Who's Your Donor?

Who's your Donor?

When you are planning to have a child the question most straight fertile couples don't face is who is gonna be your donor. As a lesbian couple or an infertile couple, those are the things you must to ask.

My partner and I both took this question quite seriously. While we were away we came up with a list of possible donors we would want to use. We called it our short list, because, well there were not a lot of people we wanted to ask nor a lot we felt we could ask.

It is very important when selecting the other half of your child's DNA make up to choose carefully. Things we thought once seemed important played little on our selection. Sperm banks are great but the info they offer you, like height, eye color, highest education level completed and the such are not as important to us . What mattered most could only be found in those people you could really get to know. We wanted the sperm bank to be our final option should the people we asked choose to decline our request. Then of course there's the fact that in all of Canada there are only 40 sperm donors total, yup I said 40 donors for all of Canada.

So then it began our short list which was comprised of people we thought were sweet, kind, generous, caring, charismatic, energetic, passionate about anything in life, artistic, fun, funny, good natured, intelligent, compassionate, full of life and love, mature, non materialistic, vivacious, and warm hearted, just to name a few. We thought our list would be very short however in our small group of friends we were able to name at least 7 people we thought fit that. Then came the time to ask, I e-mailed each one of them. Yes I know what a cowardice way to go about it, but how do you ask 7 different people if they would donate the gift of life without it getting weird. Afterwards of course more talks came but the initial e-mails went out. I guess all in all I was afraid of rejection. I didn't want these amazing men to have to say no to my face because I knew the look on it would be of great sadness.

The responses I got were very positive and surprising. Many were very honored to be asked and some considered it in great depth. Those who I had thought would for sure say yes said no, and those who I worried about asking said yes. Now our short list became really short and after more in depth conversations it was down to two individuals who we trusted with our new life. We knew that when the day came and she or he was born they would not contest the birth, they would not sue us for custody and they would allow us to be the parents to this child. In the end now looking back as we discussed our donor, his name had always presented itself in our conversations. No matter how many times we came up with a new name his appeared in the best choice category.
It was a day I will remember always. The day the e-mail came back and they said "let's talk more about it, I would be honored to do it". That is the day that changed our lives forever. We now had a donor lined up, a man who we felt honored to have as our donor.

Then the next e-mail went back, the turkey baster method explanation, but that is another tale.

On a side note one person we asked caused a "red flag" and for those lesbian's out there choosing to use a known donor please listen up. If you are choosing a donor whom you do not want to have an "active" role in the your child's life past sperm giving, then please pay attention to this red flag. If you donor asks "what about the grandparents?, or you get a gut feeling that something just won't turn out right, no matter how much you like them or want a child decline and move on. For us that is what we did with one of the men we were putting on our short list. They wanted to know what type of visitation the grand-parents would get and that word alone caused us to immediately cross him off our list. You see in a "donor" situation the only grand-parents are those of your spouse and you, unless you choose otherwise.