Previous: Infertility Part 15: Final Diagnosis

As I mentioned in my last post, once my own final diagnosis was complete, we were able to move forward with our next steps at the fertility clinic. This process went lightning fast compared to all other aspects thus far. They were in touch very quickly to book appointments for us and get some final testing for Andrea completed. The following all occurred in June 2023. This post mostly just furthers the timeline for any of you who are curious, but doesn’t deal with too much heaviness or emotions.

We had the choice of paying for genetic testing, to find out what diseases that Andrea carries within her DNA. The main reason for doing this would be so that we do not choose a sperm donor that is also a carrier of the same genes. This helps to avoid unneeded risk to the child, as there is a much higher risk of the child being negatively affected.

We opted to go ahead with this testing, feeling that we would much rather have the knowledge and be able to make a fully informed decision when it came to the donor and their genetics. This test was performed at the fertility clinic itself, which was actually the first time either of us had actually been there physically. Andrea got her blood drawn there and the sample needed to be sent to a specific testing company in the US. This test took about 2.5 weeks to get the results.

Then Andrea had one more blood test, to check for CMV which is apparently a very common virus that many of us get at some point in our life. If she had never been infected with this previously and if she gets it during pregnancy, the child could be affected by various medical complications over the first few years of life.

We also had what I began to call our “Legally Mandated Counselling Session”. There is a legal requirement to attend one session of infertility counselling with a registered clinical psychologist. We had no idea what to expect for this, and obviously it made us feel like there was some kind of test we had to pass in order to move forward. We were both mildly worried that this person was going to suddenly declare us completely incapable of raising a human.

Thankfully that’s not at all what it was. We really just chatted with the psychologist about the future. They wanted to make sure we were looking at sperm donors who are “open” donors, meaning that our child would have the opportunity to know more about the person in the future if they’d like to, and also seek out any new medical developments in the donor’s life that our child might need to know about as they become adults themselves.

They also talked to us about what it would be like to talk to our child about how they were conceived, and even how to chat with people and strangers later in life. We were taught ways to mitigate unwanted comments and how to respond when questions are asked.

It was so wonderful to speak with a professional who completely understands all the aspects of the emotional toll that this journey takes, and knows what would come in our future if we are able to have a child. We both really appreciated this session, and once again proves how wonderful a counselling session can be, and how much can be learned.

The very next day after the counselling session, we had our actual orientation with the fertility clinic to discuss the steps involved to get us set up to purchase sperm, risks of multiple births due to the medication Andrea will be on, etc. It was a relatively short appointment. Both of us were at work and did this via a conference call. It was about 20 minutes or so to talk about the basics and ask some questions.

Afterwards, we were sent all the information needed to start creating accounts on the websites of sperm banks, which is really when the power and timing completely was in our control for the first time in this whole journey. We won’t really be talking too much about the process and selection of a sperm donor unless we actually have a pregnancy to share at some point, but we will continue to share as time goes on. At this point, it really does feel like starting a whole new leg of the journey.

Next: Infertility Part 17: Sperm Donors