Abstract
The number of families being created through fertility treatment with donor eggs is increasing yearly. Women who conceive in this way share a gestational but not genetic relationship with their child, yet there is limited understanding of how mothers experience the mother–child relationship during its formative period, infancy. This study explored heterosexual mothers’ thoughts and feelings about the mother–infant relationship in families created through egg donation. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 85 women who had conceived following egg donation treatment at U.K. fertility clinics. Mothers had at least 1 infant (6–18 months) and were living with the child’s father. Interview data were analyzed according to the principles of thematic analysis. The results showed that egg donation mothers used a range of strategies across the transition to parenthood that enabled them to establish their identity as the child’s mother and facilitated the process of helping them feel that the baby was their own. This process was individual to each woman, with the absent genetic connection varying in significance between mothers. The strategies employed enabled most mothers to adjust successfully to parenthood and manage any ambivalence and uncertainties associated with nongenetic parenthood. Most mothers felt secure and confident in their position as the child’s mother by the end of the first year.
Highlights
The quality of the relationship that forms between a parent and their infant has long been identified as influencing a range of child outcomes (Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman, 2010; Madigan, Atkinson, Laurin, & Benoit, 2013)
The present study aimed to examine heterosexual mothers’ experiences of the mother–infant relationship in families created through egg donation, an increasingly common method of family building (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority [HFEA], 2019b), in which mothers and their children do not share a genetic relationship
The findings revealed that new egg donation mothers employed a range of strategies across the transition to motherhood that enabled them to establish their identity as the infant’s mother in the developing relationship and feel that the child was their own
Summary
The number of families being created through fertility treatment with donor eggs is increasing yearly. While adoptive parenthood and egg donation parenthood differ in several key ways, in that mothers through egg donation gestate and give birth to their children, the psychological literature on adoptive parenthood does highlight some of the challenges and complexities involved for parents considering and pursuing nongenetic parenthood Mothers in both family types challenge dominant cultural discourses that both assume a genetic connection between mothers and their children (Kirkman, 2008), and prioritize these over social relatedness in the creation and maintenance of kin relationships (Freeman, 2014). EGG DONATION MOTHERS AND MOTHER–INFANT RELATIONSHIP mothers this remained a “meaningful absence,” and the gestational connection, providing some comfort, could not entirely overcome this She found that as the women enacted motherhood in their day-to-day encounters with their children, they emphasized the importance of nurturance over genetic relatedness in legitimating motherhood (Kirkman, 2008). Given the importance of infancy as a period in which parent– child relationship are initially formed, and the growing use of egg donation as a family-building option, an exploration of how women navigate, understand, and experience parenting a child conceived in this way seems timely
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