[Pregnancy following anonymous oocyte donation: Experience and feelings]

This qualitative study focuses on feelings of women who receive an anonymous oocyte donation.

A heterogeneous group of 12 women who were mothers or pregnant following a oocyte donation or who were waiting for a donation took part in the study. All women participated in a face to face or a telephone semi-directive interview. Questions dealt with desire for children, feelings about difficulties to have a child, place of the oocyte donor and position about revelation of origins.

Several key ideas about the experience of oocyte donation can be brought out from the analysis of those interviews, particularly the psychological process implied in losing one's hope for a biological child, ambivalence towards donors, and questionings about this specific mode of conception.

Women's satisfaction when the project for having a child is brought to its completion, hides neither complexity nor psychological questionings entailed by the donation process which includes a third during the conception. This study underlines the need for psychological accompaniment.