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looking for perspectivr from known donors and families who have used them

1K views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  mamamacha 
#1 ·
Hey queer parents!

So, you know how everyone knows not to google general symptoms that you experience during pregnancy? Right, because there will be some article that lists all of your symptoms to a T and then tells you that you or your baby is at risk of dying.

Well, there should be a similar warning for queers and googling "known donor stories". All you get are awful stories about donors battling for custody... or angry adult children of donors who feel abandoned. Oh God. Not what I needed.

DP and I are blessed to have been offered sperm by a good friend. He and his wife are very excited about us having children and feel honored that their family will be able to help us do that. But they are a straight couple and have no real context for what known donorship is like! They want to be sensitive to us. They have asked great questions and answered all of ours. One request, is that they want to hear some stories of families created by known donors! Totally reasonable request! I think they want to know about the emotions and questions and situations that come up on all sides! For the parents, for the donor... and what navigating the relationship between donor and child can be like. (Our donor does not want to be a father and we don't want that either. But we are really close with his family, so our children will know him. What can that look like?)

Again, totally reasonable and amazing and understandable. So off I go into google land... and now we are back to "oh god".

Where are these stories? Do you all have any? Or know where to find some? Or, better yet, do any of you have KDs who would be willing to email chat with ours?

Thanks for anything and everything!
 
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#2 ·
I recommend "and baby makes more" a collection of stories about families created by known donors. We read it in preparation for embarking on our journey with our KD. He is a straight married man as well and could not be happier for us! It can and does work out! Good luck!
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by granite View Post

I find blogs to be a great resource for this sort of thing, because it's the experiences of real folks in the real world... Off the top of my head, here are a few written by parents whose baby-making involved a KD:


... And I'm sure you/your KD could easily find more. Best of luck!
Thanks for the shout out! (I'm Mondays with Mac). We were really really blessed to have found our known donor (who our son calls dad). It's been an interesting ride but we are incredibly happy and grateful. I wish you guys lots of luck!!
 
#8 ·
Good friends have an elementary-school age daughter with a friend of theirs as KD. He's married, he and his wife didn't want kids. They live in different cities now. The relationship is kind of uncle and aunt like, and they keep in good touch. They will never end up in the newspaper or on the internet because why would the tabloid-consuming general public want to hear about a sweet family that works?
 
#9 ·
We have a known donor. He is a good friend who lives about 4 hours away. The whole experience has been so great, and I think it has been for him too. We started out as friends, but him and his partner have really become like family now. They have an uncle kind of relationship with DD so she calls them her uncles, although of course we'll always be open & honest about the situation as she can understand more. For us I feel good knowing that she has extra people in her life that love her, and they are happy to have her in their life, too. He had always wanted kids but him and his partner decided not to have any because his partner has PTSD and some other issues from military service, and they feel like that takes up too much of their focus, so he feels good that he is passing on his genetic material, and has a kid in his life to have a relationship with and watch grow up. He says that he doesn't have any regrets or "weird" feelings about it, he feels like DD is our kid, he doesn't feel like her dad, although he does love her. We are trying for #2 now, so the situation is clearly working out. I was worried a little bit about if he would feel like the "dad", I didn't really know how things were going to go, but really it has been so great, I feel so lucky to have the family that I have, and I know my daughter is lucky too! It isn't a very common situation really, so I guess that is part of why it is hard to picture, but now that I see how it works it seems very simple and right to me.

Also we have a straight friend who is a sperm donor for a lesbian couple that he doesn't really know but his wife is friends with--both his wife and the woman who he donated to got pregnant on the same cycle! They like across the country from each other, and I don't think they plan on having a super close relationship with the kid, but I think it will be kinda cool for both the kids as they get older.
 
#10 ·
I don't come here much but wanted to answer this. We have a KD for both our kids. He's a friend, and has become a very good friend through this whole thing. He and his partner are our kids uncles. We live 10 minute away from each other and they see the kids regularly - our goal is to get together about once a month, but they have a fabulous DINKs life, so we don't always make that goal. If he and his partner ever have kids I hope the kids will be raised as cousins to ours. Our KD wants kids and always has, but he's donated and been involved with ours with no issues, which I think speaks to how quality of a person he is. It may be that our kids are the only "kids" he ends up having. He has been nothing but appropriate, and I know it hasn't always been easy. When he needs space he takes what he needs, so there have been times when he's backed off a little. We leave how he wants to manage telling the people in his life up to him, so while his mom has met the kids, and they both look somewhat like him, he hasn't told her. The kids know he is their donor, which at the moment is no big deal to them. Overall, it's a fantastic situation and I'm very happy to have used a KD. When we started out TTC, ages ago, I actually felt quite strongly against even using a donor who agreed to ID release at 18, but I realized that I just didn't want any questions - I wanted everything to be very clear and transparent for my kids, and I didn't want some "daddy" lingering out there for them focus on. A lot of that was pre-parenting fears. I don't know if that's the story you want. I can talk more about how much I love the KD relationship, how it's a leap of faith and all about trust. Yes, at any moment our KD could decide to make our lives hell. Even with all the protections, with the contracts, with the law on our side, even with marriage, he could hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit and that in itself would tear me apart. But I have these amazing, open, beautiful children who have more people to love them, a friend who has shown me what sacrifice looks like, and it's all good. I will always have to trust that he's going to be on our side and on the side of our family. Getting through those concerns and fears was absolutely worth it for us.

BTW, our KD is also gay and in the military.
 
#11 ·
My partner and I have a baby who was conceived using a known donor. We approached him via a thoughtful email that outlined from the beginning why we wanted to use a known donor, specifically him, and what we were looking for (an "uncle" roll, like any other close family friend, not a parent, legally or emotionally). It took him about two months before he could confidently agree to help us, and he was very communicative about his feelings and his anxieties during his process. One of his main concerns was that because he has no children and is unsure about his own potential parenting future that he would feel great sadness upon meeting our baby. I'm not exactly sure what shifted for him, but eventually he was able to say with confidence that he no longer felt worried about that, and wanted to help us start our family. Now that we have our baby, whom he has never met in person, but who he has interacted with via skype, he has only expressed joy. He has said that, if anything, seeing our baby has only made him want to start his own family. We've had a very positive experience overall.
 
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