Personal stories
We are very grateful to all those who have taken the time to write about their personal experiences of donor conception and issues relating to it. These stories are invaluable in helping to share common feelings around complex issues. Reading about how others have dealt with things is often very reassuring.
Use the drop-down options to search for particular story types. And if you would like to contribute your own story, please do get in touch with us.
The legal considerations of using a known or unknown donor
Sarah Wood-Heath is a Partner at Clarke Willmott, Southampton,
one of DCN's Lawyer Supporters. With many years' experience of
both family law and specialist family law, Sarah supports clients through the legal implications of building and reating their families. You may have heard Sarah speak at one of the fertility shows or on radio
Legal changes for LGBT families: We will keep fighting the good fight
Fertility lawyer Natalie Gamble celebrates the legal changes that have empowered LGBT families in the UK
A Missing Side, with Missing Pieces
My mothers were always really open about my conception, and that is something I appreciate. That way I could form my own opinion about my conception story and the industry around it, and I could talk with them about it.
"I remain indebted to a stranger"
"Life is not always particularly easy but I remain indebted to a stranger, a man I have never met and may never meet, a man who gave me the greatest gifts of all."
Feeling Good: What helps children & teenagers feel good about themselves as donor conceived people?
What makes us the sort of people that we are? How much are we influenced by our parents when it is our parents who bring us up? How much is down to our genes? And how much is down to the environment that we live in?
Being a Family: Raising children well
This is the talk given at the 2003 March national meeting in London by Mary MacLeod, then Chief Executive of the National Family and Parenting Institute.
You’re not my father/mother anyway
Olivia Montuschi offers some supportive insights into the fear that haunts parents of donor conceived children.... Anxieties about rejection by our children, particularly as they become teenagers, are very common, but understanding these fears in the context of developmental stages and needs of both children and parents can help.
The Rights of Children
An egg donor and mother of a sperm donor conceived child tells why she would be happy for children born from her donated eggs to have access to information about her.
The issue of language
Olivia Montuschi, one of the founders of DCN ponders the tricky question of language around donor conception