I had twins at 44 from DE/DS (single mom by choice). While it was a little weird at first to play matchmaker inside my uterus with gametes from two people I’ve never met, my twins are the light of my life and I don’t have one single regret. (Oddly enough, people have said one of the twins resembles me).

A few things that helped reframe my thinking around donor eggs:

- We have 99.9% of our genes in common with other humans, 80% in common with cows, and 60% in common with bananas. Any donor egg is going to be mostly genetically indistinguishable from yours.

- That last 0.1% is what you might consider “your” genetics - your hair, eye color, etc. But is it really yours, and for how long? As your kids marry and have kids of their own who marry, that small percentage will get recombined and overwritten until what was “yours” barely exists anymore. Parents and children only have 50% of their genes in common, grandchildren 25%, great-grandchildren 12%, and so on. Genes get diluted over time with each new generation of descendants.

- Going back up the family tree, we’re all related if you go back far enough. Chances are good the donor will have some very distant genetic link to you.

- If you gestate the baby, it will be biologically yours. Every cell in their body, every nutrient, every building block, will come from you. Flesh of your flesh, etc. You might not be the architect, but you’ll be the builder.

- I did struggle a bit with the ancestry piece. My mom’s side of the family has a lot of family lore and history going back many generations, and it made me sad to think my kids wouldn’t share that link. But I think of family history as the soil that nurtures the tree. Sure, the seed may have blown in from some distant location, but the soil and the water and the microclimate of your family will shape the tree as it grows.

- Altruism may or may not have a genetic component, but it’s a wonderful thing to pass on. I don’t know if it’s because my kids are double donor offspring, but they are both kind and considerate. They like knowing that their origins began with a gift.

- The high success rate. After several failed IUIs and IVF cycles and many, many tears, it was an amazing feeling to finally have strong, healthy embryos to choose from, and to have the IVF actually work. If someone came up to me now and offered me the chance to trade my DE twins for genetically related babies from my own aged, crappy eggs, I’d say HECK NO.

- They will be yours, in all the ways that are important. Parenthood isn’t encoded in DNA.

OP I did both DE and age 44+ The DE part was perfect. Bright healthy children, now adults. They both look a lot like my DH and ironically the donor looked like his sister. Random choice by the doctor. So there were no awkward questions.
But kids at 44, 45? I love my kids more than the world but ...
lonely being older when the other moms are young. It’s really hard to save for retirement and pay for college at the same time. And care for your elderly parents. We were healthy but 55+ is a time when a lot of people have health problems and that happened. Kids lost their father painfully young. So you never know.

I have three kids and had my third at 42. My first has special needs, and so we waited to have her. She is amazing at 2, so bright and alive and smart. She has spoken in sentences since she was 16 months. She is nonstop joy. I am doing fine and look the same as I did prior because we have ample resources and a nice life. Which we like to share with our kids. Also, I say this every time it comes up. Not all children with special needs ruin families. They have an impact, sure, on finances and time. But they are people with worthy lives. My child with special needs is a joy, his progress has been hard fought and is so special because of it.
His life is worthy. We are happy. Just responding to some of the bias I continually see here.

I had a DE child at 45, our only. He brought a lot of joy. Around 2 yo we discovered that he has special needs (ASD) and my life and finances are changed forever trying to ensure he gets therapies and specialists he needs. When you do DE and when you're over 40, there is a non-zero chance of special needs, you have to be aware of that risk.

BBT wrote:I am looking to hear experiences as I know no one who has used a donor egg and we have very few parents in our friend group. After the child is born, how often do you think about not sharing a genetic link?

If you were in your 40s when you had a child, are you glad you did it? We do not have children and I am 43. I worry about not having the energy to be a parent and worry about being in my 60s when the child graduates from high school.

I thought I would feel different but from the moment I was pregnant, in my heart they were my kids. I nurtured them in my body. When people say they don't have my features I should have felt bad, but nope. I just say they look like someone else in the family and it doesn't phase me one bit. I don't think about genetic link. My kids have known they are not biologically related to me. I used an anonymous donor. I have asked them to take a test when they are older to see if they have the same biological mom, for medical reasons.

About being tired, yes that is definitely a concern (had mine at 42). I wish I had gone that route earlier.

But in the end, zero regrets. Cannot imagine life without my kids.

I had my DE baby at 46. We did try to zero in on a donor that was ethnically similar to me, but she's basically a carbon copy of her dad, go figure. She's also in daycare with another IVF/donor gamete baby whose mom is my age, but doing it as a single mom.

Anyway, blissfully happy with my decision. I'm actually in a much better place health-wise and financially than I was a decade ago. Spouse is about a decade younger than me, but I think running after the little one is keeping us both young.

I do sometimes feel sad about potentially missing out on getting to know my middle-aged daughter, but no day is promised to us. I enjoy who and where we are today. No regrets, and no worries about not being genetically related. I'm actually adopted myself, so I probably didn't need as much time to process that than some people might need.

My moms older cousin had two kids young. She watched then both die as old men. She lived to 104.

I had my second at 43 via donor. She’s amazing. I don’t really think about genetics aside from having to tell her one day.

So many times I hear that she looks so much like me.

I had my little one via DE at 46. I do think about the genetics sometimes, but really only in a positive way. I am introverted and my little one is so sunny and outgoing and loves everyone, and it's so much fun to find out the person they will become without feeling any constraints of a genetic history. I feel free to love and "discover" their personality with no attachment.

I used DE at 44 and it was the best decision of my life.
No regrets at all.

BBT wrote:I am looking to hear experiences as I know no one who has used a donor egg and we have very few parents in our friend group. After the child is born, how often do you think about not sharing a genetic link?

If you were in your 40s when you had a child, are you glad you did it? We do not have children and I am 43. I worry about not having the energy to be a parent and worry about being in my 60s when the child graduates from high school.

I've had my last child at 45. Yes. It is very late.

However, it seems that you do not have children yet. If I wanted to have a child, and the choice was between a child at 45 or staying childless, I would have a child.

No mom of a donor egg baby has ever said that she regrets her decision!

I am a child of older parents. My mom had me when she was 40 and my dad was 47. As I child I never thought of them as any older than my friend's parents - they were just "parent age".

I, in turn, had my first child at 41 via IVF and my second at 44 via DE. I pretty much never think about the second child not sharing my genetics. The only time it comes up is when I fill in family medical history (the donor had a better medical family history than my own!)

I remember the decision to use DE feeling overwhelming at the time, but it was the best decision we made. You'll look back on that decision and wonder why you agonized so much about it. Once you bring a child into the world, the individual child is all that matters, and you get to be blessed by being part of their life and watching them grow.

42 when my donor egg baby was born. I am 48 with a 6 year old now. I joke that she keeps me young but it’s true. The early years were hard but they would have been hard at 32. We have more money and experience and I think that helps.

I do think about the donor, not going to lie. I once saw a child that was literally the twin of mine out and about (with their dad) and I was convinced it was the donors as she had children. We are starting to have the conversations with our child about her origins and it causes me some anxiety. It is going ok though. I worry that she will be an angry teen and reject me (hell I did that to my own mom and she was my genetic mother). I do worry.

My child shares my hair and eye color and is tall for her age (I am tall). Our features are different and she’s got elements of my husband. People see the height and hair and say she resembles me all the time.

I have no regrets at all. I love my child with all my heart. But the donor thing does cause me some anxiety as she gets older to be completely honest.