If this title caught your attention, you may have finally reached a place where you’re comfortable talking about your family-building journey, only to discover that someone else isn’t.
Maybe a parent asked you not to tell extended family. Maybe a grandparent suggested that certain details should stay private. Maybe a sibling warned you that people wouldn’t understand. Maybe someone in your religious or cultural community encouraged you to keep the donor, the surrogate, or the entire story to yourself.
What makes these conversations so difficult is that they often sound reasonable on the surface.
“We’re just trying to protect you.”
“People don’t need to know everything.”
“Why make things harder than they need to be?”
“Some things are better kept within the family.”
Over the years, I’ve noticed that many intended parents walk away from these conversations feeling conflicted. They don’t necessarily want to share every detail of their journey with the world, but they also don’t want to feel like they’re hiding it.
Privacy and secrecy are not the same thing.
Every family has the right to privacy. Not every detail belongs on social media. Not every person has earned access to deeply personal information. Choosing what to share and what to keep private is a healthy part of family life.
Secrecy carries a different message.
Secrecy often suggests that something should be hidden because it is embarrassing, inappropriate, shameful, or unacceptable. Even when that message is never spoken aloud, people often feel it.
That distinction matters.
One of the things I’ve learned from working with intended parents is that the desire for secrecy is not always coming from the people building the family.
Sometimes it comes from the people around them.
Family members may worry about gossip. They may worry about judgment from relatives, their religious community, or people they know. In some cultures, infertility, donor conception, surrogacy, and alternative paths to parenthood are still deeply misunderstood. The fear of being talked about, criticized, or viewed differently can feel very real.
What makes this complicated is that those fears often get handed to intended parents as responsibilities.
Sometimes the secret isn’t yours.
At some point, many people find themselves asking a difficult question:
“Why am I being asked to hide something I am not ashamed of?”
That question deserves attention.
Because when families disagree about disclosure, the real conversation is often not about privacy at all. It’s about comfort. It’s about fear. It’s about whose anxiety is driving the decision.
That doesn’t mean family members are wrong for having concerns. In many cases, those concerns come from love. They want to protect you. They want to protect your child. They want to protect the family from judgment or misunderstanding.
Good intentions, however, do not automatically mean their preferences should determine your story.
I’ve also noticed that many intended parents feel guilty for wanting to be more open. They worry that openness means they are being disrespectful or creating conflict. What often gets overlooked is that secrecy comes with consequences too.
Families develop narratives about what can and cannot be discussed. Children absorb messages about which parts of their story are welcomed and which parts feel uncomfortable.
For intended parents who plan to tell their child about their donor, surrogate, or family-building story, this distinction becomes especially important. A child may not understand the details of donor conception or surrogacy at a young age, but they are remarkably good at picking up on emotional cues. They notice when a topic creates tension. They notice when adults become uncomfortable. They notice when certain conversations happen behind closed doors or when parts of their story seem off-limits.
One of the things we know from decades of research on donor conception and family communication is that children tend to do best when their stories can be discussed openly, honestly, and without shame. That doesn’t mean every detail needs to be shared with everyone. It does mean that children benefit from growing up in environments where their origins are treated as a meaningful part of their story rather than a secret that needs to be protected.
The question is not simply whether other people know. The question is what your child learns about their story from the way the adults around them talk about it.
For some families, the answer will be privacy.
For others, the answer will be fear.
For many, it will be a mixture of both.
The goal is not maximum disclosure. The goal is intentional disclosure. The goal is making decisions that align with your values rather than decisions that are driven entirely by someone else’s discomfort.
A Few Things Worth Remembering
If your family wants you to keep your journey a secret, try not to assume that their request automatically reflects what is best for you.
Their concerns may come from love. They may come from fear. They may come from cultural expectations, religious beliefs, or lived experiences that shaped how they understand the world.
Those realities deserve compassion.
They do not automatically deserve control over your story.
You are allowed to decide what feels private.
You are allowed to decide what feels shareable.
You are allowed to build a family that is rooted in honesty rather than secrecy.
And if you’re struggling to decide where that line is, start by asking yourself a simple question:
What story do I want my child to learn about this part of their life?
In my experience, that answer often provides more clarity than people expect.
Meet Dr. Sadaf
Dr. Sadaf Sahibzada, PsyD, LMFT, is the founder of Embra Health, where she specializes in the psychological aspects of surrogacy, egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation, and intended parent support. Through her writing, clinical work, and professional education, she is committed to helping people navigate family building with greater confidence while encouraging agencies and clinics to integrate mental health throughout the entire journey.
