Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
We are not even pregnant yet and I am already obsessing about the decisions we are making and if they will be potentially damaging to our child. Eeck! On my defense though, the decision that we are currently pondering and agonizing over is probably one of the biggest that we will make (now) in regards for our child. Choosing a donor. Wow, this is incredibly difficult, brain-rattling and frustrating. There is not a sperm bank out there that fits all of our criteria; many of them have bits and pieces that fit our wants and needs. We are really struggling with ID Con.sent donors. Fai.rfa.x has ID Consent do.nors that allow for the child to obtain the donors identifying information when the child turns 18. Which we really like, however; we do not like the price that comes with this service. Cry.biolo.gy has “ID Co.nsent” donors, sort of. When the child is 18 they are allowed to ask the bank to contact their sperm donor to see if the donor is interested in contact with the child. Which is a good option and I think allows for a good safe mediator, however I worry about what will happen if the donor says “no” and the child feels frustrated because they never actually got the chance to attempt to make contact. What types of donors have the rest of you chosen and your feelings on ID Consent don.ors? I would LOVE to have some feedback to help us sort through this.
Other happens over the past week or so…
1. We had our pre-pregnancy meeting with our midwife about two weeks ago. I was so incredibly excited to go to our first doctor’s appointment together. I took off the morning so that I could go with V to the appointment. Unfortunately, I did not get to attend the appointment; I got to sit in the waiting room for an hour and walk back to the examine room to meet the assistant that took temp, blood pressure, and enough to say hello to the midwife as I walked out of the room. I had to be back at work at 10:45 and it was 10:10 when we got brought back to the room. I was very upset. Luckily, I had enough sense to write down a few questions and make a list of blood work that I wanted them to perform on V. V says the appointment went good and she had a good feeling about our midwife. I love our OB/GYN practice because their vision is to have the midwives doing the majority of the OB care and the physicians do more surgery and high risk situations. Love it!
Our midwife is amazing and called later that night to talk to us and I got to ask a few more questions. I loved that she made a personal call in the evening to make sure that we had all the answers to all of our questions. I really feel good about that. I am ALL about some research.
2. Last week V got her first LH surge on our ovulation test strips! YAY! And even better, her temperatures matched the surge perfectly, she spiked two days (or maybe three, I don’t have the calender with me) after she got a positive OPK.
3. We asked to get a prescription of Clomid for our first IUI, to help better our odds. I know it probably seems a bit premature to try Clomid already, however when you are spending $1,000 a month on one attempt, the less attempts the better. Our midwidfe was receptive to getting a prescription and wrote us a prescript on for 50 mg. V got in filled and it is in the house ready to go!
4. V’s blood work came back and it was reported that everything looked great! That was a big relief.
We are getting so close to our big day. V is on CD 24 (DPO 9) and once she starts her new cycle things are going to fly by. I can’t believe that in about 14 days we will be going to do an ultrasound to see how many follicles she has and when our IUI day will be. Just a few more weeks.
Huge Congrats over to Jessie and Greta over at Love + Love = Marriage and to Nutella and Strawberry for the arrivals of their beautiful boys.
Mommies In The Making 
Hi-
I found your blog through some others I’ve been reading, and wanted to tell you about my thoughts on the ID consent donor. Personally, I would not consider anything other than an ID consent donor. True, the sperm banks charge you more for ID consent, but it isn’t THAT much more. Even if it takes you many months to conceive, the total cost difference for ID consent vs. closed ID donor will be in the $1,000 range. That is a very, very small price to pay knowing that you’ll give your child the opportunity to live without constantly wondering who their father is, or if they have siblings.
For me, a big part of the decision came from knowing how frantically some adopted children try to connect with their birth parents. It’s no reflection of their love for the adoptive parents, it’s just that people are curious by nature. I would feel selfish to have denied my future children the chance to know where 1/2 of their DNA came from solely for the purpose of saving money. So…if money is the ONLY thing holding you back from doing an ID consent donor, I would say to just use the ID consent donor. In the long run, it’s really not going to cost that much more. If there are other reasons you would want to consider a closed donor, that’s a different story.
Gayby Rabies,
We are 100% sure that we want to use an ID Consent Donor. That is not really the big question. I am sorry if my post came across that way. It is important that the child have a way to contact a donor. What we are currently debating is whether we use one that allows for the child to contact the donor directly (F.ai.rfax) or use a bank that contacts the donor and does not give the information to the child (Cy.rob.iolog.y and N.W. An.dro.logy) Also, if you read earlier posts you will see that we are not concerned about the inseminations that are in the near future. It was the $4,500.00 we were worried about coming up with the pay for sperm for future siblings (While we are also spending $1,000 a month to get pregnant). But anyway, no, it is not a lot extra in the long run and this is something that we had already realized while doing calculations and that is why we are using an ID Consent donor. It was just deciding between which type. Thanks for your input and we love to hear what others have to say! You made many points that are right in line with our own.
-P and V
I am highly skeptical of any kind of ID-release deal where the donor can opt out. I don’t think they should even call them “ID consent” donors as it creates a false expectation that the donor is likely to agree to contact. I suspect that maybe 75%+ of them probably won’t. This is no better, and possibly worse than having an anonymous donor.
I believe that donor-conceived people have a fundamental right to know who their donor is. Anonymous donation has been *banned* in several countries including the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and New Zealand. By the time your children are 18, anonymous donation will probably have been ended in the USA too, and it could be a huge disappointment if the sperm bank says, “well we got in touch, but he doesn’t want you to know who he is”.
regards, Mark (a donor in the UK in the early 80’s)
Thanks Mark for your comments. Using a ID release where, as you say, the person cannot “opt out” is where my heart has been during this entire process.Thank you for reaffirming what I was already a bit scared of.
-P
For us, there was no question about choosing an open donor. The decision was really really cemented in talking with a 13yo product of AI. She really opened up to me about wishing she had even the tiniest pieces of the missing link…half her DNA. So we were sure to get the audio interview, the baby picture, his handwriting…
Just my $0.02.
Good luck with your upcoming insem!