A number of questions might arise after fertility treatment using egg donation.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions:

Are egg donation pregnancies riskier than conventional pregnancies?

Statistics show that the risk of gestational hypertension is greater in pregnancies involving egg donation. The risk of pre-eclampsia, a condition characterised by high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine, rises from 2.8% to 11.2% for pregnancies involving egg donation. These risks increase with the age of the woman.

The risk of premature delivery also increases with age.

You should always tell your doctor or gynaecologist if your pregnancy is the result of an egg donation.

Am I more likely to have twins if I have an egg donation procedure?

Egg donation treatments could result in multiple births, although the current trend is for only one embryo to be implanted, as current monitoring methods make it possible to select a high-quality embryo (i.e. one that is likely to result in a birth) from among all the fertilised embryos.

Will I feel like I'm carrying another woman's baby?

Rest assured, according to our own experience and the one of members of the association, as soon as the pregnancy is known, this idea disappears for almost all women. They carry ‘their’ baby, are proud to be pregnant and even end up forgetting how they conceived.

Will I consider myself to be this child's real mother?

Being pregnant, giving birth, breastfeeding, caring for, educating and giving love are all things that will make you feel like the child's real mother, and to which the donor is and will remain totally and definitively a stranger. Unlike adoption, the child has had no other parents, and no other history.

Pregnant by egg donation, you have strange fantasies and fears about the baby to come: what will she/he be like, what will she/he look like? What if there was a mistake during implantation?

Here again, rest reassured, this fear of the unknown is normal and will gradually disappear as the pregnancy progresses and, above all, with the birth of a healthy child who will be ‘your’ child. To reassure yourself, ask the establishment that carried out the donation to give you all the information about the donor that the law allows. Errors concerning the implantation of embryos are of course impossible in any serious medical establishment.

My child will have nothing of me or my family? 

First of all, it will have your partner's genes (don't forget that it takes two people to make a baby), but above all, although it will not have its mother's genes, recent research into epigenetics shows that a certain number of things ‘pass’ between the embryo and the woman who carries it during pregnancy. This is a very important point for parents (and children) born from donation.

Do we experience the same joy in becoming parents through egg donation as through natural conception?

Ask anyone who has had to endure the scourge of infertility and the obstacle course that is IVF! Chances are that your joy at becoming parents will increase tenfold and you'll want to tell the whole world about your pregnancy. In some cases, it may take a little time to form a deep bond with a newborn child, but this is not specific to children born through donation.

Do parents feel strange about their child born from donation?

There will always be an element of unknown, of foreignness, in the conception of their child, but parents must welcome this element of the unknown and not feed it with fantasies, at the risk of destabilising the child if it becomes aware of it.

Should we tell our child the genetic origin of his or her conception?

This is obviously an important, highly personal and sometimes sensitive issue for some parents. In some cases, cultural or religious reasons forbid talking about conception by donation, which would be assimilated to a kind of adultery or reveal male or female infertility, which is still shameful or taboo.

In most other cases, experience shows that truth is the best attitude. Silence, or worse, lies, runs the risk of altering the relationship of trust with the parents if the child happens to find out one way or another. And it's even worse if they find out when they're teenagers, a fragile period when they can say hurtful things to their parents out of provocation, even if they don't mean it, such as ‘you're not my real mother’. Unconsciously, people born of gifts feel something indefinable, a kind of mystery about them if they have not been told anything. So-called family secrets always come out in the end!

At what age should we tell our child?

The earlier the better, as soon as your child is old enough to understand. Of course, the information should be adapted to their age and added to as they grow. Explanations need to be simple and clear, so that children don't see themselves as special or different. Of course, there is no need to explain in detail all the difficulties of the IVF process that led to the child's birth. This type of information is of no interest to him. There are some very good books available to explain egg donation to your child.

Should I tell my family or friends?

As with having a child, apart from any cultural or religious restrictions on telling them, the truth is always better, especially as there is nothing shameful about using an egg donation to create a family and therefore happiness.

Your friends will be happy to know that you are pregnant in any way, as they generally know that you have wanted this for a long time.

What if my child wants to find their donor one day?

If your child wants to find their donor one day, do not take this as a rejection of your role as parents, it is simply a question of curiosity about their identity. This request will probably never arise if you have had a clear, honest and open attitude towards their genetic origins from the time they were old enough to understand.

The ability for children to access their donor information depends on the laws of the country you visited for egg and/or sperm donation.

In the Czech Republic, it will be impossible for your child to find the donor one day because of the donor anonymity required by law.

In Portugal, children born from donation will have access to their origin at the age of 18.