Whoever thought making a baby could be so hard? Luckily, the fertility journey isn’t meant to be traveled alone. Eloise Drane has helped hundreds of people build and grow their families over the last 15 years, and she’s ready to share insider knowledge and expertise with you. So grab a seat and let’s talk fertility and alternative family building in fertility cafe.
Eloise Drane
Welcome to fertility cafe. I’m your host Eloise Drane. On today’s episode, we’re going to speak with Erin Jackson. Erin is the creator of we are donor-conceived a resource center and website created in 2016 for donor-conceived people around the globe. Erin is a freelance writer and a donor-conceived rights advocate at age 35, she found out from her parents that she was conceived using donated sperm. Despite her best efforts she did try to meet her biological father, however, was not successful, as he was not interested in communicating with her. She did discover however, she had a half brother. It was all a shocking experience and inspired her to create the community and resource we are donor conceived. Erin wanted other donor-conceived people to benefit from the resources she had amassed in her own search. Donor Conceived has a Facebook group, and an Instagram channel showcasing donor-conceived children’s stories. It’s also a place where donor-conceived people can share their stories with each other and the general public to inspire greater understanding about the unique challenges donor-conceived people experience. We’re going to talk with Erin about her own experience, talk about insights from a recent donor-conceived children survey, and discuss what ethical participation in the field of third party reproduction looks like. Welcome, Erin. I am so excited to be speaking with you today.
Erin Jackson
Oh, thanks. It’s great to be here. I’m excited as well.
Eloise Drane
Awesome. So it’s, like I said, it’s exciting to have you on the podcast. And although our listeners heard me tell a little bit about you already. Would you share a bit about yourself?
Erin Jackson
Sure I’m a freelance journalist in San Diego, I moved here 10 years ago from the cold wilderness of Canada. And I am living the dream, writing about food and I organize charity events to lift up the local community through a nonprofit that I funded. And in addition to all of that I somewhat accidentally founded the largest online community for donor-conceived people when I was 36.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, and that. So that definitely brings us to so much to talk about with we are donor-conceived. But before I hop into it, I’m curious. So before your mother told you about the big news, did you have any suspicion or random hints, which made you question the validity of your offered genetic history?
Erin Jackson
I did. Yeah. There were a couple of times I asked my mom if I was adopted. I think when I asked it was more to get confirmation that I wasn’t I wouldn’t say I had a strong feeling that I was I just knew that that was a way that people created their family. And looking around the kitchen table at my family, I could see my sister directly across the table. And I was looking at her blond hair and blue eyes and thinking about how we look nothing alike. And just kind of in my mind being confused about how I got there. Basically, the math of mom plus dad equals me didn’t really add up.
Eloise Drane
Do you think had they not told you that you would have eventually figured it out or you know, have done a DNA test or found out perhaps in an even more shocking way?
Erin Jackson
I definitely would have taken a DNA test. When I took a 23andme test, it was $200. And the price just kept going down. So I know at a certain point, I would have said, Oh, let’s just do it for fun. You know, it’s kind of nerdy and cool to find out what you could find out from your spit. So there’s absolutely no way I would have gotten my whole life not figuring this out. And I’m really glad I found out the way I did. Because while it was extremely shocking, I did have the support of my mom and she told me in a loving way. And it would have been a lot more disturbing to find out from a DNA test after she died or something like that. I think that’s probably the worst-case scenario.
Eloise Drane
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, most definitely. And well, since you did the 23andme test, obviously, I’m assuming after you found out about your situation, found out that you had a half brother, which I’m sure is big news, of course, that I want to talk about. But it also reported that you are of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and I presume you didn’t identify as a Jewish person previously, so what is it like to learn about these various aspects of your genetic identity that literally all your life at that point, you had no idea?
Erin Jackson
Yeah, I definitely didn’t suspect I had Jewish ancestry. That was one of the things that I was wondering about, in the time that it took me to get my results back. And I did order a test, the minute I hung up the phone with my mother after she told me the truth. Because I realized, I am missing a lot of medical information and I don’t know where I come from. And I wanted to know, whatever I could find out from that test. So I remember working out at the gym in front of a big mirror and just staring at my face and thinking, what am I? Where does my face come from? As someone who grew up in a really multicultural city in Toronto, I would have people ask me are you Greek? Are you Italian? Are you Portuguese? Like every ethnicity, really, and it kind of became this funny game. And I would report back to my mom, and she would always have a weird look on her face, but she was amused by it too.
