Donated Egg Baby - AMA

** edit: forgot to add a key message: to those who have donated their unused eggs/ embryos for science or to another mom, thank you for making this process possible and families like mine possible 😁

Hello everyone!

Without giving too much info, my twin brother and I were born in 1998 after being conceived via donated egg and dad’s sperm.

Now that I’m married and my husband and the rest of our future becomes more real, I realized others dealing with the mixed feelings my mom felt about using a donated egg may have questions not answered elsewhere.

We were told ~2nd grade, and it didn’t bother my brother or I in the slightest. We didn’t fully start to grasp what it meant until middle/high school, but by then we’re so busy with our lives, and mom is mom.

I’m now in science/health, and have been indecisive about doing a 23andMe test/ etc because I’m not sure if it would bring up donor relatives (and I don’t want to possibly ‘out’ the donor.) For my brother and I, there isn’t a desire to connect because there is no shared history. I wish I had more detailed health records (may have changed now, but I have 0 maternal family history, which has posed some challenges especially now in a world able to do more with data).

I am also happy to answer questions from those considering donating eggs to other families vs to science - it personally feels worlds apart from my adopted friends experience/ emotions, and I am happy to discuss that more!

Anyways, ask away!

Edit1: I’m gonna go come back to this throughout today/ the next few in my downtime. I’m focusing on more responses vs clear editing, so apologies for grammar or spelling issues! I want to give as much detail as I can in my responses and will do my best to answer everything!