Curious Connections: The Impact of Donating Egg and Sperm on Donors' Everyday Lives and Relationships, 2017-2020

Nordqvist, Petra and Gilman, Leah (2021). Curious Connections: The Impact of Donating Egg and Sperm on Donors' Everyday Lives and Relationships, 2017-2020. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-854555

In a culture that emphasises the importance of genetic connectedness and which holds that vital and enduring family relationships pass through genetic reproduction, the decision to give away one's eggs or sperm is radical indeed. This is however something that is becoming increasingly common as more people struggle with issues of infertility, and the fertility industry is growing. Questions arise about how donors experience the process of donating and how that process impacts on their everyday lives and relationships.

Whereas, in the past, donors were anonymous and so could choose to keep their donation a secret from close kin, recent legal changes mean that donors are now identifiable. In 2023, the first children born through 'identity release' egg or sperm donors will be able to seek contact. Donors nowadays are therefore likely to deliberate on how to manage such openness and contact within the context of their own relationships with partners, parents and their own children. Being open may not be a straightforward task.

This is a sister project to our previous study Relative Strangers (funded by the ESRC 2010-2013, C Smart PI, P Nordqvist, CI) which explored family life after receiving donor egg and sperm. This showed the impact of donor conception on family relationships and raised unforeseen questions about donors, suggesting that giving away (as opposed to receiving) egg and sperm may impact on family relationships in significant ways.

Proposed study and research focus: The Curious Connections study explored how donating impacts on donors' everyday lives and relationships. The study: 1) analysed the policy on donation and the rights and obligations of donors 2) examined how egg and sperm donors negotiate donation within the context of their everyday lives and relationships, and also if and how they share information with close kin 3) explored how close kin react to and experience the existence of donor offspring 4) investigated the similarities and difference between male and female donors' experiences 5) considers what the practice of sperm/egg donation as a practice can tell us about contemporary kinship and family cultures

Approach and methods: This study took the donor as a starting point, but in order to better understand the process and family dynamics that underscore donors' experience, it looked beyond the donor and situates donating within the context of their close relationships. We utilised a qualitative approach, enabling us to explore donors' experiences and understandings. We analysed existing policy on donors and conducted 88 qualitative semi-structured interviews with 52 donors (26 with egg donors, ,26 sperm donors and 1 embryo donor), 23 close kin (partners, parents and siblings) and 18 fertility counsellors or donor coordinators.

Beneficiaries and impact: A range of policy makers, practitioners, user groups, users and the general public stand to benefit from this study. Sought outcomes include increasing the effectiveness of policy and better targeted practical support and information offered to donors and families by donor conception. The impact will be realised through a range of pathways, e.g. a conference, a public debate, a podcast, blogs, films and through the production of findings-based user group leaflets. Academic communities also stand to benefit from this research, including those in the field of reproductive technologies and reproduction more broadly, sociologists of family life and intimacy, and medical sociologists.

Data description (abstract)

This dataset comprises transcripts of interviews generated through the Curious Connections study, which explores the impact of donating egg or sperm for donors and their relatives. The research focusses on meanings and experiences of donating in the context of increased openness in the context of UK donor conception, including the removal of donor anonymity for new donors since 2005. As part of this project, we interviewed 52 donors (half men, half women) and 23 relatives of donors (partners, parents and siblings). In addition, we analysed UK laws and policies which impact donors and interviewed 18 members of staff who work with donors in UK clinics. The project was approved by the University of Manchester Research Ethics Committee.

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Nordqvist Petra	University of Manchester
Gilman Leah	University of Manchester	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4697-6485

Contributors:

Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Gilman Leah	University of Manchester	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4697-6485
Turner Christine	University of Manchester
Burke Hazel	University of Manchester
Lang Luciana	University of Manchester
Sambrook Jill	University of Manchester

Sponsors:

Economic and Social Research Council

Grant reference:

ES/N014154/1

Topic classification:

Society and culture

Keywords:

FAMILY, REPRODUCTION (BIOLOGICAL)

Project title:

Curious Connections: The Impact of Donating Egg and Sperm on Donors' Everyday Life and Relationships

Grant holders:

Petra Nordqvist

Project dates:

From	To
1 January 2017	30 June 2021

Date published:

04 Aug 2021 12:05

Last modified:

04 Aug 2021 12:05

Coverage and Methodology

Collection period:

Date from:	Date to:
1 April 2017	30 September 2020

Country:

United Kingdom

Data collection method:

An exploratory qualitative methodology was used with the aim of understanding the practices and processes through which donation is made meaningful in people’s lives. This document details the methods used in relation to interviews with donors, donors’ relatives and clinic staff.

Please note that, due to the limitations of anonymization in relation to unusual cases and non-consent from some participants, some transcripts produced as part of this project have not been archived with the UKDS. In addition, a number of the transcripts and further details of the cases are available only following request, and after review by, the PI. This report provides information about the whole sample with the aim of providing some context to the archived data.

Interviews with donors took place during 2018 and 2019. They usually lasted between 90 and 120 minutes (ranging from 35 to 160 minutes of audio recorded conversation) and took place either in participants’ homes, a public place (such as a café) or an office (usually at the donor’s workplace but on two occasions at the University). We took an in-depth, loosely structured approach to interviewing donors, beginning with a variation on the request, ‘tell me how you became a donor?’ Interviewers then encouraged participants to tell their ‘donation stories’ in their own words, focussing on the topics they considered most important. A topic guide was used to probe for areas of particular interest and ensure topics of interest, not spontaneously raised, were covered. Such topics included: talking to others about their donation, thoughts about the possibility of future (or ongoing) contact with recipient families, experiences of the process of donation, finding out (or not) about the outcome of the donation.

Interviews with donor relatives and with clinic staff (counsellors and donor coordinators) were often shorter (averaging approximately an hour in both cases) and slightly more structured. For practical reasons, a minority of the interviews with clinic staff and donor relatives were conducted via telephone, at the request of participants.

Interviews with family members began by asking how they first found out their relative was considering donating/had donated, how that had been presented to them and what their reaction had been. As well as asking relatives to recount their relative’s ‘donation story’, we also asked who they had told about the donation and their thoughts about the future.

Interviews with fertility counsellors and donor coordinators focussed on their work with donors. We asked about their aims and approach in the work they (and their organisations) did with donors and tried to establish the kinds of topics that these professionals covered in their conversations with them and the reasons these were considered important. In addition, we asked questions about their impressions of donors they had worked with e.g. what kinds of people came forward to donate, what were their reasons for doing so, how did they respond to the possibility of being traced and what kinds of issues or questions did they generally raise.

In total we conducted 88 interviews including 52 interviews with donors, 23 with donors’ relatives and 18 with infertility counsellors or donor coordinators. Five donors were also partners of donors, hence the numbers for each group do not total 88.

Further details on our sample and recruitment are included in the supporting documents.

Observation unit:

Individual

Kind of data:

Text

Type of data:

Qualitative and mixed methods data

Resource language:

English

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