So when the Jewish results came back, that actually had a lot of meaning for me, because I grew up in a community that is predominantly Jewish, the friends I went to high school with are almost all Jewish. So I had a lot of familiarity with a culture. And I was surrounded by Jewish food and synagogues and stuff. So I did have a direct connection to that revelation but it has been something that I struggled to integrate into my identity. Because I feel like I can’t fully claim that because of the nature of my conception because people, it’s difficult to claim this person who doesn’t want anything to do with me as my biological father and therefore difficult to claim the Jewish identity along with it. So my response has basically been to bake a lot of Jewish bread and eat them and eat my feelings.
Eloise Drane
I love that, and I love bread. So I totally, I totally get where you come in from like, that’s my soft spot is bread and butter. Anyway, okay digressed. So, in I’m curious, you know, going through and finding this out, obviously, it was clearly a shock and I’m sure you probably went through every emotion that there is, but what was your experience like after you found out in what you really had to kind of walkthrough, then to even get you to the creation of we are donor-conceived?
Erin Jackson
Well, when I first found out, it was a shock, but it also made perfect sense at the same time, which is kind of a weird feeling to experience. I was excited, it was like a big mystery. It was an amazing plot twist. And as someone who is a reader and a writer, I really appreciated that that happened in my own life. I mean, talk about an exciting turn of events. So, when I took the DNA test, and I discovered a half-brother, that really changed the whole trajectory of my experience. And for a long time, it became about me and him. And the instant and powerful love I had for him, which was immediate, and really took me off guard. The fact that I could look at a photo of someone who was a stranger to me the day before, and feel an intense connection to him that was like an intense platonic love was something I didn’t even know was possible.
And that define my experience being donor-conceived for a long time it was the two of us, we were figuring things out. In the background, my husband was piecing together my DNA results and trying to get to the identity of the donor. And at that time, I was not mentally prepared to deal with that on my own. I felt like my brain was a pile of sand. And it was the first six months was basically a blur at where I felt four or five different feelings at the same time. I was bursting into tears, randomly, tears of joy, mostly just sitting on the couch with tears rolling down my face thinking about how amazing life is, that was the beginning. And we are donor-conceived, what started at all is going online, and listening to other people’s stories, and realizing I’m one of many people who’s having this experience, even though it feels so unique and personal. It’s actually somewhat universal among people who are created this way. And I thought it was important that people know what donor-conceived people go through and what our reality is like. Because it’s a lot more complicated than the story the art industry tells. And that’s what led me to create, we are donor-conceived.
Eloise Drane
I’m curious what your initial intention was in creating the platform. And if it has shifted at all from when you first started to now.
Erin Jackson
Right, so my initial idea for the website was to have it be a resource center. So the next person who got this shocking news and is Googling, I’m a sperm donor baby or something could find all of the information that I found when I did that exact same thing. So there’s a resource page that is full of links to documentaries, newspaper articles, and research studies, etc, etc. That was the original purpose, then I decided I should really be telling the stories of donor-conceived people. So I have a handful of personal narratives on there. And I decided I should create a Facebook group to share this content. So people could find it in another way other than just randomly googling. And my original intention for that Facebook group was purely to create and disseminate the web content. And it ended up turning into this multinational multi-generational support group for donor-conceived people all over the world. And I kind of just let that happen, because that’s what people needed. And so that’s what it became.
Eloise Drane
What do you think your primary goal as an advocate for donor-conceived persons is?
Erin Jackson
I want parents, donors, and people working in the art interest industry to center the needs of donor-conceived people, and really create practices that put our best interests first.
Eloise Drane
Yeah. Yeah, that I definitely agree with, and we’re going to touch on that in a second. But first, I wanted to talk about a survey that you created, which was designed to provide a greater understanding of the feelings, perspectives, and experiences of people conceived via donated gametes or sperm. And the survey attracted responses from people born in 15 different countries, including Australia, South Africa, Belgium, Norway, UK, and then the majority of respondents from the US and Canada. Did anything surprise you about the results you received?
