Should We Tell Our 5-Year-Old That the New Baby was Donor Conceived? - Weekend Wisdom

Question: Do you have any suggestions for articles or posts on telling a sibling that their new baby sibling is third-party conceived (e.g. donor egg)? We haven't told our 5-year-old son that we are pregnant yet, and I'm wondering if it is appropriate to tell him we used donor eggs at the same time we drop the big news that he will be a big brother. He will already have questions about conception. Too much info all at once? 

• Suggested Books on Adoption
  • Books for Children Conceived Through Embryo Donation
• More information on Embryo Donation/Embryo Adoption

Transcript

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Welcome to Weekend Wisdom by Creating a Family. Creating a Family is the national
support and training nonprofit for foster, adoptive, and kinship families. And Week in
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way to me. Just you just put question there, it will probably find its way there.
And we will enter your question on the next weekend wisdom. Today's question is as
follows. Do you have any suggestions for articles or posts on telling a sibling that
their new baby sibling is a third party conceived, meaning that they are conceived
through egg donation. We haven't told our five -year -old son that we are pregnant
yet, and I was wondering if it is appropriate to tell him that we use donor egg.
At the same time, we drop the big news that he will be a big brother. He will
already have questions about conception. Is this too much information all at once?
Should we just tell him in stages, or should we tell them within immediately? First
of all, I love that you are open to sharing this information with your son 'cause
it reflects your belief that all ways of creating families are to be celebrated and
that there is no one way of conceiving is better than another. And you're also
setting your family up for being a family without secrets. So go you. The message
you want to send to your son now is that families are made in different ways and
that all ways are good. And this would include not just families conceived through
third -party reproduction, but also families formed by adoptions. Families made up of
parents of different races. Families where a child or a parent has a disability or
families with just a mom or just a dad or two moms or two dads or families where
the grandmom is raising the kids. What you're introducing to your son at this age
is that a family is family. At your son's age, I wouldn't go too much deeper than
that. Your goal is to be laying the groundwork at this age to gradually add more
information as he and his new sibling ages. My favorite way to start and continue
these conversations is with children's books. I am a huge believer in the power of
children's literature and I think it's good for kids and it Also, it's good for
parents because it helps us get over our awkwardness, and anytime we're talking about
difficult subjects, and that's not difficult, but just subjects that deal with
sexuality, certainly, it helps to have a book guiding our way. Now, Creating a
Family has a list of books that focus on different types of families, and you can
find those at creatingafamily .org /adoption books or you could just go to
creatingafamily .org, hover over the word adoption, and click on the Suggested Book
tab there. I would include some specific books that have a discussion that sometimes
momies and daddies need help in getting pregnant. I would absolutely include that
now. I don't think that we have books that are specific to that at this, but you
could easily find those. You just Google them and you will find some books or your
library may well have them. At this age, those type of books will really most often
just leave it at the point of mommy and daddy needing help from a doctor. And
that's probably fine for now, but relatively soon, certainly within the next year, I
would introduce some books that include the concept of donor conception and choose a
couple of different ones because they each approach it slightly differently. I hope
this has helped and congratulations on your new pregnancy.