Sperm Donor Questions!

[Inquisitive]

I'll start off by saying that I am actually a senior member here on MDC, but want to protect my identity for obvious reasons Many family members are on MDC.

Also, I'm not sure if this is the right place. Mods, feel free to move to another forum if it doesn't belong here!

DH is completely 100% infertile. Does not produce sperm at all period. We conceived our two DCs using donor sperm. Our youngest was conceived on literally the last available vial from this donor. Both DCs are from the same donor.

So, my questions are--We are thinking of having a 3rd, however, there are no more vials from our original donor. How important is a full-sibling? Personally, I have one full-brother and two half-brothers and I never make the distinction in my own life, they are all "brothers" to me, so perhaps I don't see how full-siblingship (I don't think that's a real word!) is important to some. I'm looking for other perspectives.

For what it's worth, our DCs do not know that they were conceived on donor sperm. Do other opposite-sex couples not tell their children? We don't plan to, so I was just wondering. (NO ONE knows they were conceived with donor sperm, and even my dear OB has since passed. Literally, no one but DH and me) I can understand how it would become an unavoidable topic for same-sex couples, but for opposite-sex couples?

Basically, I am just trying to see what kind of problems we may encounter if using a different sperm donor for potential baby #3, if any.

Any insight would be very greatly appreciated!

[milletpuff]

I can't speak to your particular situation, as we are conceiving with donor sperm but we are two women, so the choice to tell or not is taken out of the equation. That said, I think it's incredibly important, for our family, to have that info available and shared with the child. Of course, it is a very personal decision and there are probably people who feel just as strongly AGAINST disclosure as well.

I listened to a podcast recently from a radio program called Creating a Family (I think?). It was free on iTunes. The show is about IF and different issues around family building options. There were a few on the psychology of donor-conceived kids/disclosure, etc, in the same vein as the questions that you are asking. It may be interesting for you to listen to some of those - they had good points and perspectives that had not occurred to me before.

You can also search through old threads on the queer board; there are a lot that talk about similar ideas (of course I understand that there is a fundamental difference in your situation, but I think that some of the questions translate to an extent) - known donor vs unknown, telling kids, etc.

To me, 100% biologic siblings would be nice (though that's a luxury I can't even fathom at this point; I'm just hoping we can get to one...), but not really *important* at all. This is totally informed by my decision to be very very open about the donors though; if there was a chance that a half-sibling might have some characteristic that would bring the story of their conception to light and I didn't want that, that would probably have an effect on my decision.

I hope that you get clarity about what feels right to you!

[colsxjack]

You may want to ask the clinic you bought the sperm from if there is a chance that the donor would be willing to give more samples. I know that some clinics and donors come out of "retirement" for siblings but do not provide any more samples to others. It cant hurt to ask.

[Pearl1]

Edited by Pearl1 - 2/7/11 at 4:00pm

[quantumleap]

Value of full siblingship? We've put it pretty high on the list. That said, if you were unable to get another vial, *I* would be comfortable picking a new donor and commiting to trying for #4. If you are really committed to never disclosing, I think it would be important to find a second donor who is as close as possible, physically, to your first. Look at family history too. ie: I look like a classic Scottish woman - reddish hair, freckles, green eyes - but my father is metis and my sister, although she has blond hair, can completely pass as metis herself. Genetics can be a pot shot. You might have some explaining to do if #3 comes out with a completely different skin tone, or a chin dimple that no one else has, etc.
Are you connected to any donor sibling registries, or are you willing to be? Often you can find another couple who bought six vials from your same donor, only needed two and is now sitting on four more, etc, etc. Worth a try, for sure.

