Do I have much more family? How much more family do I have? Who are my siblings? These are many of the questions counselor and coach Maureen Davis's clients grapple with. Due to the extensive media attention surrounding donor conception and gynaecologists who used their own sperm, among other things, more donor children are now looking for where they come from.

Maureen Davis started at the age of 58 in addition to her work on a four-year college degree as a counselor and coach, majoring in psychology. The years-long search for her information about her silently unknown Indian father runs like a red thread through her life. Her father died during the search. Unfortunately she never got to meet him. Nevertheless, she went on a search for information about her father, met his relatives and got to know her half-brother and half-sister. Through her own experiences she understands the feelings of donor children all too well.

During her bachelor's degree in psychology, she researched the desire to know from whom you are descended and placed this desire in a broad social context. In 2014 her book Treasures in Aunt's Basement, Search for the Unknown Biological Parent was published . It is Maureen's personal conviction that wanting to know who your biological parents are is a primal urge, a primal desire. During the course of his life, someone who does not know his origin is confronted with a variety of complex feelings, such as insecurity, lack of self-confidence and identity problems. Feelings that – out of fear and shame – are often suppressed and concealed for years.

No research has yet been conducted in the Netherlands into how not knowing your biological father can influence the development of donor children, but international studies and the demand for help that has already arisen in the Netherlands have shown that it does have an influence.

Guidance

Even as Indians are opening up to the idea of adoption by single parents or adopting a sibling for their biological child, they remain averse to accepting children with special needs.

Fewer than 50 children with special needs found a home within India in the past three financial years, accounting for less than 1% of the total 9,443 in-country adoptions between 2019-20 and 2021-22.

However, applicants from outside India are considerably more open to embracing children with special needs. Such children comprised 39.1%, 56.1% and 73% of the total inter-country adoptions in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively. The category covers non-resident Indians, overseas citizens of India and foreign prospective adoptive parents.

“The motivation of parents outside India is different. They are mentally prepared to take care of such children. Also, it is not just the parents who adopt such kids but the entire country does that,” a senior Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) official told ET on condition of anonymity. “Such applicants have to compulsorily undertake a 34-hour course in their country before applying for adoption.

They also undergo several preadoption counselling sessions.” CARA is a statutory body of the ministry of women & child development.

I was dressed in a clown costume: brightly colored baby-doll dress, bloomers, big shoes, red nose—the works—preparing to run the annual Fourth of July 5k race in Skagway, Alaska. As I stretched at the starting line, playing up to the crowd, my husband strode up, grabbed my arm, and tried to pull me toward a side street. Distressed at his forcefulness, I yanked away, ready to demand he explain himself, when his face seemed to melt.

"Michael died."

His gray complexion and the way he reached for me slammed the reality home. Like in a movie scene, my body crumbled to the ground, and as if in a lucid dream, I hovered above: my body was slumped in the middle of the city's Third Street, smack in the center of the hoop-bottomed dress like a bullseye. The sound that escaped my lips still echoes down that empty street—and in my skull.

In the days and weeks to follow, people expressed their condolences. They placed gentle hands on my forearm and nodded wordlessly or, more often, uttered the phrase "I'm so sorry for your loss." Emails filled my inbox, and messages popped up on social media feeds with broken hearts and sad face emojis.

These sympathetic offerings were welcome, if painful, reminders that I was a mother who'd lost her child. But their kindness marked a clear delineation from the last time I'd grieved the loss of this same child: after I'd relinquished my parental rights 23 years earlier.

Iwas dressed in a clown costume: brightly colored baby-doll dress, bloomers, big shoes, red nose—the works—preparing to run the annual Fourth of July 5k race in Skagway, Alaska. As I stretched at the starting line, playing up to the crowd, my husband strode up, grabbed my arm, and tried to pull me toward a side street. Distressed at his forcefulness, I yanked away, ready to demand he explain himself, when his face seemed to melt.

"Michael died."

His gray complexion and the way he reached for me slammed the reality home. Like in a movie scene, my body crumbled to the ground, and as if in a lucid dream, I hovered above: my body was slumped in the middle of the city's Third Street, smack in the center of the hoop-bottomed dress like a bullseye. The sound that escaped my lips still echoes down that empty street—and in my skull.

In the days and weeks to follow, people expressed their condolences. They placed gentle hands on my forearm and nodded wordlessly or, more often, uttered the phrase "I'm so sorry for your loss." Emails filled my inbox, and messages popped up on social media feeds with broken hearts and sad face emojis.

