SO....yet another post in which I write that we "probably are going to be moving ahead with dIUI".
Has anyone nominated me for a Pulitzer yet?
But I digress.
DH and I have been communicating more recently. I think this is partly due to the counseling sessions and partly due to the passage of time...infertility is no longer a hemorrhaging open wound, it is now a large scabbed area that only bleeds when I pick at it (or when stupid fertile people pick and pick and pick at it). We are both in agreement that dIUI still makes the most sense. When? We are still not sure, depends on the success of DH's doctoral thesis. BUT I just realized there is something so obvious that I can obsess over in the meantime. DONOR PROFILES! OMG! AM I AN IDIOT? SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!
Sorry for the caps, I know it is still early but I shot out of bed like a rocket when I realized this this morning.
Now, I have perused a few profiles before...back when we were first diagnosed with mfi. I was kind of like a blog lurker...just there for information and drama, not for anything I would actually need in my life. Now it might actually be relevant! Like my baby daddy genetic info! For realz!
Umm, those last few lines are now kind of scaring me so just disregard. It is just so exciting to think that there will come a month (Feb at the earliest, July/August at the latest) in which I could actually get knocked up! For all the trying and different positions, and preseed, and ovulation sticks, and fertility microscopes (please don't buy this it was a joke), and BD when the inlaws were in the next room, and not drinking (gasp!) during the 2ww, and obsessively tracking every cramp...all of those months were for naught!!!!! It was not to be and almost impossible for us to have succeeded. When we move forward with dIUI I know the very first month I have like a 30% chance of getting KU (is that right? I think I read that somewhere). VERY COOL. I have been out of the actively ttc circle for so long now that charting cycles seems so awesome. To be doing ANYTHING seems amazing.
So now to the meat and potatoes of this post....to all of you that have used donor sperm or donor eggs....How do you choose a donor? Try to find physical characteristics close to your spouse? Personality traits? Career/education? A donor that looks like you so no one tries to make the kid out to look like your spouse?
Also, what sperm bank do you use? Does the RE's office tell you? How many vials should you buy?
AHHHHH!
Please help. xoxo
Has anyone nominated me for a Pulitzer yet?
But I digress.
DH and I have been communicating more recently. I think this is partly due to the counseling sessions and partly due to the passage of time...infertility is no longer a hemorrhaging open wound, it is now a large scabbed area that only bleeds when I pick at it (or when stupid fertile people pick and pick and pick at it). We are both in agreement that dIUI still makes the most sense. When? We are still not sure, depends on the success of DH's doctoral thesis. BUT I just realized there is something so obvious that I can obsess over in the meantime. DONOR PROFILES! OMG! AM I AN IDIOT? SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!
Sorry for the caps, I know it is still early but I shot out of bed like a rocket when I realized this this morning.
Now, I have perused a few profiles before...back when we were first diagnosed with mfi. I was kind of like a blog lurker...just there for information and drama, not for anything I would actually need in my life. Now it might actually be relevant! Like my baby daddy genetic info! For realz!
Umm, those last few lines are now kind of scaring me so just disregard. It is just so exciting to think that there will come a month (Feb at the earliest, July/August at the latest) in which I could actually get knocked up! For all the trying and different positions, and preseed, and ovulation sticks, and fertility microscopes (please don't buy this it was a joke), and BD when the inlaws were in the next room, and not drinking (gasp!) during the 2ww, and obsessively tracking every cramp...all of those months were for naught!!!!! It was not to be and almost impossible for us to have succeeded. When we move forward with dIUI I know the very first month I have like a 30% chance of getting KU (is that right? I think I read that somewhere). VERY COOL. I have been out of the actively ttc circle for so long now that charting cycles seems so awesome. To be doing ANYTHING seems amazing.
So now to the meat and potatoes of this post....to all of you that have used donor sperm or donor eggs....How do you choose a donor? Try to find physical characteristics close to your spouse? Personality traits? Career/education? A donor that looks like you so no one tries to make the kid out to look like your spouse?
Also, what sperm bank do you use? Does the RE's office tell you? How many vials should you buy?