On disclosure?
We're a hetero couple. DP is effectively sterile (we *could* have tried sperm aspiration followed by IVF with ICSI, but all other issues aside, any sons would have had his infertility issues and we just couldn't do that). We have a dd through a donor, and her full sibling will arrive sometime around Christmas. We'd love to have a third with the same donor, but he and his family have decided to take more permanent birth control measures, which we completely respect.
Anyway. You should read a book called "Lethal Secrets". The authors are Annette Baran and Reuben Pannor. It's from the 80's, and as DP and I discussed it, we thought it was interesting and it did validate some of our own philosophies, but mostly we just lamented the fact that it was so OLD because surely no one refuses to disclose in this day and age! Apparently there are still a few secret keepers out there.
It's your family, your decision, and your choice, and I would certainly never go up to your children and tell them about their donor conception knowing that you want to take that secret to the grave. However, in the gentlest way, I think you are doing them a great disservice by not telling them.
They have a history. They have a donor. They likely have half siblings out there. You say you don't distinguish between your own full and half siblings, and yet you don't want your children to have the opportunity to seek out their half siblings should they chose to do so later in life?
All the trust and physcological issues aside, the whole secret aspect of this is highly unlikely to remain a secret forever and ever, amen. Medical science is far, far more involved with our regular lives these days than it was back in the day when some people did manage to hide these things. If one of your kids needs or donates blood, bone marrow, a kidney, if they study genetics in any way (the chin cleft I mentioned above is a dominant trait, if neither you nor your husband has it, are your kids going to put two and two together?), if, if, if...
Our dd is only 21 months old. We've already told her more times than we can count that she has a donor. I expect there will be some things she (and we!) have to work through as a result, but there is absolutely no question in either of our minds that disclosure is the only option.
On the other hand, I would also tell my child if she were at risk for a serious genetic disease, or if she had had a sibling who died, or any number of things that I know people don't always tell their children about.
Obviously I feel sort of strongly about this whole issue. DP and I chose to conceive the way we did. DD and her sibling came in to being, just like the rest of us, without a consultation beforehand! I think part of making that huge decision involves sharing the information that will give our kids at least a small measure of the roots beneath them. We hope and pray that it will always be normal for them, that it will never be a shock and that they will have the time, grace and support they need to mourn and come to terms with any loss they feel associated with OUR decision. Same thing with any feelings they may have about their half siblings and their donor (good and bad!)!

I hope you can find another vial of "your" sperm, and that everything works out for you guys.

[contactmaya]

In considerations of using a sperm donor, you might want to read this article written by
Stephanie Blessing, a donor conceived person.

http://familyschola rs.org/2010/ 09/19/misconceiv ed-misconception s-about-donor- conception/

Also, check out the donor sibling registry, and the yahoo group
[e-mail]
Maya

[Shanny2032]

I am a SMBC, disclosure is not an issue obviously for me. She is not yet 2 and we already have open conversations about her having a "donor but not a Daddy". I cannot imagine not telling but I am also not married to her father, which is what your husband is - their father, not just some random guy. What I mean is that - I try not to judge. I think you should be honest but that is my opnion and it is your family. I know many donor siblings from our donor and 2 are hetero/not telling. At first I was very uncomfortable but like I said it is their family and I am sure they are doing what they feel is best. I always feel like it will come out and that children somehow know these things on some level so no good can come of keeping it a secret.

Having said all of that, I second the suggestion to do to the dsr and smbc sibling registry. You can also see if your bank has something available. I have a few more vials of my daughters donor and if I try for a sibling I will probably not continue when those vials are gone. I am 38 already and another round of ttc for months on end doesn't sound like fun to me. I'll take it as a sign if I can't give her a full sibling. I don't know why it is important to me, it just is.

[colsxjack]

Well. I am a female-to-male transgender person, but nobody knows unless I tell them. So, I guess I am half way between hetero and same sex parents. That said, we had to use donor sperm and I am/was OK with this from the start because I knew well before I was even ready to have kids that I would never have the ability to impregnate my wife. Maybe it is different for a guy who feels broken or something along those lines for being unable to impregnate his wife. Or maybe you have to deal with religious family members who could not accept a donor child?! Anyway. I think that you have to do what is right for your family, but maybe you could try to let go of some of the shame felt around having to use a donor. There is no shame in getting help.

I feel for your husband, and for you. But I am also one who will tell our DD and any other kids we have that they are from sperm donation. I think it is a pretty big secret to hold. I am of the belief that we all have a right to knowledge about who we are and how we came about. There is/should be no shame in having to use a sperm donor.
But if you didn't want anyone to now, there are still ways to allow your children to know. I would in that case just wait to tell them for when they are old enough to not blurt out personal stuff to everyone...but still young enough to not get weirded out by the situation. I think it will be important to let them know that you are keeping it from family members because some people just don't understand...instead of making it so that they should feel ashamed about who they are.

We have decided to tell our kids. And we used a donor that was willing to become known to our children at an appropriate age if the child chooses. This is also the reason I would like kids from the same donor. I would hate for them to grow up and choose to meet the guy and one kid have a cool donor while the other has a not so cool donor. If the donor is going to be cool or be a dude I just want all the kids to have it equally.

Good luck.

[marsupial-mom]

I don't think 100% sibling is important. Certainly, you will not find any significant amount of scientific data that suggests there's any serious benefit. Children need love, protection, opportunity, stability, etc... Not 100% siblings.

In regards to telling or not telling: please consider the liklihood that this sperm donor has fathered other children. Your children might meet and form relationships with them. Wouldn't you rather be honest with them before something like that happens than after?

