Annie
12-14-2004, 10:44 AM
Parents tell daughter why she doesn't look like dad
The Edmonton Journal. Nov 29, 2004
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal
When her parents said they had something important to tell her, never in a
million years would Allison Meads have guessed it was that she had been
conceived from donated sperm. She instantly burst into tears and cried for
two hours. "It's not like you're sad -- well, you're a little bit sad --
it's more like, 'What the hell?' It's more shock than anything. You don't
know what to think. You get it, but it's like, 'No! No way!' It's like it
made sense, but it didn't," Meads, 15, remembers. In that moment she finally
understood why she didn't resemble her dad, and her parents, Sheila and
Garry, were relieved of a secret they'd reluctantly harboured for 14 years.
When the couple went through the donor insemination procedure, they already
had two young sons through adoption. They were encouraged by adoption agency
staff to be honest and open and to tell the boys, Ryan, now 17, and Jamie,
now 16, right from the start that they were adopted.
They planned to take the same approach with their DI (donor insemination)
baby, but this time they were discouraged by staff at the fertility clinic.
"The doctors and nurses felt it wasn't fair to the child because in the
cases of the boys, they could in the future track down their biological
parents, but Allison would never be able to get that information and it
would be almost cruel to tell her something she wouldn't be able to find out
more about," Sheila says."It didn't sit well with us, but when somebody
gives you the impression that you're going to harm or damage your child by
telling them, we decided not to, and we told no one."
For years they never thought about it. After that, it was only when someone
would comment on how much Allison looked like Garry. Then some issues came
up with Allison's health, and her questions as a teenager trying to find
herself became more probing.
Her parents, who had always been able to deflect the issue or deal with it
through omission, realized they would have had to start lying to Allison to
keep the secret, so they decided to tell her. "I realized it may be hard for
Allison, but she's strong and I knew that she would be able to cope with
it," Sheila says. "We were scared about telling her. I haven't been so
nervous about anything."
Between 1-5% per cent of live births in industrialized countries are
conceived through assisted human reproduction. And in 80-85% of those cases,
parents decide not to tell their children, says Eric Blyth, a professor of
social work at the University of Huddersfield in Britain, who studies
families who use donor conception.
Parents worry that the information will hurt their children or their
relationship with their children, but research has found the opposite to be
true. Parents who tell report fewer problems with their children than
parents who don't tell, says Blyth, who thinks every DI child should be told
and should have full information about the donor. Telling children as early
as possible prevents the trauma of them finding out accidentally at the
worst time -- during a divorce and nasty custody battle or with the death of
the non-biological parent, Blyth says.
Irene and Peter, another infertile couple who had 3 children through DI,
began telling their children they were conceived through donor insemination
when they were still babes in arms. "We knew they didn't understand what we
were saying, but we were getting comfortable with the dialogue and using the
appropriate words," Irene says. "It just seemed natural."
There are storybooks available to make it easier for parents to tell their
DI children, Blyth says, and it's easier to tell them by at least age 3-4,
"but it's never too late." He says it's also important for DI children to
have a complete medical history and to reduce their risk of growing up and
possibly marrying a half-brother or half-sister they never knew about.
The Meadses agree. They say they knew when they went to the fertility clinic
that they'd never know the identity of their baby's sperm donor, and a deal
is a deal as far as they're concerned. But there's a third party, Allison,
who didn't agree to the deal and it's for her benefit and other children
like her that they want legislation changed.
What donors do is very special, Sheila says, and she doesn't want more
openness to stop someone from donating out of fear that they may have to
assume responsibility for the resulting children. "Allison doesn't need a
dad, she's already got a good dad," Sheila says. "She needs the other half
of the puzzle of who she is."
Allison knows she may never find her donor, but she's glad her parents told
her the truth and that they told her when they did. "I think they told me in
a good way and at a good time. Maybe I'd be a different person if they had
told me earlier," she says. "At this point, I can fully understand what this
is about. I understand the laws and why I can't know who this guy is, which
I probably wouldn't have understood if I was 8 when they told me."
The first three days she thought about it constantly; then it became an
insignificant fact, says Allison. "It hasn't changed anything. My dad was my
dad before all of this and he still is. It matters to me who the donor is,
but I don't even use the word 'dad' when I talk about him -- I say 'donor,'
or 'my biological dad,' because that's my dad," she says grinning and
looking at Garry.