Erin Jackson
Oh, yeah. I mean, I’ve been doing the survey since 2016 annually, and each year, the amount of people who respond has grown. And some of the new questions I added to the survey this year really relate to anonymity and the effects that has on donor-conceived people. And one of the things I asked this past survey was whether people believe that anonymous donation agreements have harmed them personally. And 70% of people said yes, and that it didn’t surprise me given listening to people talking in the Facebook group. But I really think that should be underlined in red. I mean, if you want proof that things need to change, there it is right there. The majority of donor-conceived people believe that anonymous donor agreements should be abolished because they are essentially a human rights violation. We believe we have the right just like anyone else to know our genetic identity. And that includes knowing the identity of our biological parents and all of our siblings.
Eloise Drane
And according to your survey of those raised by heterosexual parents, only 11% learned about their origin as a child. What do you think about that, especially, were for the longest time it really was predominantly the heterosexual parents, that we’re utilizing either sperm donor or egg donors?
Erin Jackson
Yeah, it goes to show you that a lot of people thought it was optional to disclose and that it was their choice, and they could make that choice for their family. And I think that’s crazy. Knowing what I know now knowing how important it is to know the truth for myself, I cannot believe that anyone would convince themselves that this is a secret they can keep because it means lying to your child for their entire life. You can’t not tell without lying. And that has been the hardest thing to deal with for me personally. I feel, I felt betrayed by my mother and I love her more than anyone in the world. That was the hardest part of my donor-conceived journey for lack of a better term. So that has to change. And the data also shows that since the 90s, the rates of being open with children who are conceived this way have improved. But I still think the majority of donor-conceived people don’t know. And we welcome new people into the Facebook group every day who have found out the truth from DNA testing, and they are all interested in learning more. It’s not a small fact about who they are. It’s a big life-changing deal.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, so I’ve shared this with you previously. So I’ve been an egg donor six times. And this past October of 2020. I spoke to, or excuse me, rather one of my intended parents shared with their daughter, that she was donor-conceived. And then in November, they reached out to me because it was a known donation. And so we kept in contact. She reached out to me, she, the intended mother, and was like, we’ve told her, and she wants to speak to you. And she told me to when we ended up speaking that her thing was, I always knew something was different. I just couldn’t really pinpoint what it was. And I just felt that there was something missing. And I saw that my mom and I were very different. I just didn’t know, and she’s still an adolescent so in her mind, I didn’t know how to put all these pieces together, but I sent something. What was your experience?
Erin Jackson
I felt like growing up that I was an alien unicorn from outer space. And no one in my family was like me, and I was fine with that. I was very secure in my weirdness and my uniqueness. I went through life just thinking, Okay, well, I’m one of a kind. And that’s okay. Because I like being me, I definitely felt there was something different about me. And finding out the truth was extremely validating because it told me, I was right all along that little voice in my head that was just felt like something was off in a way I couldn’t put into words was correct. And that’s been one of the best parts of the experience just validating my own intuition. And trusting that.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, what would you say to the parents that are making these decisions and moving forward with working with a donor, whether sperm or egg or even embryo donation, but are afraid to tell their children or don’t even know when to start? And how to start? What are your thoughts there?
Erin Jackson
I think that this industry has a long history of fear and shame built into it. And that has led to really bad outcomes for donor-conceived people. And any parent who’s considering using a donor should probably seek therapy to address those concerns that you mentioned before they make a decision. Because if you’re making a decision that’s based on fear or anxiety or insecurity, it’s probably not going to be in the best interest of the human being you create. And if you listen to the voices of donor-conceived people, you will hear very loudly that we support donation and requirements that are open from birth, open at 18 really translates into 18 years of anonymity, and that is a lifetime and in the context of a donor-conceived person, so I would say, Yeah, address your fears, and go about creating a person in a way that centers their needs and their experience first.
Eloise Drane
And going back to the industry professionals, so on your Twitter account, tweeted back in 2019, during an ASRM conference, and you wrote, hey, ASRM 2019 attendees, here are a few things to consider from a donor-conceived person. Disclosure is not optional. Anonymity is dead. And that’s a good thing. Donors matter, siblings matter, and no one need 100 of them. donor-conceived people are people. So tell me about this tweet, because again, the industry does have significant responsibility and impact on these decisions that are made.