These sympathetic offerings were welcome, if painful, reminders that I was a mother who'd lost her child. But their kindness marked a clear delineation from the last time I'd grieved the loss of this same child: after I'd relinquished my parental rights 23 years earlier.

Joyce Sylvester writes weekly about topics that touch her. This week she talks about adoption. "I also wish the children a more open society after arrival."

Even as Indians are opening up to the idea of adoption by single parents or

adopting a sibling for their biological child, they remain averse to accepting

children with special needs.

Fewer than 50 children with special needs found a home within India in the past

three financial years, accounting for less than 1% of the total 9,443 in-country

Claude Griscelli, the former boss of Inserm, aged 86, distinguished himself by re-reading, in favor of the Servier laboratories, on June 21, 2011 in the Senate, the copy of Marie-Thérèse Hermange (UMP) before she does not submit her report on the Mediator.

Caught by the patrol. Professor Claude Griscelli, the famous pediatrician, pioneer of bone marrow transplants for newborns is under threat of a sanction from the Order of Physicians for having re-read, in favor of Servier, the 2011 Senate report on the Mediator . The Collective of victims of the Mediator which had filed a complaint in January with the order obtained satisfaction: on March 16, the authority not only transmitted the request to the disciplinary chamber but it also associated itself with it. . The order joins the plaintiffs only when it considers that a doctor has committed an ethical fault, the latter then incurs a penalty that can range from a simple warning to radiation.

Rosanne (41, midwife) and Martin (38, owns their own marketing and strategy business), have three adopted children: Shawn (12), Josiah (9) and Hannah (3). All three children are from South Africa. First came Josiah (when he was 11 months), then Shawn (who was then 5.5). Hannah came in April 2020, when she was almost 1.5. The family lives in Veenendaal.

No need to be pregnant

Rosanne: 'I don't recognize the need to carry a child. Not even to give birth. As a midwife I am often asked that, logically. I think it's fantastic to experience, but for myself I don't feel that need very strongly.

Now that I am a mother, I can miss that feeling that you know from scratch where your child is and what it is going through. I sometimes feel sad about that. That I couldn't be there for them from day one. I was able to save them from that difficult and sometimes damaging start they had.

Fix the damage

The memorandum of amendment to the amendment proposal for the Artificial Insemination Donor Data Act (Wdkb) was sent to the House of Representatives on 19 May. This memorandum provides for a scheme for donor children of B donors and for a replacement consent after the death of the donor. The procedure for B donors from before 2004 will be the same as for donors from after 2004. This means that the donor's personally-identifying data will be provided, unless he can demonstrate a compelling interest. Donors from before 2004, who want replacement consent to be given by a specific person after their death, can now give consent for this. At this time, no information is provided if a donor prior to 2004 has died.

Read the summary

Procedure Legislative amendment

The memorandum of amendment makes a number of substantive changes to the bill that was submitted to the House of Representatives on 23 June 2021. The political groups can submit their questions and comments on the bill in writing before 15 June 2022. Minister Kuipers will respond to this in writing; the bill will then be discussed in the House of Representatives.

Scheme for donor children of b-donors

Minister of the Family, pro-adoption message: "It is one of the noblest gestures / The process has been much simplified and will become even easier / Of the more than 47,000 children in the special protection system, almost 6,000 are adoptable"

The Minister of the Family, Gabriela Firea, says that out of the over 47,000 children in the special protection system, almost 6,000 are adoptable and are just waiting for the right family.

"Adoption is one of the noblest gestures people can make. Love does not take into account DNA, ethnicity or hair color. Every child deserves love, a home and a family to guide them in life. Today, June 2, is National Adoption Day. I take this opportunity to tell you that adoption is the only chance that thousands of children in the care of the state have to grow up with the love of a mother and a father ", says the Minister of Family.

She points out that of the more than 47,000 children in the special protection system, almost 6,000 are adoptable and are just waiting for the right family.

"The adoption process has been greatly simplified and will become easier with the new computer system through which we modernize the child protection system. Adoptive parents will no longer be required to come to the "counter" for documents, and everything will be digital, online. A huge step for this complex process. Last year alone, nearly 1,600 children arrived in loving families, a record for the past 20 years. Children are our good and bright future. Everyone has the right to live and grow up with a family ", Firea also writes.