If you could ask your donor anything...

CLI Moderator

If you could ask your donor anything before making that final decision, what would it be?

Or now that you have a child, what do you wish you could ask your donor?

miel

I would have liked more information about temperamental traits that are know to be heritable, such as emotional lability, activity level, introversion/extroversion, etc. It would also have been helpful to have similar information on each member of the donor's family. I would also ask the donor if there were any things his parents did with him that were especially helpful when he was growing up, or that helped shape him in a positive way. This might help parents prepare to handle any unexpected or unfamiliar personality traits in their child.

My son's temperament is so typical of my family that most of the time I feel fairly confident that I know what he needs. He fits right in with all the rest of us. When I was pregnant, though, I worried whether I might have a child with a temperament so vastly different from anyone else in my family that none of us would know how to handle him. I tried to screen donors by temperament, but I had to infer a lot and there were some that I rejected simply because there was not enough information for me to make a reasonable guess.

We all like to believe that no matter who our children turn out to be, we will love him just the same, but research shows that this is not typically the case. A good temperamental match between parent and child is crucial.

clarapippa

I would ask him what was the one thing he wished his parents would have done differently in raising him. I mean, it's harsh to judge your parents if you yourself are not a parent in a similar situation as yours were, but sometimes you just know. Being as this will be my first child, whenever I conceive and give birth, I would love insight from the man about his own upbringing.

wcrowley

I would like to know about Allergies. My family has some pretty significant allergies to foods, which can be inherited, and I would like to know which if any I should be screening for in my kids.