[AKEarthMama]

I'm sorry if this is a bit long....I completely understand where you are coming from Inquisitive- DH is also 100% infertile as well. It has been a long and hard journey for us to decide to use donor. DH is almost 30, I am 27- for all intents and purposes still young yes, but for someone who has been off the pill and actively trying for four years..it's been an eternity.
Little back story- I have ferility issues as well, irregular cycles, annovulatory cycles, one blocked tube etc...tried for a couple years on our own before going to a doc since "hey we're young, young folks aren't infertile...ha." Finally went to doc who was a quack- didn't want to look at my two years of charts, wanted to put me on clomid before even doing a SA on dh, before HSG on me, before anything, argh. I'm not one for being on meds and am kinda the epitome of all things natural and good so obviously that doc was out.
Found a good doc, discovered dh's azoospermia and here we are.
We discussed everything from adoption(I have apoted siblings so for me this one is a given- and we would still like to adopt eventually, but he has a definite need to "go through" the whole pg experience- almost even more so than I...which I gotta admit I think is pretty gd cute!) to embryo donation (so no genetic link to either of us) to sperm donation, to IVF with sperm aspiration(which we were given VERY low chances of success for)....all of this is of course out of pocket. DH is a police officer, and I am a small business owner, so obviously not fiscally able to spend hundreds of thousands.
We (he) went back and forth with it all, I was pretty open to any and all of it, probably most of that comes from my unorthodox family. His family though is VERY catholic, when we started going through all the infertility stuff, he told his mom, and her response was "well as long as a baby is half you and half him, because otherwise it's just unnatural and wrong." I hung up with her and cried my eyes out. This is a woman whom I love and adore, and she has just told me our children, her grandchildren would be unnatural. ugh.
Never told her we were considering donor, this was just her response to all the testing we were going through.
Fast forward (sorry longwinded) I finally told dh, does not matter to me which path we take to our child, I am ready to become parents, I am okay with any that we talked about, and know at the end of the day it's about being parents, it isn't about how your child is created or comes to you. He was the one who was struggling with the whole "can't get my wife pg, not a man" etc things, that are so normal for men going through this. Therefore I felt like it was him who needed the control of deciding how our child would come to us.
We have chosen to do IUI with donor.
We are convicted in this decision, though we know many of those around us do not support it. I know that he is okay with it (excited even!) and I am as well, and well that's all that matters. We purchased our vials yesterday and can't wait to start trying
His one condition on this decision was that he did not want to disclose to others our decision. This was a struggle for me at first as I come from a very open family in which adoption was such a large part and was always discussed. He explained to me though that he just could not handle the struggle with his mom and others in his family who have not hidden their feelings that "all this" is completely un-needed and ridiculous, "either you have children or you aren't meant to"...they all of course never had to deal with the heart ache of infertility.
So, for the sake of my dh, who has made it so clear already that this will be our child, and our child alone, that he is daddy no matter what...and for me who was raised in a family where more of my siblings were adopted than not, where mom and dad are mom and dad- doesn't mean they created you, just that they love and care for you and would do anything in the world for you. For us, for our child, we have decided to not disclose.
Will we decide to tell our child/children in the future...perhaps. But because of our family situations, I do not think that it is likely. Hetero couples who fear that it's a big secret, those who it will eat up if they don't tell, if you fell so strongly that your children must know, then it is important for you to be honest, because they will know if you are fervently hiding something...but that is your choice, and this is ours.
Our child will be our child, simple as that.

[quantumleap]

Originally Posted by AKEarthMama

His one condition on this decision was that he did not want to disclose to others our decision. This was a struggle for me at first as I come from a very open family in which adoption was such a large part and was always discussed. He explained to me though that he just could not handle the struggle with his mom and others in his family who have not hidden their feelings that "all this" is completely un-needed and ridiculous, "either you have children or you aren't meant to"...they all of course never had to deal with the heart ache of infertility.
So, for the sake of my dh, who has made it so clear already that this will be our child, and our child alone, that he is daddy no matter what...and for me who was raised in a family where more of my siblings were adopted than not, where mom and dad are mom and dad- doesn't mean they created you, just that they love and care for you and would do anything in the world for you. For us, for our child, we have decided to not disclose.
Will we decide to tell our child/children in the future...perhaps. But because of our family situations, I do not think that it is likely. Hetero couples who fear that it's a big secret, those who it will eat up if they don't tell, if you fell so strongly that your children must know, then it is important for you to be honest, because they will know if you are fervently hiding something...but that is your choice, and this is ours.
Our child will be our child, simple as that.

