title: Constructing and enacting kinship in sister-to-sister egg donation families: a multi-family member interview study.
abstract: Although intra-familial egg donation has been practiced for more than 15 years in several countries, little is known about family relationships in this family type. Framed within the new kinship studies, this article focuses on the experiential dimension of kinship in sister-to-sister egg donation families: how is kinship 'unpacked' and 'reconstructed' in this specific family constellation? Qualitative data analysis of interviews with receiving parents, their donating sisters and the donor children revealed six themes: (1) being connected as an extended family; (2) disambiguating motherhood; (3) giving and receiving as structuring processes; (4) acknowledging and managing the 'special' link between donor and child; (5) making sense of the union between father and donor; and (6) kinship constructions being challenged. This study showed the complex and continuous balancing of meanings related to the mother-child dyad, the donor-child dyad and the donor-father dyad. What stood out was the complexity of, on the one hand cherishing the genetic link with the child allowed by the sisters' egg donation, while, on the other, managing the meanings related to this link, by, for instance, acknowledging, downsizing, symbolising, and differentiating it from the mother-child bond. (A Virtual Abstract of this paper can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_979cmCmR9rLrKuD7z0ycA).
authors.affiliation: Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Van Parys
authors.affiliation: Bioethics Institute Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Veerle
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Provoost
authors.affiliation: Division of Health and Society Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Sweden.
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zeiler
authors.affiliation: Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Sutter
authors.affiliation: Bioethics Institute Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pennings
authors.affiliation: Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Buysse
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D018587:Oocyte Donation / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D035781:Siblings / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: family/kinship; fertility; interviewing (qualitative); qualitative methods generally; reproductive technology