AHHHHH!
Please help. xoxo
Breathe, okay?
ReplyDeleteFirst, our RE gave us some catalogs, but google works, too. They will tell you how many vials are needed (2 minimum) and what kind (ICI, IUI, etc).
How to choose??? Oh, boy. We originally thought of going biracial, just cuz, LOL, but ended up trying to approximate hubby. It also depends on what you can afford. California Cryobank is wicked expensive, Cryogenic Laboratories not as much. Do you want Open ID that allows contact later? That costs more. Or are you happy with minimal information and total anonymity? You will have to have donor counseling as well.
I hope I didn't just make things worse! LOL. Let me know if you have questions :) Have fun shopping!
Thanks! Our counseling we are doing now is sufficient for our RE's office for the donor counseling, basically they just wanted us to talk out our fears, etc. and make sure we are not crazy, I guess. So that's done.
ReplyDeleteYeah I don't know about whether we would prefer open or not...I think I probably would but it would not be a must-have. We talked about this in counseling and CJ prefers this as well.
Hmm...now to google :)
Oh girl! Do I know where your head is at!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI feel like I could write a novel in response to your post. Would you be open to exchanging phone numbers? It might be easier to chat. Let me know and I'll send you my digits... Maybe we cold get on a three way with Kakunna too! (i would SO SO SO love that!)
So yeah, I freaked about how the heck were we going to choose a donor. The reality was that I only wanted to choose ML. When it came down to it, I told him that I wanted nothing to do with it and wanted him to deal with it. Of course my 'if ocd' persisted and I was logged into the bank website in a matter of hours after telling him that. ha.
I had been pretty set on an open donor. It didn't feel right to me that we would limit the choice of our future children to pursue this connection if they wanted to. But the thought made ML really uncomfortable, so I let it go. We are open with our choice to use donor sperm with our family, and with a few very close friends. We will be open with our children too. I respect the different choices that people have made and based my decision to be open on adoption research.
I actually let a lot go when ML stepped in and started voicing his priorities. It was so much easier to let him make some of those decisions, and then just support him. We ultimately did a search together, loosely matching ML's physical appearance, and then read thru maybe 15-20 donor profiles. We found maybe 8 that we liked and tagged. Our first choice was sold out, but it was easy to move on to a second choice. It took us maybe 2 hours. We used the bank that was recommended by our RE. and had the vials delivered the following week.
When it came down to it, we figured that these donors had already been thru intensive screening, that we would not find ML in one of the profiles, and that there was no right or wrong choice.
We didn't buy any of the additional profile options, although I will probably want to get those to keep in our files. (I wonder if they will give them to us for free now that we have purchased the vials, hmmm, they should!)
There is so much more to say about this process and the thoughts that took over my brain regarding this whole choice and process. There are still a lot of discussions that we need to have about the future, but for today, we are content to let it be what it is.
I do hope that this info helps you. it is not a choice that we ever wanted to make, but we did it, and we feel good about it. (and I hope that at this very moment there are a couple of those little spermies getting it ON with my little eggies.)
love to you as you take this REALLY BIG step forward!
xoxo - Foxy
You and Foxy might have to let me in on that phone call too!
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to write a novel for a comment, but I will tell you that Jeff was more concerned with passing on personality traits, so that's what we looked for. It was a lot harder than matching looks, since "sense of humor" and "ability to have a conversation with a wall" are not listed under hair and eye color, but hopefully we did ok.
I did stumble across this link today while doing some completely unrelated searching. It has a long and impersonal article about choosing, but also a list of cryobanks by state.
http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/donor.html
If you ever want to know more, swing by. I'll gladly share!
I don't have any experience with donor sperm, I just wanted to say good luck with your decision and thank you for your supportive comments on my blog!
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm thankful to have a friend on the suckier side of the wall. I know we'll get over it someday, it just feels like a really long climb to get there. As far as using dIUI, I don't have any experience, but in the coming months I might be able to relate since we'll possibly be doing donor egg. I guess just take it one day at a time and hope that you and your DH can agree on the same donor profile. Best Wishes!
ReplyDelete