Donor family medical history

[justjazzyjess]

Hi everyone

We are in the process of filling out the donor characteristics form for our donor egg which will be anonymous. We have thought of all the things that are important but one thing that we are obviously hugely concerned about is making sure the child is healthy both as a child and as an adult.

We are keen to mention one of our criteria being no family history of significant illnesses e.g. significant mental illness (of course we appreciate depression etc can happen to anyone but anything more major) and thinking about cancers that occur at young ages which are more likely to be hereditary e.g. breast cancer. Obviously some things don't matter so much such as asthma etc but for major diseases. How have people gone about wording this if you have at all?

Thanks in advance Xx

[FertilityFriends]

[justjazzyjess]

Any input guys? Would be very grateful! Not sure if I should have posted this in the donor egg section but thought it might be relevant to both sides really!

Thanks in advance if anyone can help xx

[Anenome]

Hi,

Are you having treatment outside the UK?   Have you spoken to the clinic about how they choose their donors and who they are?   It is really very hard to know whether you can be this specific about your donor or even trust the clinic to have screened for more than just the standard things that most clinics screen for. 

It would help to know where you are having treatment as each country has different laws on donor conception and also how do you know really that the donor will have issues that affect your child?   Not all your child's DNA will come from the donor and predicting health especially mental health is very, very difficult.   How you bring up your child will also have an influence on their mental health.    I am not sure if you have planned to be open to your child about their conception as this of course will influence their mental health!

I have children from anonymous embryo donation in Spain and have no information on their donors at all.  Moving on to donor conception and losing your genetic connection can be very hard and sometimes leads us to try to micromanage the choice of donor as we have so little control over so much in this process.  Have you had any counselling as this can help you clarify your feelings about what is important to you in your choice of donor?

A

[justjazzyjess]

Thanks Anenome. We are going to be having anonymous egg donation in Greece. We know how the clinic chooses donors but we do get some say in terms of requested characteristics and my question was in relation to that really - as for us, looks etc are less important than a healthy baby/person! Maybe it isn't an option to include this but I suppose the kind of example I was thinking of was if there was a donor who had a significant family history of breast cancer at young ages (e.g. more than one relative at earlier age than is 'typical') so may potentially have the BRCA gene etc that could be passed on then we would prefer a donor without that particular history when the clinic make that choice between the two.

I would hate to think that I had a child using someone else's DNA and bought them into the world with some serious condition that could be hereditary. But I am sure I am overthinking/overworrying! Thanks for your input, given me some things to think about!

Xx

[Pognut]

I *think* that in the UK at least you're not allowed to donate eggs if your family has had serious medical issues (when my sister donated eggs to us she had to fill out a gigantic health survey). Not sure if this is the case in Greece, though I'd have thought it would be - this might be something your clinic could put your mind at ease about very quickly, maybe ask them what their approach is?

[miamiamo]

Not sure if this is the case in Greece

It mainly depends on a clinic and their standards of checking donors.

[justjazzyjess]

Thanks guys, I ended up getting back in touch with the clinic and am reassured now as seems they are pretty hot on screening out the types of things that were worrying me!