Navigating fertility challenges is a long and complex process that millions of people face every year worldwide. It is for these reasons that if you are going through challenges with fertility you will have numerous questions that need answers. Questions come up anywhere between how painful will the process be to questions about bonding with a baby conceived with medical help. For those who have chosen for one reason or another to utilize an egg donor to improve conception outcomes, one of the most typical and recurrent questions asked is "if I use Donor Eggs Will The Baby Look Like Me?" The short answer to that question is this; it depends. There is not a simple answer to this question much like there is not a simple answer to the question "will i love my donor egg baby?"
Most are quick to say the answer is no when they are asked, "does a baby conceived via donor eggs resemble birth mom?" However, a simple 'no' is the wrong answer. What does it depend on exactly? There is a number of factors that independently and collectively influence how much donor egg babies will resemble the birth mother physically. A major factor playing a role in this is the means of which you use to choose your egg donor. The most commonly used method of doing this is to use an agency to search for a donor. Egg donors who donate through agencies are heavily screened and evaluated in aspects such as physical features, personality, family history, health records, etc. What this does is allow recipients to search for and browse through donors, enabling the recipient some autonomy in what the door looks like, how their health is, what their family history shows, what skills they have, etc. By having control over the physical features of the egg donor, you then have some control over the physical features of the donor egg babies. In a way, you are able to choose what will make your babies personality and what predetermined traits they will have. You can even take it a step further and use some natural methods to increase your chances of having a specific gender.
Another practice frequently seen with egg donation is when the recipient receives donor eggs from a biological family member of theirs. While reasons to use this method vary and are not isolated to physical appearance, one reason is to ensure that the egg donor baby will carry some portion of the same DNA as the recipient. This method does not always guarantee that the child will resemble you, as even genetically related full siblings can come out not noticeably resembling each other in physical appearance. Even without the presence of fertility challenges and interventions, often times physical traits can be known to skip a generation as well. So when using this method for picking out your egg donor, the answer to the question of "if I use Donor Eggs Will The Baby Look Like Me," is that they probably will but there are no guarantees.
Even if criteria based searches through an agency and family member donation are not used, there is still no guarantee that your egg donor baby will not look like you. There is also the possibility that you will be asking yourself, how is it that my donor egg baby looks like me? Due to recent research and development in the area of fertility, it has been discovered that even if the egg has completely different genetic material then the recipient, they still have influence on the genes of the baby between conception and birth. This is all thanks to the embryonic fluid that the baby lives in for nine months. Micro RNA's or molecules that double as a communication system between the mother and the baby actually have the ability to moderate the presentation of the babies genes. However this process is not isolated to just physical trait genes, but also has an influence on personality genes, reproductive predispositions when it comes to the possibility of multiples, and genes that carry disease from one generation to another. Armed with this information, you now have a better understanding on the topic if someone were to ask you about "how my donor egg baby looks like me."
Often times having no certain answer to questions about interventions for fertility challenges can stop a recipient from considering egg donation as an option. Now when your nosy Aunt Gertrude asks you "does a baby conceived via donor eggs resemble birth mom," you can soundly answer yes and know how to back that up with facts. After having read this information you can also silence doubts associated with having a baby that is not your DNA. You will be able to bond with your baby and have peace of mind that the answer to the question "will i love my donor egg baby?" will always be yes.