Erin Jackson
Right. Thank you for quoting that. That was one of my favorite tweets of all time really. There is a sense among donor-conceived people that the industry, but people in the industry are responsible for acting ethically. And that’s actually a question that was on the latest survey. And I think something like 92% of people agreed with it. So I hope industry people who are listening know that we think this is your job, you have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the human beings that you create. And that includes everything that I mentioned, in that tweet. We need to have the right to know our genetic identity if we choose from day one. And we really need to know who our siblings are, and to not have really more than 10 of them. And that’s because we want to form a lot of us want to form relationships with our siblings, or at least know who they are so we don’t form relationships with them if you know what I mean.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, in April of last year, during National Siblings Day, you had said, quote, National Siblings Day has me thinking of all the donor-conceived siblings, I have yet to meet with the biological father we share. Big feelings on a rainy day glad the house are full of treats end quote. What does it feel like to suspect that you have siblings out there who you do not yet know, and maybe never will know?
Erin Jackson
I’m on the positive side, it’s kind of exciting knowing that someone might enter my life at any moment. That’s also really difficult to wrap my head around because it really is like, I could check my 23andme results as soon as we finish this interview, there could be a new person there. And every time a new person shows up, I go through the whole same cycle of emotions every time. You know, you’re afraid because you think, Oh crap, am I throwing a grenade into this person’s life? Like, do they know their donor-conceived? How are they going to take it? How are they going to feel about me doing that, and what comes next? There are just so many unknowns.
And, I think about it too much, I can go to a dark place. And it really feels dehumanizing. Because all of this was done on purpose to me, without any thought of my emotional needs and all my sibling’s emotional needs. We really should have known each other from day one from the moment we’re born. And the complicated part about meeting new siblings, and this has happened every time. As much as there’s excitement, there’s also grief, because you’re aware of all the time you’ve lost. And, I’m 40, I’ve had a lot of time lost, we’ve missed out on so much in each other’s lives. And so a lot of it is just trying to make up for lost time. And knowing we never will.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, yeah. And you said anonymity is dead and that is a good thing. Would you share for people who may not know what that means? What it actually means or what did you mean by it?
Erin Jackson
Yeah, what I mean by that is commercial DNA tests have changed the game. Those agreements that people sign when they’re donating eggs, or when they’re buying eggs are fairly inconsequential if it says it’s anonymous. My husband was able to determine the name of my biological father through a second cousin once removed, match on 23andme. I think in the survey, I have some data about this if you would just bear with me. So in the survey, there’s a section called the widespread impact of DNA testing. And I wrote DNA testing has effectively ended any promise of donor anonymity. Among survey respondents, 78% said they have successfully identified their donor through DNA testing, sometimes with the aid of genetic genealogy and or search assistance, and 9% learn the donor’s identity from a sibling. So as more people do these DNA tests, it’ll be even easier for people to connect the dots. Some people have taken a DNA test and been immediately matched with the donor, they’re right there already, so they don’t even have to look. So that’s what I mean when anonymity when I say anonymity is dead. You cannot be anonymous from your biological children in the age of commercial DNA testing. And I think that’s a good thing because nobody should be. I think everyone has a moral responsibility to make themselves known to the human beings that they bring to existence.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, because you shared the statistic that 70 to 90% of donor-conceived people alive today are not aware of their biology.
Erin Jackson
I don’t know, I don’t know about that statistic. Did I say that? It’s so hard to say how many people don’t know because you can’t pull, you can’t pull people and ask them if they know something that they’ve never been told. But from all the research I’ve seen, and a lot of it’s based on guesses, over 50%, which is pretty significant.
Eloise Drane
Yes, yes, definitely. And I know, you published on your Instagram channel recently, where you shared a graphic with the words, you can’t be a sperm donor without also being a biological father. And that so gave me pause. That definitely gave me pause. And really, make you stop in your track and think about it. Do you feel that one of the business and medical institutions have purposely attempted to create this disconnect, perhaps to minimize the cognitive weight of their donations?
Erin Jackson
Absolutely, I think the terminology the industry uses is intended to make their customers feel more comfortable. And saying things like biological father definitely freaks out a lot of intended parents. Although it doesn’t have the same effect on donor-conceived people. One of the things I asked in my survey was What word do you use to describe this person? And then the majority of people said, biological father, or biological parent. People do also use the word donor, most people use more than one term. But to me, I mean, one of the things I did when I first discovered I was donor-conceived was literally look up father in the dictionary, because I’m like, what is the dictionary definition of father, and there’s, there’s two, one is a male parent. And the second one is a man who has begotten a child. So one definition relates to the social role, and one relates to the biological role. So for donor-conceived people, we usually use a biological father to differentiate the donor from the man who raised us if we were raised by a father. And that to me, that’s, that’s a medical term. It’s accurate. And as I like to say, I don’t call him my sperm donor, because he never gave me sperm, nor do I want any.
