When to start telling child?

[lishar]

Our DD will be 3 in December. She was concieved via donor insemination. We are pg from DI again. We were unable to use the same donor. We plan on telling DD but I am unsure about when to start telling her. I think she is too young right now. What is a good age to start?

We choose to use donor because our DS died from a genetic disorder we passed to him. We decided the 25% risk was too high. She knows she had a big brother.

Does anyone know of any good books about telling children? She loves her daddy and I would never want to change that.

[SueZ]

you sure we aren't twins! lol My ds died of a genetic disorder too and we didn't take the 25% chance either. Good to know someone else is in my shoes. I have two children, one 3 and one almost 7. I thought by now we would have told the 7 year old, but he is still way too young to know or understand. I'm sure he would tell people. I want him to make the decision when he's mature enough if he wants to tell people and right now that is definately not the case, so I don't know when we will have that talk. I don't think about it much but when I do, I dread it. I can't imagine having that talk, it doesn't feel any different than if we did it the regular way, without using donor sperm. Maybe around 10 we'll start, I don't know!

If you want to write back, i'll check on here!

[fetch]

My DS was conceived by DI because of my DH's severe male factor.
We bought a children's book from this website a while back: http://www.xyandme.com which is specific to our situation. It's a cute book and is written in a very sensitive way. We plan on reading it to our DS once he's old enough to understand words and on (2yrs+).

[cs1984cs]

I was looking for a book for myself on ED and stumbled over this one which may help you if you intend to tell:

Experiences of Donor Conception: Parents, Offspring and Donors Through the Years by Caroline Lorbach (Author)

[DiIP]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like my kids are still too young to learn about their origins.

I'm not ashamed about using de and donor embryo, but I am just starting to have discussions with my 5 y/o about how babies grow in bellies. We're a FAR way from donor concepts still!

[BC-MAV]

I would just start when your child starts asking questions... for us that was around 3 years of age. Just how babies are made. You can start out generally then get into specifics. At age 5 he knows he grew in "C's" baby sac and DS grew in "Y's" babysac because mine was broken. He still wants to know why mine was broken and I don't have answers for that and just say the Drs. couldn't fix it. (we have unexplained).

[cs1984cs]

I found something else for all interested. 4 booklets that are free and downloadable "Telling and Talking" They have different age groups. http://www.dcnetwork.org/

[maria2]

Early and often is the mantra we've used, recommended by research and others. I started telling them both the story when they were babies - like instead of songs every month or so. I've found that the telling in the beginning - the early - is more for us than them, to find the right words to explain. But by now (my kids are 2 and 4.5) the story is totally familiar to all of us, and pretty easy to tell.

However, on the dc network mentioned above, there's a wonderful essay by a parent of a teen conceived w/ his mom's egg and donor sperm, and they told their son when he was like 10 and it all worked out really well. It's under the "For Men" section and it's called "We know who his daddy is".

So I guess I'm saying there are all sorts of ways up the mountain.
-maria2

[50/50]

DD is not one yet but I have been telling her about her conception already. Of course not the entire story and she prob doesn't understand what I am saying anyhow but it is giving me practice. I'm not sure when we will tell her the entire story...it will depend on her maturity level. But I do tell her that there were special people (angels) that helped us get her to be with us.

[cs1984cs]

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