it's kind of amazing (I guess that's due to the affluent nature of the area, the older ages of the moms and the abundant number of fertility centers in the immediate vicinity).  Anyhow, it's felt good to both hear other's stories and tell my own.  Much like it feels here in our blog community.

However, I haven't shared that I used donor eggs in this last pregnancy.  These are potentially families with whom we'll interact for a long time - through elementary school at least and maybe longer given that we live in the same general area and I've developed a set of friends with kids the same age as E.  So, these people fall into the same category as our close friends - not immediate family (whom we've told) and not the anonymous blogging community (you're in on it!)

But it pains me to have some of the conversations I've had with some of the moms who have struggled to have their children and/or who are struggling to have another - especially at an older age.  I feel like I'm either giving them false hope or giving them a (false) reason to be jealous of me being pregnant at my age.  But I don't see any way out of it.  I've told people we had "lots of help" with this pregnancy, but I can't let them know that we used donor eggs.  I don't believe any of them would intentionally mention this around our son, but who knows whether someone might let it slip, their kid hears something one day and mentions something to our son?  (I realize this is highly, highly unlikely just because - for goodness sake - I forget half the time that we used donor eggs and I'm sure that most people, if told, would forget about it as well.)  But the other reason is that I don't feel it's fair not to share it with our closest friends but to share it with these friends whom I've just made.  And we don't think it's fair to our son that everyone else around him knows, but he doesn't (I realize he's probably not going to think about that, really.)  Mr.Right agrees with all of this and just says, well, we're not sharing the information at this point.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't feel ashamed about using donor eggs. If anything, I want to shout from the rooftop to women my age, just do it!! (if it feels right for you)  Seriously, consider it as an option, if you can, to build your family.  And, for goodness sake, don't feel like you're a failure because you can't get pregnant with your own eggs after age 40.  All those celebrities you see getting pregnant mid 40s or later?  Certainly, many of them have had to use donor eggs.  And I totally respect their right not to tell anyone.  But it distorts the picture.

And, that's the dilemma.  I feel like I'm distorting the picture.  But I'm doing it because we think it's the right thing to do for our child.

Yes, I know, there's a whole other camp out there that believes all of this information about donor egg/sperm should be shared with everyone and anyone from the word 'go', including the child.  We've just made a very considered and conscious decision that we don't believe that is the right approach for us and our child.

Believe me, I still have worries that we'll get to the point where we want to share this information with our child and despite whatever we say to the contrary, he'll perceive it as having been "a big secret" and think that because it was a secret there must be something wrong about it.

But we still think it's the right way to proceed.  We envision telling our son about this probably in stages - commensurate with his ability to understand and his emotional maturity at the particular point in time.

And, of course, there's the issue that the donor egg, in this case, comes from my sister.  We want - and my sister wants - an aunt/nephew relationship for our son.  We think in so many ways that learning that his aunt helped his mom and dad have him will be a wonderful thing for our child to know.  But we also want him to develop that relationship before he becomes fully aware of the slightly different genetic relationship he has to his aunt.

Anyhow, back to the point.  I just don't think I see any way to be upfront and educational about donor eggs among acquaintances without revealing that our son is a DE baby.  And I guess I'm just lamenting that here.  Hmmm..... thoughts?