The Edmonton Journal. Nov 29, 2004
http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal
When her parents said they had something important to tell her, never in a
million years would Allison Meads have guessed it was that she had been
conceived from donated sperm. She instantly burst into tears and cried for
two hours. "It's not like you're sad -- well, you're a little bit sad --
it's more like, 'What the hell?' It's more shock than anything. You don't
know what to think. You get it, but it's like, 'No! No way!' It's like it
made sense, but it didn't," Meads, 15, remembers. In that moment she finally
understood why she didn't resemble her dad, and her parents, Sheila and
Garry, were relieved of a secret they'd reluctantly harboured for 14 years.
When the couple went through the donor insemination procedure, they already
had two young sons through adoption. They were encouraged by adoption agency
staff to be honest and open and to tell the boys, Ryan, now 17, and Jamie,
now 16, right from the start that they were adopted.
They planned to take the same approach with their DI (donor insemination)
baby, but this time they were discouraged by staff at the fertility clinic.
"The doctors and nurses felt it wasn't fair to the child because in the
cases of the boys, they could in the future track down their biological
parents, but Allison would never be able to get that information and it
would be almost cruel to tell her something she wouldn't be able to find out
more about," Sheila says."It didn't sit well with us, but when somebody
gives you the impression that you're going to harm or damage your child by
telling them, we decided not to, and we told no one."
For years they never thought about it. After that, it was only when someone
would comment on how much Allison looked like Garry. Then some issues came
up with Allison's health, and her questions as a teenager trying to find
herself became more probing.
Her parents, who had always been able to deflect the issue or deal with it
through omission, realized they would have had to start lying to Allison to
keep the secret, so they decided to tell her. "I realized it may be hard for
Allison, but she's strong and I knew that she would be able to cope with
it," Sheila says. "We were scared about telling her. I haven't been so
nervous about anything."
Between 1-5% per cent of live births in industrialized countries are
conceived through assisted human reproduction. And in 80-85% of those cases,
parents decide not to tell their children, says Eric Blyth, a professor of
social work at the University of Huddersfield in Britain, who studies
families who use donor conception.
Parents worry that the information will hurt their children or their
relationship with their children, but research has found the opposite to be
true. Parents who tell report fewer problems with their children than
parents who don't tell, says Blyth, who thinks every DI child should be told
and should have full information about the donor. Telling children as early
as possible prevents the trauma of them finding out accidentally at the
worst time -- during a divorce and nasty custody battle or with the death of
the non-biological parent, Blyth says.
Irene and Peter, another infertile couple who had 3 children through DI,
began telling their children they were conceived through donor insemination
when they were still babes in arms. "We knew they didn't understand what we
were saying, but we were getting comfortable with the dialogue and using the
appropriate words," Irene says. "It just seemed natural."
There are storybooks available to make it easier for parents to tell their
DI children, Blyth says, and it's easier to tell them by at least age 3-4,
"but it's never too late." He says it's also important for DI children to
have a complete medical history and to reduce their risk of growing up and
possibly marrying a half-brother or half-sister they never knew about.
The Meadses agree. They say they knew when they went to the fertility clinic
that they'd never know the identity of their baby's sperm donor, and a deal
is a deal as far as they're concerned. But there's a third party, Allison,
who didn't agree to the deal and it's for her benefit and other children
like her that they want legislation changed.
What donors do is very special, Sheila says, and she doesn't want more
openness to stop someone from donating out of fear that they may have to
assume responsibility for the resulting children. "Allison doesn't need a
dad, she's already got a good dad," Sheila says. "She needs the other half
of the puzzle of who she is."
Allison knows she may never find her donor, but she's glad her parents told
her the truth and that they told her when they did. "I think they told me in
a good way and at a good time. Maybe I'd be a different person if they had
told me earlier," she says. "At this point, I can fully understand what this
is about. I understand the laws and why I can't know who this guy is, which
I probably wouldn't have understood if I was 8 when they told me."
The first three days she thought about it constantly; then it became an
insignificant fact, says Allison. "It hasn't changed anything. My dad was my
dad before all of this and he still is. It matters to me who the donor is,
but I don't even use the word 'dad' when I talk about him -- I say 'donor,'
or 'my biological dad,' because that's my dad," she says grinning and
looking at Garry.