A first conversation, and how to get ready for one.
Somewhere after two people decide to talk, and long before anyone's clinic is involved, there is a first real conversation. This is what we would say to a friend the night before one.
This is not counseling, and we are not your counselor. Fertility Match is a place to find each other and keep track of the steps; it does not advise you, sit with you, or have a view about what you should decide. A mental-health professional who works with family building does that, and many families ask one to join a first conversation — either of you can suggest it, at any point, and there is nothing awkward about wanting someone in the room. Medical questions belong to your fertility clinic, a genetic counselor reads screening and PGT results, and each side should have their own reproductive attorney.
Before you talk
A first conversation only has one job: finding out who you are talking to. Everything else has time.
- Read your own answers again.
The four relationship questions on your profile are the ones this conversation will circle. If you answered them weeks ago, read them back — you are allowed to have changed your mind, and it is better to notice that before someone asks you about it. You can edit any of them.
- Decide what you want to know, and what you are not ready to say.
Two or three things you genuinely want to hear is plenty. “I would rather come back to that one” is a complete answer, and you can give it as often as you need to.
- Bring whoever is really in this with you.
A partner, a co-parent, whoever else has to live with the decision. If they cannot be there, agree beforehand what you will and will not answer on their behalf.
- Pick an hour you are not rushing through.
Not between appointments, and not at the end of a hard day. People say the thing they meant to say in the last ten minutes.
- Know that talking decides nothing.
A conversation is not a commitment and nothing on Fertility Match is a donation agreement. Moving forward takes both of you saying so; stepping back takes one of you, at any point, with no explanation owed. Members hold at most 3 conversations at once, counting any request you have sent that has not been answered yet — a request somebody sent you costs you nothing until you accept it — so there is no advantage in rushing this one.
What the four questions are really asking
Both of you answered the same four questions, from the same list of options, so neither of you is the one being assessed. They replaced a single contact label on purpose: one word cannot carry four different decisions, and two families who use the same word often mean different things. Where you already agree shows up as areas of alignment, and where you differ shows up as something to discuss. There is no match score, no percentage and no quality rating: Browse can put the people you have most in common with nearer the top of the page, counting only the answers you both chose to share, but nothing here grades a family.
What kind of relationship are you hoping to build?
What does an ordinary year look like between us?
The options run from contact through Fertility Match to a close, family-like relationship. The useful thing to say out loud is not the label but the picture: what would feel like too little to you, and what would feel like too much. Two people who both answer “occasional direct contact” can still be imagining very different Decembers.
What feels right about identities being known?
What will a child be able to know, and when?
Identities known from the start, available to the child when they are older, limited for now — those are the choices. Anonymity is not one of them, because home DNA testing and public genealogy databases mean no platform, clinic or agreement can promise it. This is the answer that outlasts every other one, so it is worth the longest conversation.
How often would you want updates?
What happens in the quiet years, and what will silence mean?
A note now and then, a photo around a birthday, nothing at all — all of them are real answers. Agree what it will mean if one of you goes quiet for a while, because most of the hurt in these relationships happens in a gap neither person meant to leave.
How important is connection among genetic siblings — children genetically related to one another?
What should be possible between children who are genetically related?
That includes children the donor family is already raising. The adults answer it first, but the children may answer it differently in fifteen years, and it is the question families most often come back to. Being honest that you are unsure is more useful than a confident answer you have not thought about.
Every one of the four takes “open to discussing” as an answer, and none of them is settled forever: families revisit them at the legal agreement, at a birth, and as children grow. What you say now is the first draft of a long relationship, not a signature.
Things worth asking each other
Not a list to work through. Take one when the words will not come, and let the answer take as long as it takes.
What brought you here — the long version?
Everything else makes more sense afterwards, and it is the easiest question to answer.
Who else is close to this decision for you?
A partner, a parent, a friend whose opinion carries weight. You are rarely talking to one person.
When you picture the two of us five years from now, what does knowing each other look like?
It gets at the relationship question without either of you having to defend a label.
How would you want a child to hear about where they came from, and at what age?
You will both be asked this by a counselor eventually. Better to have said it to each other first.
What would you want to be possible between children who are genetically related?
The one that reaches furthest into the future, and the one children tend to have views about.
Where are you in your own timing — ready, or still deciding?
A mismatch here is ordinary and fixable. Discovering it in month four is not.
