Research captures how families talk about donor conception
New families, multiple stories: Conversational processes, origin stories, and donor-conceived children (Navarro-Marshall, 2026)
Navarro-Marshall, J. (2026). New families, multiple stories: Conversational processes, origin stories, and donor-conceived children. Family Relations, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.70092
Geographic Region: Chile
Research Question: How do families with donor-conceived children talk about their origins with them?
Design: Descriptive exploratory qualitative study using a naturalistic approach. The researcher asked families to record origin-story conversations with their children in their own homes, without the researcher present, at a time of the family’s choosing. Parents then conducted brief semi-structured interviews with their children immediately after the origin conversation, asking five questions about the child’s emotional experience and favorite/least favorite parts of the story. The researcher next conducted semi-structured interviews with parents exploring context (who tells, when, frequency, terminology), their emotional experience of telling the story, and reflection on the recorded conversation through audio feedback. Data collection occurred between late 2024 and early 2025. Each recorded conversation was transcribed using the Jefferson system, a transcription method from conversation analysis designed to capture intonations, pauses, overlaps, and turn-taking dynamics—not just the words spoken. One conversation per family was selected and coded for primary analysis (the one with the most turns). The researchers looked at the basic structure: who spoke, who started topics, how family members took turns talking, and whether turns were mainly about expanding ideas (elaborative), stating facts (factual), or telling the story (narrative).
Sample: 45 individuals from 17 families participated, including 19 donor-conceived children (11 female; 8 male) ranging in age from 3 to 8 years (mean age 4.9 years). Caregiver mean age was 41.4 years. Family structures included 5 heterosexual couples, 6 female same-sex couples, and 6 single mothers by choice. Most families (12) used sperm donation, 3 used egg donation, and 2 used double donation through fertility clinics with cryobanks located in the USA, Spain, or Chile. Younger parents and children tended to be in lesbian families; older children were in heterosexual families; older parents were single mothers by choice. All parents held college degrees. All participants were living in Chile at the time of the study and self-identified as Latino/a. All families had already disclosed donor conception or were certain they intended to do so. Donor type varied: some families used identity-release donors (contact information available to the child at age 18), some used anonymous donors (no identifying information ever available), and one family used an informal sperm donor contacted through social media. Recruitment used three channels: social media advertisements, community organizations serving single mothers by choice and lesbian families, and fertility clinic counselors.
Editor's Note: The numbers in this study are used to describe patterns, not to make statistical claims.
Key Findings
Conversations were brief. The average conversation lasted 6 minutes and 25 seconds and included an average of 96 total turns.
Conversations were co-constructed but asymmetric. Parents and children took a similar number of turns (38 for caregivers, 36 for children on average), but caregivers used more than four times as many words per turn (15.7 words vs. 3.5 for children). Caregivers made new conversational proposals (initiations plus react-initiations) in approximately 70% of their turns; children did so in about 30% of theirs.
Conversations were mother-led. In all 17 families, the first turn of the conversation was taken by a mother, never by a father or a child. This was consistent across all family structures.
All conversations took place at home, most frequently in the evening, at bedtime, or while reading a story.
The most common type of turn was factual (approximately 55% of all turns on average), meaning turns that conveyed factual information.
Elaborative turns (those that invited reflection, feelings, or expanded meaning) made up about 28% of all turns. Parents were more elaborative than children: caregiver elaborativity (including narrative-elaborative turns) was 44% of their turns; children’s was 28%.
Narrative turns (the actual storytelling) made up about 8% of total turns, and narrative plus narrative-elaborative turns combined reached 17%. Parents accounted for virtually all narrative turns (12% of parent turns vs. 3% of children’s).
Questions were prominent throughout. One-third of all conversational turns (33%) were questions. Of all questions asked, 64% were elaborative questions. Both parents and children asked elaborative questions at similar rates.
Seven of 17 families (41%) used a story or book as part of the conversation: four created their own written or illustrated tale, one used a repeated oral bedtime story, and two used published children’s books about donor conception.
Seventy percent of families reported planning how they would approach the conversation.
The average age at first disclosure conversation was 3.8 years.
All participating families reported that the story was retold multiple times after the first conversation, with the least frequent family reporting a new conversation at least once every four months.
Conversation Example
Olivia is a 46-year-old single mother by choice. Her daughter Amelia is 5 and was conceived through sperm donation. The conversation analyzed for the study (selected because it had the most conversational turns) started because Amelia had told her friend that her father had died. When Olivia pointed out that this wasn’t true, Amelia explained that she hadn’t wanted to get into ‘the long story.’ Rather than correcting her or pressing her to be more accurate, Olivia followed her daughter’s reasoning. Together, they worked out what had actually happened. Amelia had imagined her friend would see her as someone to feel sorry for and that image made her feel deeply uncomfortable. She eventually named that feeling as embarrassment. This opened a conversation about what it feels like to not have a father. The mother’s questions were almost entirely about emotions (how did you feel) and Amelia described her feelings rather than defending her actions. At one point, Amelia pushed back on her mother’s interpretation, offering her own read of the situation.
Limitations: The study does not distinguish between early and later disclosure conversations. A first disclosure conversation likely differs substantially in structure and tone from a tenth retelling, but the study cannot account for this. The wide age range of children (3–8 years) introduces developmental variability in comprehension and narrative ability that was not fully controlled for. Older children took more turns but were not necessarily more elaborative. Only one conversation per family was analyzed (the one with the most turns), which may not represent the family’s typical conversational style and necessarily excludes briefer or less structured conversations. The study’s findings about fathers are limited. Fathers participated in only a minority of conversations.
Editor’s Note: The elaborative reminiscing framework was developed largely in white, Western, individualist family research contexts. There is an assumption that elaborative, emotionally exploratory conversation is universally optimal, but what counts as appropriate emotional expression, appropriate adult-child communication about identity, and the role of storytelling in identity development may vary.
Applications: Rather than coaching parents to tell a complete, coherent story, mental health practitioners can consider helping parents ask open-ended, emotionally exploratory questions that invite children to participate in meaning-making.
Funding Source: Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID), Chile, via a doctoral scholarship (Scholarship 21190081).
Lead Author: Javiera Navarro-Marshall is a Chilean psychologist and academic at the Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago, Chile. Her research focuses on parent-child communication, autobiographical memory, and donor-conceived family storytelling. She is a mother through donor conception.
Regulatory Context:
Chile has no comprehensive legislation governing assisted reproductive technology or donor conception. ART practices are regulated by the ethics committees of individual medical centers, not by national law. Most clinics voluntarily adhere to standards set by the Latin American Network of Assisted Reproduction (REDLARA).
The only relevant national legal provision is an article of Chile’s Civil Code stipulating that the father and mother are presumed to be the persons who voluntarily used ART, meaning legal parentage follows intent, not genetics. In the absence of marriage, paternity must be voluntarily acknowledged.
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I find it really interesting to think about the idea of "elaborating questions" as a cultural phenomenon or value and how that shapes the experiences of those involved. I can see this as potentially harmful or helpful depending on the context and or what emotions are elaborated on and what is interpreted as appropriate emotional expression and interpretation. I could see this as overwhelming at times to children who are sensitive and or contemplative and need time to process and or maybe not talk it out, but rather play it out as a child. HMMMM...so interesting.