At the April 1998 British Fertility Society conference a session was devoted to considering the implications of the fact that in 2010 the HFEA register will become accessible to 18 year olds who want to know if they have been conceived through DI (though the only answers they will be able to get are yes or no).

Olivia (and Walter) were invited to address the meeting, and she chose to speculate about how the world might seem by then...

Bringing into the world - and then bringing up - children who are destined never to know one half of their genetic make-up undoubtedly presents a challenge. I sometimes feel sad that a number of DI conceived adults have placed so much importance on genes. To me this seems to confuse the wish for information about genetic background/medical history with lack of a sense of identity. But perhaps this is what happens when people have been deceived for so long and are deprived of what is apparently such powerful information.

The answer to the question "Who am I?" is so much more complex than simply finding the sources of DNA and genetic material. I often think about my own father who was Italian and that my sense of being half-Italian came from living with a man who spoke as eloquently with his hands as his voice, and who cooked pasta every Saturday evening at a time when foreign food was considered exotic and strange. I am sure it was my close relationship with him and the culture of our household that gave me the Italian part of my identity, much more than the genes I inherited. Some adults conceived through DI , as well as being told of their origins in difficult circumstances, seem to have had unsatisfactory relationships with their fathers, perhaps because the very fact of their unacknowledged DI conception was something their fathers could not come to terms with. Many of us feel that the insecurity and low self-esteem that can come from disrupted family relationships might lie at the root of their identity difficulties, with DI being an exaggerating feature, or even sometimes used as a scapegoat.

It was at least partly because identity seemed to be made up of so much more than genes that Walter and I made our decision, very unusual back in 1983, to be open with our children about the facts of their DI conception. It felt to us and apparently an increasing number of others we discovered, when we helped found DI Network, that being responsible parents included more than loving and nurturing our children - it meant being honest with them as well. We believed, and still do, that a strong emotional bond developed through good quality parenting, could offer significant shelter if not complete protection against despair and the "genetic bewilderment' that some doomy commentators had predicted.

Seventeen years have now passed since the Network was first started in 1993 and during that time many of our members have had the chance to anticipate and think through the issues our children were to face later on. Many of the children, told early on in their lives about their origins, have absorbed the knowledge with equanimity. For some of course the lack of information has been the source of some sadness and frustration. But their ability to contact others through the Network has helped. Our experience of families in the Network leads us to believe that those who have been able first to grieve the 'what might have been' and then to manage the mixed feelings inevitable in having and bringing up DI children, have done well, with lower than average divorce rates and higher than average family satisfaction.

For others the frustration has been considerable. There is no doubt that the lure of the secret unknown is more tantalising than the hum-drum reality of open information. A large percentage of adopted adults have shown interest in having some information about their birth mother although a much smaller proportion have then gone on to contact their birth parents. Open information has not only been possible but positively encouraged for some time in the case of adoptees. The very high percentage of those conceived through donated gametes who have expressed the wish to find out more, remains inexplicably frustrated by legislation.

The experience of the pre HFEA offspring, a number of whom are now well over thirty tends to support what we had suspected - that the main interest in the search for genetic connections occurs not at 18 but in the late twenties or early thirties. It is at this time that people establish a clear separation from parents and wish to see themselves in some perspective. They begin seriously to contemplate the future. They form deeper personal relationships and begin thinking about becoming parents themselves. Among the post HFEA cohort the "search for connectedness", we may predict, will gather momentum over the next ten years, say around 2020. The most frustrated are individuals who were not told the truth early on, but learned it in their teenage years often following the split-up of their parents. These parents feel doubly guilty both at having harboured a secret they could not in the end keep, and also at the break-down of their relationship. We continue to listen and learn how those conceived through DI feel. Their feelings must always inform and guide our responses, even if what they say is not comfortable to hear.