A carefully chosen selection of kind and thoughtful resources to support parents raising children conceived using egg, sperm and embryo donation, including podcasts, books, documentaries and more. We would love to hear your feedback as to what is helpful for you, so that we can point other parents in the right direction.
We would encourage you to watch the documentary Future People:The Family of Donor 5114 available on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Discovery+ and Three on Demand (NZ).This follows a group donor conceived children/teens of mostly single mum and lesbian couples for several years. They all know about their conception, yet through watching the documentary it is clear that many of them still feel a variety of emotions about donor conception and their donor's identity.
Our favourite children's book is What Makes a Baby by Cory Silverberg - it is non-gendered and suitable for all family types. We would recommend that for all families using donor conception.
The We Are Donor Conceived 2020 survey has valuable insights about how donor conception affects donor conceived people
There are additional resources from the survey which are also worth reviewing:
The book Three Makes Baby by Jana Rupnow has been written for parents and is also available as an audiobook and with a worksheet. Jana is a licensed fertility counsellor specialising in third party reproduction. She also offers webinars and counselling over zoom.
Jana Rupnow has also produced a number of podcasts interviewing DCP, parents and donors.
We can definitely recommend Three Makes Baby podcast episodes #50 "Kyle raised by a single Mom always knew about his donor conception"" and #35 "Esther, happily raised by two Moms, has a strong desire to find her biological father" as helpful resources. There are so many episodes so we working our way through them. It makes a big difference to hear from donor conceived people in their own voices, rather than just written text.
This PDF available from VARTA entitled "Time to Tell" is all about disclosure. Why it's important and how to go about it.
The Magic of You Personalised Books by Sensitive Matters
These personalised books for donor conceived children have delightful clipart and photos, they are quick to make and are adaptable for ANY family scenario.
The Magic of You is not just another children's book for talking about donor conception or surrogacy – it is your story!
Books are 100% editable - all the text, clipart illustrations and pages can be changed – so this book can easily be adapted for any unique aspect in your story.
Parent Resources
You may also have some resources you would like to share with us - we'd appreciate that!
There are many great accounts on Instagram for learning about donor conception
Here are just a few of our favourites:
Hayley @dcp_journey_2_RP is a DCP in a two mum family who now has donor-conceived twins
Becky @definingmum @paths_to_parenthub who used egg donation to have her children and runs a parent support network
Lena @lenaridley who used egg donation to have her daughter
We are very impressed with COLAGE Donor Conceived - A guide for people who have LGBTQ+ parents and were born via donor conception and/surrogacy
While it is written for donor conceived people, it is hugely useful for parents (all types of parents not just LGBTQ+) and fertility service providers, as well as policy makers and any one else involved in donor conception and surrogacy.
There is a section specifically with advice for prospective and current parents and another one for educators and school administrators. But for those of you who would like to better understand the needs and perspectives of donor conceived people, you should read the entire document.
Hayley is a donor conceived person (DCP) who was raised in the United Kingdom. In a twist of fate, Hayley is also a Mum thanks to sperm donation, and has twin 6-year-olds with her wife. Hayley speaks regularly about her experience of being both a DCP and a parent to donor conceived children via her Instagram account @dcp_journey_2_rp, and more recently launched her site ‘All Things Donor Conception’ which contains a range of free resources, information and supportive material that is aimed at helping all members of our community.