Eloise Drane
Sorry, I love that. Well, but it’s true, like, wow, that is so true. Yeah. That is so true. So as of right now, ASRM, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine does not currently require the disclosure of donor conception. They encourage it, but they conclude that it’s a personal choice each patient must make for themselves. How do you feel about this guidance? I mean, like, are you appealing to ASRM for the more strongly worded standard of disclosure for donor-conceived children? I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
Erin Jackson
I think that is terrible advice. And we’ll probably set up a lot of people to experience trauma. People come into our group, and they’re adults, and they are just finding this out about themselves. And there’s a lot of feelings of betrayal for not being told. And there are people who seek therapy as adults to deal with this fact. And if you are told young, the likelihood that it will be experienced as trauma is dramatically reduced. So the very best thing that parents of donor-conceived children can do is tell them when they are actually children before the age of three, so they can integrate it into their identity. It becomes just what they’ve always known.
And there’s no big reveal later in their life. It’s really like adoption. We understand now that you don’t wait until someone’s 18 to tell them they’re adopted because it kind of uproots their entire sense of self and can be really difficult to adjust to. So I don’t understand why the ASRM is saying that I feel like it’s kind of a cover your button message that allows them to tell their patients that they have an option of disclosing, but every donor-conceived person will tell you this is important to me, this is something I need to know about myself. And telling a child early allows them to decide what it means to them because that’s ultimately how that narrative is formed. You have to give a person the option to interpret their own identity and integrate this information and go forward through their life.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And with you being a writer, you also published a wonderful magazine called we are donor-conceived and I encourage our listeners to check it out. You did an amazing job. And you actually have a full-page spread on finding a therapist and talking about mental health support for those working through this. And I kind of wanted to point out mental health support doesn’t need to wait until you’re an adult, and then get mental health support. What do you think about, especially with parents who are hesitant about telling their children from maybe from when they’re young, up until they’re adults when they finally feel like, okay, I need to disclose it, about seeking mental health support?
Erin Jackson
I think that maybe if they tell their children young, they could see mental health support together as a family and have it be sort of family therapy. I think that would have been helpful in my case if I had the support of my parents to seek counseling and to actually participate in it as well. Because a lot of the times parents are afraid to tell they have their own issues that they might benefit from speaking to someone about, and doing it as a family when a child is young makes total sense to me.
Eloise Drane
And going back to, you know, the companies who profit from the sale quite honestly of reproductive material, and respect to the physical, mental and emotional needs of the people they helped create, what would that recognition and respect look like specifically, from your perspective?
Erin Jackson
Well, I think it starts with abolishing anonymous donor agreements and setting a limit on how many offspring each donor can produce. And along with abolishing anonymity, there needs to be an information sharing from day one. donor-conceived people need to know who their biological parent is and who their siblings are and where they live so that they can form the relationships that would best suit them. I don’t know if that’s a good enough answer. It’s hard for me, it’s hard for me to say I mean, there’s so much that needs to change.
Eloise Drane
Yes, it really is. I do agree. And like say, with me, being a donor six times, my very first donation was anonymous, but my other subsequent donations were all open. And to this day, I actually still have relationships with those other families. And I definitely feel the importance of having that openness. Especially again, I just had it happen this past year with, you know, this donor baby that I always knew about, that my children also knew about is just that, she wasn’t aware of who I was. What would you say to someone who’s considering becoming an egg or sperm donor?
Erin Jackson
I would urge them to think about the needs of the person that they’re creating, not just the intended parents that they’re helping. I think a lot of people have trouble thinking about this tiny little bit of biological material becoming a human being with their own questions and needs. But if you’re an egg donor or a sperm donor, you are essentially allowing someone else to raise your biological child in their family. And that child will be as genetically connected to you as the children you might have in a romantic partnership. And that means that those children will want to know the children from your other donations, they will probably want to know you, and they might want to know the children you raise. The thought that the industry treats them like commodities upset me as much as the fact that we’re treated that way. So I really advocating for donors matter, donor siblings matter. Like I said, in that tweet, it’s all-important. And yeah, donors need to know exactly what they’re doing before they donate.
