Disclosure DE DI and Yearly Salary...who to tell?

I posted a comment to this question from stacyb at Why Not Me? and I wanted to share it here.

Since we have two kids by DI we have had many discussions about disclosure. MANY. With two women it is obvious a man had to be involved. But we decided a long time ago that we wouldn't discuss the details of him with people casually because that information should be told to our kids first. Then, if they want to share it they can. It's their story, not ours to share.

We explained this to our parents before the girls were born. We gave them just the physical attributes of the donor. Our worst nightmare would be my MIL saying, you know dear, you get that musical ability from your donor daddy. GAH! NO. No phantom daddy in this house!

The same is true about any DE/DI baby we may have. Information about his/her donors, is his/hers, not ours to tell.

The fact of the egg donor is something that belongs to him/her too. It's out of respect for their future feelings that we don't tell people.

When I walk around with my girls and people say, oh they look just like you, and I am biologically related to neither of them, I say, please, I couldn't possibly be that cute or I say thanks, that's the best compliment I've had all week. You find a way to work out having conversations without divulging everything. People will just have to assume that any baby I had came from my egg and DI, until our son or daughter decides whether it's important enough to share. Just like many adopted kids, people just assume and it's up to that child and their comfort level to make an issue of correcting them.

I have to tell you that we went to a family reunion recently and I saw a cousin of mine that I haven't seen since we were kids. She only knew I was gay and had two kids. She took one look at my youngest and said to my mom, "Don't you think she looks just like me when I was little?" I was within ear shot but not close enough to be in the conversation. My mom shot me a look but said nothing. Then my cousin said, the more I look at her the more she reminds me of me, don't you think so Auntie?" So I heard my mom say..."You must be looking really hard." It totally cracked me up!!!

I would just have to agree that you can't un-ring that bell. You won't have to be uncomfortable not talking about it forever...you will discuss it with your child. At some point, it wont be such a big issue (secret) it will just be a fact of your family, far less important than soccer and braces.