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Oocyte Donation Disclosure Decisions: A Longitudinal Follow-Up at Middle Childhood

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posted on 2019-05-03, 00:00 authored by Patricia E. Hershberger, Martha Driessnack, Karen Kavanaugh, Susan C. Klock
Few studies have captured oocyte donation (OD) parents’ decision processes about intended and actual disclosure over time. Likewise, OD children’s perceptions about their family composition during middle childhood is underexplored. To address these gaps, a longitudinally followed cohort of OD recipient families was invited to participate in a qualitative, follow-up study. With an 86% response rate after 12 years, families were comprised of oocyte recipient mothers (n = 6) and biological fathers (n = 6) representing 12 donor-oocyte conceived children (M = 10.33 years). Of the 12 children, two that were aware and two that were unaware of their conceptual origins completed conversational interviews. Only one family in the initial cohort disclosed OD to their children by the 12-year follow-up, despite 43% of parents intending to disclose and another 43% undecided about disclosure during pregnancy. Four parental disclosure patterns emerged at 12 years: Wanting to Disclose, Conflicted about Disclosure, Not Planning to Disclose, and Having Disclosed. Children that were unaware of their conceptual origins displayed no knowledge of their method of conception. There is a need for family-centric interventions to assist Wanting to Disclose parents in their disclosure process and Conflicted about Disclosure parents in their decision-making process post-OD treatment.

Funding

Support for the study was provided by a grant from the International Society of Nurses in Genetics.

History

Publisher Statement

Post print version of article may differ from published version. This is an electronic version of an article published in Hershberger, P. E., Driessnack, M., Kavanaugh, K., & Klock, S. C. (2019). Oocyte donation disclosure decisions: a longitudinal follow-up at middle childhood *. Human Fertility is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ DOI:10.1080/14647273.2019.1567945.

Citation

Hershberger, P. E., Driessnack, M., Kavanaugh, K., & Klock, S. C. (2019). Oocyte donation disclosure decisions: a longitudinal follow-up at middle childhood *. Human Fertility. doi:10.1080/14647273.2019.1567945

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Language

  • en_US

issn

1464-7273

Issue date

2019-02-01

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