Picking a donor

ads252

This maybe a stupid question but how did you all pick your donors? I feel as if we are taking a less of an interest on this part of the progress and want to hear thoughts . Thanks all!!

lamaitresse

We have yet to pick a donor. Part of this is because we've had some complications (surgery). The way my doctor explains it, once we are ready to TTC, we'll meet with a "sperm broker" (his words! LOL!) who will help us find the perfect donor, arrange to have the vials sent to the hospital, etc.

I think this process might be unique to our hospital... everyone else seems to have a different experience.

ads252

Awesome thank you!!!

ATXmommas

It's been a rough couple of weeks around here, so not sure how chatty people are feeling tonight. Here are a couple of threads about cryobanks if you are interested…

https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/comment/76251517/

https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/comment/76464552/

As for us, my wife is Latina and we wanted a Latino donor, which narrowed things down quite a bit for us from the get-go.  I don't know how much searching around you have done yet on any cryobank websites, but it's kinda like shopping for clothes as weird as that sounds.  There are all sorts of filter criteria that you can search by to narrow down your results.  It's a pretty daunting process for sure!

2MamazInSeattle

Yeah it has been a rough few weeks around the board. But here are a few thoughts:
- Intelligence was important, demonstrated via education and written essays etc.
- We wanted average height and weight
- We wanted brown eyes and hair, if possible
- We looked at our ethnicities, but in the end that wasn't super important
- Proven pregnancies (and if I could go back, I'd want proven live births)
- Willing to be known when the kid is 18 (we didn't want to deprive them of that if they wanted it)
- The most important thing for us was that it was someone we thought we'd like. That is, if this kid someone inherited his personality, that we'd dig it.
- You should get CMV tested; if you are positive, you can choose any donor; if you are negative, you should choose a negative donor.

Cost wasn't a big deal to us since we did IVF and only needed one vial total and knew that from the start, but that can be a consideration especially if you are doing multiple IUIs each cycle. I narrowed the pool with the above criteria to about 30, then paid the $$ to see childhood photos and hear interviews etc. I handed it over to J and she narrowed it down to 4. I had one that was my favorite and it happened to be 1 of her 4 - so he was it.

Hope that helps!

StacyLH24

We are getting ready to pick a different donor. What mattered the first time around doesn't necessarily matter as much now. I am doing all the searching, picking a few and then picking the final one with my wife.

As I will be carrying, I'm trying to pick donors who are similar to her in most aspects.

In the beginning, I looked at as many sperm banks as Google would give me. First narrowed it down to what we could reasonably afford and went from there. I ended up with NW Cryobank.

We are picking only open ID donors and those who have already had a proven pregnancy.

Hope that is helpful. For what it's worth, I was very overwhelmed in the beginning. I did all of my research well before we actually started TTC because I figured it might take a bit to get through. I made notes on all perspective banks so that I wouldn't have to constantly re-check websites for basic info. Follow your gut. If you start with one bank and don't feel comfy, switch. That's what happened for me when we first started.

YBnormal85

When we were " sperm shopping" we had donor health and intellect as our top two items of importance. We initially thought we would try to find a donor with brown hair and blue eyes like DW,but it narrowed our choices down too much so we stretched that idea. Once we picked our favorties we ordered the extended health history as well as his childhood photos. We ended up going with a college student who had good health in his family and adorable wavy hair and dimples

KH826

We ended up selecting 2 different donors over the course of our TTC journey. We did 3 IUIs with our first donor, and when none of those attempts were successful, our RE suggested that we switch donors. The main criteria that we searched for each time was the same; however I will note that in picking the second donor, we were a bit less critical and obsessive about it.

