{"id":613171,"date":"2026-04-18T21:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613171\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T21:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:39:10","slug":"my-wife-doesnt-want-to-use-her-eggs-to-create-a-baby-with-me-it-makes-me-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613171\/","title":{"rendered":"My wife doesn’t want to use her eggs to create a baby with me. It makes me sad."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a newsletter bonus question. Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care and Feeding?\u00a0Submit it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dear Care and Feeding,<\/p>\n

My wife \u201cNadia\u201d and I have been married for six years, together for 10.\u00a0Our marriage is great except for one thing that is becoming a real source of conflict: We both want kids, but we disagree on how we should go about having them.<\/p>\n

Nadia is adamant that we either adopt or use an egg donor.\u00a0Her reason is that her family has a number of members who suffer from serious psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression).\u00a0Nadia says it\u2019s no small miracle she \u201clucked out in the genetic lottery\u201d and didn\u2019t end up with one of the mental illnesses.\u00a0After witnessing and experiencing what those disorders are like, she isn\u2019t willing to take a chance of somehow passing along those disorders\u00a0given the genetic components involved.<\/p>\n

I would really like to have a child or children that are biologically mine and Nadia\u2019s. I have pointed out that there\u2019s always a chance for a kid to have a mental illness, even if we were to adopt or use an egg donor.\u00a0Her answer is that she has \u201cbad genes\u201d and doesn\u2019t want to knowingly risk inflicting them on a child who will have to suffer the life-long consequences.\u00a0Is her position a reasonable one?<\/p>\n

\u2014You Never Know What You\u2019ll Get<\/p>\n

Dear Never Know,<\/p>\n

Yes, your wife\u2019s desire to use an egg donor or adopt is reasonable! Her eggs are part of her body, and it\u2019s entirely her choice what to do with them. You have shared your point of view with her, that you\u2019d like to use her eggs and your sperm to create an embryo, and she\u2019s shared that it\u2019s a nonstarter for her. This is absolutely OK, and you need to respect your wife\u2019s decision on this.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I Felt Great About Leaving My Kids With the In-Laws for a Getaway. What I Saw My Father-in-Law Do in the Car Has Me Reconsidering.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t need a \u201creason\u201d for it to be OK for her to not want to pass her genes on. But, for the record, hers is a very good one. You\u2019re right that it\u2019s possible that her egg and your sperm could create an embryo that becomes a human who ends up having no mental illness. It\u2019s also possible you could create a person who ends up with serious mental illness. As you point out, both outcomes are also possible with your sperm and a donor egg or with an adopted child. But the difference there is that, with a donor egg or adopted child, any mental illness will truly be a matter of chance. By adopting or using a donor egg, your wife mitigates the known risk of passing on serious mental illness that comes with using her egg. By doing that, she also preemptively absolves herself of the guilt and blame.<\/p>\n

I understand your desire to have a child that is half your genes and half Nadia\u2019s. That would be really beautiful. But it\u2019s just not possible. It\u2019s OK for you to mourn that, but please accept it the same way you would accept it were it true for another medical reason.<\/p>\n

Any child you raise together will be half yours and half Nadia\u2019s, no matter how that baby comes into the world. Genetics are only part of the magic that makes us who we are. How you and Nadia parent your baby, and the kind of home you\u2019ll make for them, will be just as important in helping your baby become the person they\u2019ll be. And that\u2019s beautiful, too.<\/p>\n

\u2014Logan<\/p>\n

Classic Prudie<\/p>\n

My father was murdered over 30 years ago when I was 6 years old. His murder was never solved or investigated, to my knowledge, although his death certificate lists his cause of death as a homicide. This was in Detroit during the \u201980s, and I was always told it was a robbery gone wrong. Around my 16th\u00a0birthday my paternal grandmother, on her deathbed, told me that my uncle\u2014my mother\u2019s brother\u2014murdered my father.<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is a newsletter bonus question. Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1129,49,48,852,84,5377,230839],"class_list":["post-613171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-advice","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-family","tag-health","tag-kids","tag-newsletter-exclusive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}