How Comfortable/ casual was your known donor with saying yes?

[Snapdragon]

Hi-

We are waiting to ask our first choice known donor if he will donate his sperm to us. We have to wait about 2 weeks till he gets back from a trip, which gives me way too much time to speculate and wonder.

So since many people here have experience with asking men for donor sperm- I am trying to get a feel for how the people you asked felt about it?

Did they feel a strong attachment to the idea of their sperm being raised by someone else? Or did they feel casual about giving it and letting it go?

What about once the baby arrived. Did anyone find their donor was surprisingly attatched, and conversely, did many people find their donor able to remain unattached?


Also- when your donor said yes, then did you ask him to have any blood tests or semen analysises done?

Did you compensate him financially?
Or were most people just happy to help?

I am trying to get a feel for how casual this can be to the one who is donating. We are hoping he will say yes so I am thinking about how he may react.

[megincl]

Our donor actually offered sperm to my wife before she and I were even together. He offered it for "when she was ready." So, that made the entre easier for us once the time really came. When the time came, though, we had many serious conversations about ALL the particulars (good old lesbian processing, you know?). So that was not in the least bit casual, although I know he was comfortable with it, if the distinction makes sense.

Once Quinn was born, our donor, X, was in love. They have a very close relationship, though we do live on opposite sides of the country. The first year was a bit hard for X as he didn't know if he could let himself fully love Q without feeling a sense of loss or something being missing. But we've travelled the ever-changing path together, with much conversation, etc.

In terms of "raising the sperm," so to speak, he was quite clear that we would be the parents, make all the parenting decisions, etc. And I could not feel more honored or respected by him in terms of our parenting, which is wonderful! :

We did have a donor agreement drawn up by a lawyer and it stipulated things like us making all the parenting decisions. It also stipulated that we would pay him ($50 I think?), which makes it more of a business transaction which ultimately helps to support you if/when you are doing a second-parent adoption. So the legal side of things was really for that.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

Good luck!
megin

[carmen358]

Our KD also offered to be a donor to me before I was with DP. He and I are friends but not best friends and never really saw each other all that much in the past 10 years - though always felt close when we did spend time together. We used to see each other more often years ago. I was talking about wanting a family some day and he said "I'd be willing to help!" which I found so incredibly generous.

Fast forward about 3 years and we suddenly connected again right when DP and I were looking for a KD. I found it really hard to ask (it suddenly seemed like such a ridiculous question to ask!! lol) but I did it and he said yes right away. We had 2 or 3 serious conversations about it and then came up with a contract. He is very easy going and seems quite casual now that we've started it. He is in a long term relationship and him and his girlfriend definitely want to have kids but they aren't ready right now. He will remain my friend but will not parent the child at all or have a 'father' or even 'uncle' role in the child's life. We have decided to just take things as they come....we've prepared everything the best we can at this point but know that things can change so we'll deal with that if/when it comes up.

I think it was easier for us because KD and I had had that conversation years ago...so it wasn't a total shock.

I asked him to have full blood work before we started (he was fine with that) - the "standard pre baby workup" but I didn't ask him to have a semen analysis done.

We didn't pay him anything.

[Raene]

Our KD offered after we had asked if he knew of anyone who might be interested (he works at a college). We never in a million years expected him to offer, since he's married and they are pretty religious.

He offered to do it for free, but later after reading the contract decided that he'd feel more comfortable to be paid $30. I thought he meant $30 each time, which I was more than okay with, but he actually meant $30 per month, no matter how many times we wanted to inseminate. It was awesome.

He made it clear that he wanted no part in any of it other than the donation aspect which makes me feel good. He's never once referred to it as his kid or anything...really, really great. I'm sort of sad b/c he wants us never to tell the child, ever. He wants to remain anonymous and not have the child come looking for him. It's sort of sad, in a way, but in other ways I think it's easier than having a donor who wants to be a part of it all. I don't think DP could handle that.

[Disco Infiltrator]

Our KD offered in a very joking manner months before we started to TTC. DW and I pretty much had an "ewwwww" reaction. I don't know when we started considering him seriously. I was in charge of asking him because he was my friend to start with, which was hilarious because he and I are both pretty good at talking about nothing. I finally asked him at the end of a phone conversation. He said "yes" immediately except he needed to ask BF. A week later we had a "yes" for sure.

We had as much STD testing done as possible. He gets tested for HIV once per year anyway. He's monogamous.

Our KD has been wonderful about letting go of any parenting feelings he has. He's very clear that we're the parents and he's not. If it's been hard, he's never shared that with us. I love him so much for this. He didn't see us or DS for a month after DS's birth, his own decision, so maybe he was working through some stuff. He and his BF are great uncles.

We offered to compensate KD but he refused.

Good luck!

DI

[Snapdragon]

We had to/ chose to ask our known donor via email which is kindof akward. The reason is that he is out of the country and every cycle that passes feels like a wasted one- so we did not want to wait for another month to know if he even would.
So we emailed him 3 days ago and no response yet. We hope that means he is considering it but it is a pretty huge thing to ask someone.

I am trying to think of it as a good possibility still.
When I try to think of anyone else to ask I just come up blank.
And meanwhile I am inching towards ovulation on my 18th cycle of ttc and a sperm has yet to enter into me.
Yes I am very woe is me pity party about this lately

[CrunchySmurf]

Our KD was way awesome about it. To save us all the awkwardness, I asked him via email. I just *very* basically told him what we wanted, let him know how much we valued his friendship and didn't want this to interfere with that, and told him to take as much time to think it over as he wanted. I said if he decided he was willing to even consider it, let us know, and we would get together to talk it through more. I emailed him on Thursday. He responded that same day and thanked us for the offer and asked to have the weekend to think it over. He said he would get back with us early the next week.

He got back with us the next Tuesday and gave is a tentative, but likely, yes. He said he had a few questions and basically wanted more details, but he was strongly leaning yes. I set up dinner and we all got together. His questions were basically technical (how would it work?) and legal/parental (what would his obligations be?). We answered his questions and gave some more details about the whole scope. He gave us our official yes before we left that night.

If it has been difficult for him, he has not expressed that to us.

He actually seems VERY positive and enthusiastic about it. He is excited for us to become parents. He is very clear that it will be *our* baby. He seems totally fine with that.

We are paying all costs (medical, legal, etc.) and will be compensating him for the actual donation too. He seemed surprised about that, but honestly, with what he is doing for us, I can't imagine *not* compensating him something. But that is just us.

He is being fully tested for STD's/HIV. He will be doing an at-home male fertility test (SA) -- we decided to go that route b/c I couldn't find a GP that did SA, and I didn't want to spring for a RE.

I'm just barely started on this process, but I'll be happy to answer any other questions about *our* journey, if you want.

[katharinerose]

DW asked our KD over the phone, since they are closer. This was pretty far in advance of when we'd intended to start, which was good since he needed time to think about it. He's young (22 when we asked, I think, and at that point no LTR/kids in the near future), so I think that was part of why he wanted a lot of time to think things over. But I still can't think of any other guy I know who I'd rather combine genes with. It was a good two or three months before he got back to us with a yes answer.

I think it helps for him that we're going through a bank. There's no immediate moment of "I'm passing off my sperm to make someone else's kid." He donated over a year ago now, and we're just getting started with insems. I'm not sure how he'll feel once the baby arrives, but honestly, I don't think it'll be a big deal. But that's just our KD. (And if he did want a role in the kid's life other than friend-of-the-family-we-don't-see-as-much-as-we'd-like, I would have no problem with that.)