Here are the main criteria that we looked for:

• Hair and eye color similar to my wife (since I am carrying)
• Similar ethnic background to my wife (her family is Italian and German, so we looked mainly for European heritage)
• Healthy donor with limited health issues in his family (i.e. if a donor had 2 or 3 grandparents with heart disease, we would not select that donor)
• Strong intelligence and communication skills (we mainly looked for donor's with at least a Bachelor's degree, but I think this is less important... we read the donor's personal statements, and it was important to us that the person could communicate well and seemed to be intelligent)
• The wild card was what I call my wife's X factor rating... she wanted someone creative, open-minded, not high-strung... I am very much a type A personality, and my wife is not. She is very creative and much more laid back than I am. I think selecting a donor that was more like her personality wise was less about ensuring that our future children have a balance of personality from a DNA perspective, and more about the fact that she wanted to feel like she could relate to the donor. That was important to her. So while the other criteria were relatively vague and cast a fairly wide net, she had the ultimate power of veto based on her overall impression of the donor's personality.

I will say that the first time we selected a donor, we planned out a night for it, we ordered take-out, and we sat on the couch huddled around my wife's laptop reading donor profiles together for hours. It felt like an emotional process and we cried after we made our order for our first 3 vials and had them shipped to the RE's office.

The second time that we selected a donor, we were 4 months into our TTC process. We had already been through a month of testing and 3 failed IUIs. I was already on fertility meds. We were settling in for what we thought could be a long road ahead. And while 3 failed IUIs in retrospect is not really a long, horrible, ordeal to go through... at the time it felt like that, in the moment. So when we were selecting a new donor we were feeling a bit defeated. That time, I browsed donor profiles online and put together a list of 4 or 5 that I liked and felt matched our criteria. I emailed the list to my wife, and of the 4 or 5, she told me the one that she liked the best. I agreed with the one that she picked, and that was that.

Anyway, I know this is a really long answer to a seemingly simple question, but my point is that everyone's experience is different, and every time you pick a donor it is different. If we had gone on to pick a 3rd donor, that would have likely been a different experience as well. My only advice is to have an open mind, communicate well with your partner, and be willing to compromise. Also, for me, the second we ordered the sperm and it had shipped, I forgot about the donor entirely. I can only remember about 50% of what I read about this person, and that is how I want it. In the end, the donor for us is a means to and end and I don't think about him as a person so much at this point. So don't fret about picking the right one. There really isn't such a thing. The right baby will pick you when it is time!

valeriegp

Our top three concerns were: 1. Similar look to my DP (I carried) so we paid attention to hair and eye color, and to some extent skin tone. 2. ID willing at 18 3. Smart. This didn't have to be in terms of a completed degree, but based on answers and test scores, etc. We also paid attention to things like interests and hobbies. Like someone else said, we wanted someone we thought we'd get along with IRL. One thing we did differently than most: we didn't buy his adult photos until I was pregnant. We had baby pics, a silhouette, and the staff impressions and descriptions, but we were on a budget and that was one way we handled that. Paying more for the ID option was more important. We did get the adult and "lifetime" pics after I was pregnant (and no surprises!) but I know to some people that sounds totally crazy!

KH826

I would like to add that we have not seen any photos (baby, adult or otherwise). That was our choice. I had a picture in my mind of what the donor looked like based on description, and that was all I needed. I don't want to look at our baby and see the donor's face. I don't want to walk down the street and see someone and say "wow, that looks like our donor"... for me, I had no interest in seeing any photos, and my wife agreed. I know a lot of people feel differently about this, but this was just our perspective.

Jeveritt11

We did an at home insemination with a KD. He was a best friend of mine for 12 years and he offered and after much consideration DP and I took him up on his generous offer. He and DP have a lot of similar characteristics, which is one thing we were looking for. We also like the thought of knowing his medical history. We have a 1 month old little girl and from the minute she was born people have not only said she looks like me but that she looks like DP also.

Amber&Reva

@KH826 R wanted to see adult photos at first but I was really against it for the same reasons that you are.  I didn't want to look at our baby and see the donor.  I wanted to look at our baby and see our baby.