What would tell you this was going well? And what would worry you?
People name their real hesitation more easily when they are asked for both.
What would you want to happen if one of us needed to stop?
Say it while it is easy to say. Either of you may stop at any point, so agreeing how is a kindness.
What would you most like me to ask you?
Almost everyone is carrying a question nobody has asked them yet.
Inside a conversation on Fertility Match there is a panel of prompts like these, written as messages you can send word for word, and a short worksheet the two of you can go through together before the professional steps begin. Nothing in either is saved for us, and nothing sends until you send it.
What to leave out
Less about manners than about who the question belongs to. Each of these has someone whose job it is.
- Records, reports and results
Do not ask someone to send you their embryo record, a PGT report or screening results in a message. The detailed record is not shown to the other member at all — it goes to the clinic or laboratory the donor authorizes for that step, labeled with whether a member typed it in or a laboratory confirmed it. Your clinic reads it, not you, and a screenshot from a nervous person is not how anyone should be reading it.
- Anything you would only ask in order to assess them
Income, a diagnosis, why an earlier cycle failed, how much someone weighs. Nobody here is being screened by the other: you answered the same four questions, from the same list of options, and neither of you is the applicant.
- The legal and financial terms
Who pays for what, what the agreement will say, whether embryos can be held for you — those belong to each side’s own attorney, and each of you should have your own. Nothing either of you says in a conversation binds anybody.
- Medical opinions from each other
How many embryos you would need, what a PGT result means, whether a transfer is likely to work: your fertility clinic and a genetic counselor answer those, for your own body and your own records. Neither of you is qualified to reassure the other, however kindly it is meant.
- Money for embryos, in any form
Embryos are never bought or sold on Fertility Match. Offering, requesting or negotiating payment for them is grounds for removal, and it is not a grey area.
- A decision, at the end of the first conversation
Asking someone to commit while you are both still nervous is the quickest way to a yes that does not hold. There is no clock running on either of you.
One more, which is about manners: try not to ask anyone to justify an answer to the four questions. Ask what it would look like in practice instead. People defend a position and describe a life, and you are trying to hear about the life.
Ending a conversation that is not right
Most conversations do not become a match, and that is the point of having them. Ending one is not a failure and it is not a rejection of the other person's family — it is the honest outcome of finding out you were imagining different things.
- Say it early, and say it plainly.
A week of slower replies is harder to be on the receiving end of than a clear sentence. “I've thought about it and I don't think we're the right fit — thank you for being so open with me” is enough. You do not owe anyone an explanation, and you are allowed to stop without giving one.
- Keep it about fit, not about them.
You are not qualified to tell someone what is wrong with their answers, and they did not ask you to. Different hopes is the whole truth in nearly every case.
- What actually happens when you end it.
Either of you can end a conversation at any time. It frees a slot for both of you, your message history stays visible for 60 days and is then permanently deleted, and either of you can send a new request later if you both want to try again. If you had already opened a case, stepping back releases any batch of embryos committed to it; the case stays on your list rather than disappearing.
- If someone makes you uncomfortable, that is different.
You can block or report a member at any point. Blocking ends the connection and prevents further contact through Fertility Match, and reports are read by our team.
- If it lands hard, that is worth taking somewhere.
Not a formality at the end of a page: an ending here can be a real loss, and a mental-health professional who works with family building is the person for it.
If it is right
Nothing happens automatically, and nothing happens quickly. When you both decide to move forward, you can open a case: a shared workspace holding the steps ahead, each with an owner and a date. Records review, the receiving clinic's decision, counseling and genetic counseling, the legal agreements, screening, release, shipping, receipt, the transfer, and whatever you choose to share afterwards.
The professionals reach it one at a time and only because you put them there. Each of you authorizes a named person for one thing — the embryo records, the legal work, counseling, coordination, or where the intended parent is with their own clinic steps — and either of you can withdraw it. Three of those are only their owner’s to give: the embryo records and coordination both open the embryology, which is the donor’s, and clinic readiness is the intended parent’s own clinical status. A clinic that needs to look at both sides asks each of you separately. Nobody is browsing you: professionals have no member directory to search, and a clinic organization sees counts of its own cases rather than the people in them.
Before those steps begin, it is worth going through the relationship worksheet together, in your own words. What you agree there is a starting point for a conversation — the thing that binds anyone is the agreement your attorneys write.