My wife refuses to use her eggs to have a child with me because her family has a history of serious psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression.
We’ve been married six years and together for ten, and while we both want children, we’re stuck on how to make them. I want a child that is biologically ours — half my genes, half hers. She insists we either adopt or use an egg donor, saying she “lucked out” in the genetic lottery and won’t risk passing on what she sees as her “bad genes.”
Her stance is grounded in real medical concern, not just fear
Psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have strong hereditary components, with first-degree relatives facing significantly elevated risk. Nadia isn’t irrational — she’s seen the toll these illnesses capture and wants to spare a child that burden. Her position isn’t about rejecting me; it’s about protecting a potential child from a known, avoidable risk.
Using donor eggs or adoption shifts the risk from known to random
With her eggs, there’s a identifiable, elevated chance of passing on susceptibility to serious mental illness. With a donor egg or adopted child, any mental illness would arise from unknown genetic factors — not from a lineage she knows carries high risk. In her view, this isn’t eliminating risk entirely, but removing a preventable one she feels responsible for.
I want a biological link; she wants to avoid guilt and blame
I described the beauty of a child made from both of us, but she sees that as impossible without accepting a moral weight she’s unwilling to carry. By choosing donor eggs or adoption, she believes she absolves herself of blame if a child later struggles — a distinction that matters deeply to her, even if the statistical difference in outcome may be smaller than I hope.
Is it reasonable for her to refuse to use her own eggs?
Yes. Her eggs are her body, and she has the right to decide how they’re used. Her reasoning — based on family history of serious psychiatric illness — is medically valid and ethically sound, even if painful for me to hear.
Does adoption or using a donor egg truly reduce the risk of mental illness in a child?
It removes the known hereditary risk from her side. While any child could develop mental illness through new mutations or unknown factors, using donor eggs or adoption means the child’s genetic risk isn’t tied to her family’s documented history of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.
