s/he looks just like you

certainly not a comment a donor recipient expects to hear, although i have read that it does happen.

my husband and i decided a while ago on full disclosure to our child (if we should be lucky enough to have one). i know this is not the usual way that one has a family, but there are so many different permutations of families these days...we're not quite sure how we will say it -- someone we know who is a mother from donor egg began telling her daughter almost immediately the story of the nice lady who helped create her.

that said I don't know that we plan to tell everyone -- certainly the obgyn who we work with will know -- whether we tell all our friends? the stranger on the street who says "s/he look just like you!"...maybe to them i'd just nod...i don't know.

there is no stigma attached to this, at least i don't think there is -- but it does require a little explanation and i don't know we will always feel like giving it. moreover at some point it will be up to the, now imagined, teenager if s/he want to tell people.

on the other hand -- there are people we will tell -- we don't want to inadvertently become the poster couple for IVF finally working...they tried 8 times and now look! so for those people we know who find themselves down the IVF road and having it not work we will/would absolutely spill.

genetics does not a family make...and yet without the donated genetics we would not have the possibility of a family.

so yeah, we plan on telling the story right from the beginning -- getting practice saying the words so that later they wont seem so awkward.

do you plan to disclose? have you thought about it?