I know this is such a tender topic, but there is more to this than your child simply being your child. Yes, he/she will be your child! But, he/she will also have a donor. My parents think we're a bit nutty, but are completely in love with our dd and have never said anything negative (aside from the fact that they completely don't understand infertility and told us that they wouldn't make the same choice to use a donor), and dp's parents live in a land of complete denial where they constantly bring up the fact that dd looks just like x member of their family, or has x trait just like x person in their family, etc, etc. So, I don't at all have the history that you do of family who is outright disapproving. Everyone has the right to keep the secrets they keep. This is bigger than just you and your husband though.
What if your child finds out about his donor conception and as a result feels that you guys were too ashamed of his story and too afraid that your dh's family would find out to share the truth?
Equating this to you having adopted siblings and therefore knowing that it's not about the genetic ties is a little wonky. Your adopted siblings knew about their adoptions. It sounds like they also felt completely a loved and integral part of the family. But, they knew they had biological parents out there somewhere.
I'm not saying you need to announce your decision to your in-laws or anything, but is there a way that you can be open about it with your child without outright saying something to your in-laws? I'd be really uncomfortable with keeping the secret just so that my in-laws could love a kid based on an outright lie, especially since said kiddo should really have a right to some basic information about his genetic origins.
And now I'm going to run away and hide somewhere, cause I'm really, really not aiming to be critical here.

[AKEarthMama]

No need to run and hide selkat ;-)
We are each and every one entitled to our own beliefs, and one of the beauties of forums is being able to get different points of view. I realize that dh and I are probably not the norm and go a bit against the grain in our decision...however for now we are very convicted in it. That doesn't mean that we won't share with our child/children where they came from eventually, and it certainly does not mean that we are ashamed of our choice. It's just that for right now, our heads need to not be consumed with the criticisms and negativity that would surely come from my in-laws and a few other uninformed and unsympathetic folks in our lives. We have been fighting the uphill fertility battle for years and have found not much support, and too many criticisms from those we have shared with. I do wish that I could be open with them about this choice, but it is simply not possible.
Sorry if I was a bit unclear about the donor/adoption paralells I drew(not enough coffee I'm sure!)- I do understand completely that there is a huge difference between the two, mainly in our case disclosure vs. nondisclosure the only point I was trying to make is that it is love, not purely genetics, that makes up a family.
I am also now helping my teenage brother through trying to locate his birth family, in a closed state adoption, there is really not much you can do to find people who do not want to be found. Watching his heartache as he knows his birthmother is out there, and that he has at least one sibling, but we will probably never be able to find them...with an anonymous donor, it's not much different.
This is not a decision we have come to lightly, and it may be one that changes in the future, and it is certainly not one looked upon favorably by society...but after long discussions with both our RE and counselor, we have determined for us, for now, it will not be something that we share. It is something we can choose to share in the future, but it isn't something you can un-tell.

Inquisitive- sorry I just realized I never answered your first question...
Genetics can be such a grab bag really, I have one "full blooded" (hate terms like that!) sibling and we could not possibly look more different than each other, and I have many friends who have 3 or more kids, same parents, and all the kiddos look different...so as far as appearances go I would think as long as the other donor resembles the first, and your dh and the blood types etc were the same you certainly could...but as far as genetics and such down the line if god forbid one sibling needed something of another it would then get tricky I suppose. This is something dh and I have been discussing quite a bit as of late and trying to decide how many vials to buy.

Best of luck whatever decision you make

[Buzzer Beater]

Originally Posted by Inquisitive

For what it's worth, our DCs do not know that they were conceived on donor sperm. Do other opposite-sex couples not tell their children? We don't plan to, so I was just wondering. (NO ONE knows they were conceived with donor sperm, and even my dear OB has since passed. Literally, no one but DH and me) I can understand how it would become an unavoidable topic for same-sex couples, but for opposite-sex couples?

Just putting in my 2 cents here... I have a child from a donor egg. My first instinct was not to tell. After talking to a counselor and reading up on the subject we have decided to disclose (which was DH's preference all along). From what I can tell from a forum I am on, most couples who use donor eggs disclose at least to the child. Apparently "they" say it's best for the child, especially if there is any way they can find out later. I don't know how much stock I put in counselors and shrinks... but there it all is. It makes me nervous to even think about telling- my family doesn't know yet- and I have issues with the loss of my fertility. I'm rambling here, babe is crying and I need to go nurse her... I would choose what's best for my dd over my own personal comfort. And shit will hit the fan when my family finds out, and they will, probably from dd. Yes, these days most opposite sex couples tell, IME.