How embryo donors and recipients navigate early contact in Aotearoa
Early contact experiences between embryo donors and recipients (parents) in Aotearoa New Zealand. (Hurley, 2026)
Hurley, E., & Goedeke, S. (2026). Early contact experiences between embryo donors and recipients (parents) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Human Fertility, 29(1), 2633987. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647273.2026.2633987
Geographic Region: Aotearoa New Zealand
Research Question: What are embryo donors’ and recipient parents’ expectations and experiences of early contact?
Design: Semi-structured interviews conducted between June and September 2025. Two interviews were conducted face-to-face and four were conducted online. Couples were interviewed together. Interview topics included participants’ decisions to engage in embryo donation, their expectations and experiences of contact, the perceived nature of the relationship between the two families, and desired or available sources of support.
Sample: Nine participants (two embryo donor couples, one embryo recipient couple, and three individual embryo recipients) were recruited through an advertisement shared by FertilityNZ, a New Zealand consumer advocacy and support organization for people experiencing fertility challenges. Participants were required to be living in New Zealand, to have donated or received embryos through a fertility clinic resulting in the birth of at least one child, and to have had early contact with the donor or recipient family before the donor-conceived child turned 18. All participants were living in two-parent heterosexual households. The age of recipient children ranged from 2 to 8 years old, with a median age of 4. Most participants identified as non-religious or agnostic.
Key Findings
All participants described their early contact experiences in strongly positive terms, with many reporting that close, kin-like connections had developed between the two families.
Many participants reported they chose their donor or recipient partner based on shared values, lifestyles, and personalities, and that this perceived alignment provided a foundation for the ongoing relationship.
Participants used sibling language (‘brother’ and ‘sister’) to describe the relationships between genetically connected children in the donor and recipient families. Several recipients expressed comfort in knowing their child had genetic siblings, even when raised separately.
For many families, the children’s relationships were described as among the most important and meaningful aspects of the contact, with parents noting that children were genuinely enthusiastic about spending time together.
Donor couples consistently and explicitly distinguished between the donor-conceived child and their own children, emphasising that once the embryo was donated, the child belonged entirely to the recipients. This boundary was clearly held and did not create tension in most cases.
Participants drew on extended family metaphors (e.g., ‘in-laws,’ ‘cousins,’ ‘aunties,’ and ‘distant cousins’) to describe the relationships between the two families. In many cases, contact extended beyond the nuclear family units to include grandparents and other relatives, who also formed connections with the other family.
Participants valued flexibility in contact arrangements. Contact patterns tended to mirror typical extended family arrangements: in-person gatherings for milestones (birthdays, holidays, school events) combined with ongoing digital communication in between. Frequency varied across families but was described as regular without being intrusive.
Donors acknowledged a degree of vulnerability in contact arrangements, recognizing that promises made before donation carried no guarantee of follow-through once the embryo was transferred.
Both donors and recipients described efforts to give each other space, particularly around the birth of the donor-conceived child, respecting that this was an important and private time for the recipient family.
Participants described the complexity of explaining embryo donation to extended family, friends, and children, noting that many people struggled to understand the concept of full genetic siblings raised in separate families.
All participants valued the mandatory joint pre-donation counseling session, describing it as having been instrumental in establishing shared expectations, building trust and empathy, and providing a framework for future contact and tools to navigate difficult conversations, including discussions about what would happen if the relationship broke down. Many described the initial meeting as emotionally significant and somewhat nerve-wracking, but ultimately positive.
Participants expressed that post-donation counseling support was limited and that access to ongoing professional guidance as children grew and contact dynamics evolved would be valuable.
Limitations: This is a small, self-selected, convenience sample recruited through a donor conception advocacy and support organization. The restriction to participants who had already experienced early contact means that the sample cannot speak to the experiences of those who avoided contact or found it challenging. LGBTQ+ families, single parents, families from religious backgrounds, and families from lower socioeconomic positions are not represented. The children in recipient families were still quite young (median age 4), meaning contact relationships were in their early stages and the full complexity of evolving relationships as children mature had not yet emerged.
Applications: Clinicians and counselors facilitating embryo donation could support donor-recipient matching processes that allow for values alignment. Participants attributed their positive contact experiences in part to choosing families with whom they felt genuine alignment. This does not mean imposing criteria, but rather creating conditions in which donors and recipients have meaningful information about each other and the opportunity to consider whether an open relationship feels sustainable.
Funding Source: No funding was received for this study.
Lead Author: Emma Hurley is a researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Auckland University of Technology. No personal connection to donor conception was disclosed.
Regulatory Context:
Gamete and embryo donation in New Zealand is governed by the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (HART) Act 2004, which provides the primary legislative framework for all assisted reproductive technologies in the country. The Act is administered through the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART), which develops guidelines, and the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ECART), which must approve all embryo donation procedures on a case-by-case basis. This is a more rigorous oversight requirement than applies to gamete donation.
Under the HART Act, all donor identities are recorded, and donor-conceived people have the right to access identifying information about their donor when they reach age 18. Parents may also apply for this information on behalf of a child prior to age 18, and access to identifying information from birth (with donor consent) is possible. Embryo donation has been available since 2005 under this framework. Only 67 live births from embryo donation were recorded in New Zealand between 2005 and 2023, reflecting how uncommon the practice is.
ACART guidelines require that donated embryos must be surplus to the donors’ reproductive needs, and each donor’s embryos may be used to create full genetic siblings in no more than two families. Both donors and recipients must undergo implications counseling, a requirement that goes beyond the baseline for gamete donation. In New Zealand, uniquely, all embryo donors and recipients must participate in a mandatory joint counseling session prior to donation, regardless of whether they were previously known to each other. This session covers motivations for donation, grief and loss, disclosure plans, contact expectations, and the rights of donor-conceived people, including access to information and whakapapa.
New Zealand’s approach to donor conception is explicitly informed by the cultural and legal obligations owed to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi, including the recognition of individuals' right to access their whakapapa (genealogical lineage). This principle has shaped both legislation and clinical practice and distinguishes New Zealand’s framework from those of other jurisdictions.
Donor conception is available to single women, heterosexual couples, and same-sex female couples in New Zealand. All donations must be altruistic: donors cannot be paid for gametes or embryos, though reasonable expenses may be reimbursed. Anonymous donations are not permitted; all donations are identity-release. The country does not maintain a national publicly accessible registry of all donor-conceived individuals, but donor information is recorded in clinic records and can be accessed through Births, Deaths and Marriages.
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