Eloise Drane
Yes, yes, definitely. Before they donate, it needs to be and this is another area where the professionals in the industry need to do a better job and really informing them and providing them with information, as well as removing just signing going into a fertility clinic doing a frozen egg cycle or frozen sperm cycle and leaving your tissue signing consent forms, and then that’s it. You’ll never know anything else. And nor do they even give them information half the time.
Erin Jackson
Right. Yeah, you just never know. And I think that’s part of the problem, because then for donors, the idea of a donor-conceived child is hypothetical. And you can sort of forget about it because you’ll never know. So it’s hard to you know, it’s hard to form an attachment to a person that might not even exist. But for a donor-conceived person, we know that person exists. That’s a fact. We look at our faces, and we see features we don’t recognize. And it’s very real for us.
Eloise Drane
Yeah, yeah, definitely. What do you think about nature versus nurture? And that argument there, I guess, depending on each person’s perspective,
Erin Jackson
I think it’s been presented as an argument. But it’s, it’s always been both. You know, the parents who raised you to have a huge influence. But the DNA that scrambled together before you’re born determines so much about who you are. I mean, the way I like to say it is one way or another, my parents, we’re going to have a second child, but without this specific donor, it wouldn’t be me. And actually, without that one individual sperm and hitting a specific egg, I wouldn’t exist. So so much of who we are is this like an accident of science. I mean, I inherited a lot from my biological father, even though he had no impact on my upbringing. He didn’t raise me, didn’t know I existed, but yet I inherited certain abilities from him. I think I got part of my intellect from him, my height, the way my face looks, my Jewish features. I mean, it’s hard to say that the DNA doesn’t matter because of course, it does it, it determines who we are.
Eloise Drane
Do you think the familiar physical similarity, one, that it matters, but that it should also matter?
Erin Jackson
Um, I don’t know how to answer that question. Just, I mean, it’s powerful. Like when I saw a photo of my half-brother from the same biological father, I looked at his face, and I said, that’s me as a boy. That’s me wearing a hat, that is my face on your face. And it was undeniable, the attraction that I felt to him because I recognize him as part of me. And the same thing happened with every subsequent half-sibling, I’ve seen their faces look like home. They look like family. And it doesn’t make logical sense that I feel so connected to them but it makes emotional sense and that’s good enough for me.
Eloise Drane
And I know you’ve said it before, so you feel that knowing your true genetic history is really a fundamental human right.
Erin Jackson
Absolutely.
Eloise Drane
Well, what advice would you give to parents, the professionals, the donors themselves? Like what do donor-conceived people really want everybody else out there to know?
Erin Jackson
I think anyone who’s interested in learning more about what donor-conceived people want them to know should check out the 2020 We are donor-conceived survey report. I actually asked those questions specifically so I have little reports on what donors need to know, what parents need to know, and what art industry professionals need to know. And these are quotes from donor-conceived people all over the worlds ranging in age from 13 to 70. So you can get a huge wealth of information just by reading that report and all of the attachments that go along with it. And I would encourage them to buy a copy of the magazine that I created. I mean, it really does a good job of telling the stories of donor-conceived people in their own words. And I think it could be eye opening and possibly mind-blowing for a lot of people who haven’t thought about what it’s like to be donor-conceived. I can tell you from my own perspective, I thought this was something I would get over in a couple of months, like a breakup. But it totally changed my whole life and my identity forever.
Eloise Drane
Well, to learn more about we are donor-conceived, visit the website at we are donor-conceived.com and you can also find the information in our show notes. Erin, thank you so much for talking with me today. And very informative talk because like I said, when I first became a donor that I didn’t think long term, and what that person who is eventually going to become a human being is going to want to know, need to know, and have a right to know.
Erin Jackson
Thanks for having me.
Eloise Drane
Yes, absolutely. Well, there you have it. I hope you found this discussion helpful as you weigh your next steps. You can follow Fertility Café on its new Instagram and Facebook at
Family Inceptions. If you haven’t yet, go to your listening platform of choice and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. We’d also love you to share Fertility Café with friends and family members who would benefit from the information shared. Join us next week for another conversation on modern family building. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time, remember, love has no limits, neither should parenthood.
Outro
Thank you for joining us in the fertility cafe. Whether you’re an intended parent, a woman considering egg donation, thinking of becoming a surrogate yourself, or a friend or family member of someone dealing with infertility, we’re here to help. Visit our website the fertilitycafe.com for resources on fertility, alternative family building, and making this journey your own.
Listen to this episode here.
