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Feelings about donors.

I was the first person to suggest using a sperm donor. I did this literally the night of my initial diagnosis. While I knew this was an option we could pursue, and I was immediately willing to put it on the table, it doesn’t mean this was going to be without complications.

Somewhere along the way, I recall talking to Andrea about giving birth in the future and the wonderful happiness that would come with meeting the baby when suddenly I was hit with a wave of sadness. I realized in that moment that I felt like the baby would be hers, but not mine. I started wondering what if I didn’t feel an attachment right away? What if it took years for the child to start really communicating with me before I felt like it belonged to me as well?

Then during another discussion, we talked about “Open” vs “Closed” donors. “Open” means the donor agrees to have some form of contact with any children that are born as a result of their donation, once that child reaches 18 years of age. It’s a way for the child to be able to contact the donor to learn more about them if they’re interested, similarly to adoption. As the psychologist told us during our session before we got started, it’s also primarily a way for the child to maintain a source of medical knowledge and history for their own sake as they get older. That way they’ll always know if the donor developed any health concerns over time.

Initially, I was terrified of having an open donor. I was filled with feelings that my child would just up and leave me for their “real dad” in the future. I felt an overwhelming sense of loss at the mere thought. I was scared that I wouldn’t be enough for them. That they’d want more than me as a father. While those were my feelings, my actual thoughts were that I shouldn’t take my future child’s rights and agency away from them. Complicated to say the least.

Thankfully, I have taken time to work through all of those emotions and I feel so much differently than I originally did. I do think I will feel a connection to my child right away, and that they will be “mine” just as much as my wife’s. I also have come to a comfortable place with having an open donor, knowing that our future children should absolutely have the full freedom to choose what they do with that information, and I don’t think they’ll go into it looking for a brand new father. I also don’t think they would cast me aside.

Searching for a donor.

When we had created the accounts on 6(!) different sperm banks, we were feeling overwhelmed at first, completely uncertain where to begin. We spent some time the first night just looking through settings and filters, learning how to use the websites. We also deliberately clicked on donor profiles that had nothing in common to me just so we could learn what is included in a profile and how to navigate it without feeling the added pressure of actually looking for one.

We did this over a few hours, taking a look at all the sites and finding the differences between them all and discovering which sperm banks we did not like. There was one that was completely filled with one specific type of person that is VERY opposite of who I am. Even when we were seriously looking for a donor later on, this website was NOT helpful in any way given the type of donor that they carry.

There are filters for EVERYTHING. Height, Age, Hair, Genetics, Ethnicity, Eyes, Child photos, Adult photos, Blood Type, Education and Areas of study, etc etc.

We were also struck by how incredibly weird this was. It’s like a dating site. You have photos (which I did look at, even though I previously was unsure if I wanted to see the man’s face), you have bios, impressions written by staff members, etc. Sometimes it really felt odd to be reading how the bios tended to “up-sell” the donor and make them all sound amazing. Some of the photos even were of their beach bod. Topless, muscled and tanned, sunglasses, on the beach. Like why? I swear these were ripped straight from a Tinder profile or something. So weird.

One of the most difficult things about this process was the general feeling that persisted in my head that I was “trying to find a replacement for myself”. I know this is not the reality, but it does feel like that at times, and it’s awkward and strange and sometimes it hurts.

Narrowing it down.

Once we felt like we had a good grasp on how to use the sites, on another night about a week later we sat down and constructed shortlists on each sperm bank. We briefly looked at photos, bios, medical info, and decided whether it was close enough to get shortlisted for us to review in great detail at another time. We knew that sperm donations can move quickly, but we didn’t want to stress out about it right away.

I decided that the main thing I cared about was “Conveyance of thought”. I needed to know that this individual was someone who could clearly express themselves in written and spoken word, much like myself. I needed to read something emotive, or listen to his audio interview and truly feel something. And frankly, to make sure it wasn’t just dead air between his ears (and we found a couple of those). Some of the things we found gave nothing expressive in any way.

Ultimately the one filter that I wanted included was the voice interview. I very much longed to hear the donor speak. I find I can learn a lot by just listening to someone talk, and the questions they asked the donors were wonderful conversation starters.

It took a few hours to compile a shortlist on each site that we felt good about, and set them aside for a bit.

Choosing “The One”.

About a week later, we sat down to review our shortlisted donors. Before we started, I asked if there were any brand new donors available and Andrea searched. The first one that we clicked on had some childhood photos that looked good enough to shortlist. But then we found ourselves continuing to read their bio, the medical history, the essay, listening to the audio interview….and before we knew it we had read the entire donor profile and had been constantly pointing out similarities to me, smiling while reading the essay, and laughing along with the donor during the audio interview.

We looked at each other and Andrea said “Did we just do it? Is this the one?” and I replied “Yeah…I think we did.”

This donor was incredibly close to me in soooo many ways. Speech patterns, writing style, his personal values, medical history, demographics, etc.

We did continue to look at a number of other donors that night, but the very first one that had just been added to the site kept calling us back. Something just felt incredibly right. I find it hard to explain but I just remember my whole body feeling “Yes”.

I didn’t know that this was possible to feel, considering all the other searching we had done made me feel weird, uncertain, and at times rather hopeless that a donor would feel “good enough” to me. At this point, we obviously don’t know if Andrea will actually get pregnant using this donor’s vials, and it’s possible we may have to continue to search for a new donor in the future. This makes me feel overwhelmed and scared, but if we got there once, I know we could get there again.

Next: Infertility Part 18: First IUI