Donor decision making process

sarahjeri · April 2014

It seems like most of the people on this board decided to use an anonymous donor. I'm curious why and what brought you to that decision?

My DH and I only briefly considered using an anonymous donor, and decided early on to use a known donor after taking some adoption classes. We also chose a donor that we thought (at the time) that we would get to see fairly frequently (she has since moved to SC and we are in Ohio!). We chose to use a known donor because we wanted future children to be able to have a relationship with our donor and her children.

Twinkie0612 · April 2014

We are pursuing donor embryos, not donor eggs, so maybe my response is a little different. I was open to all donor embryo situations (open, semi-open, or closed), but my husband did not feel comfortable with any open situation. I honored his wishes and we settled on a closed embryo donation. It worked out because the clinic we liked had an anonymous donor program.

For the short time we considered donor eggs, we discussed known donor (my sister) vs. anonymous donor. I think I ultimately would have chosen an anonymous donor because it would have been hard for me to watch my sister do what I had failed at.

BeckyP005 · April 2014

I didn't have a choice at my clinic and they do not show any baby or adult pictures to us.

e74 · April 2014

We didn't have a choice at our clinic... It is anonymous... Unless you decide to use a relative of yours and that wasn't an option for us.

brooklynesque · April 2014

I went with a middle ground which is an agency donor who is open to future contact. Future contact is not guaranteed -- the donor will always have the option of saying she's not open to meeting after all -- but this particular donor has met a resulting child in the past and said it was an amazing experience, so I think she'll be open.

As people have noted, most in-house donation programs have strict anonymity policies (regardless of what the recipient and donor would actually agree to on their own if they had a chance), though this is starting to change by popular demand.

For lots of people, finding a known donor would be tough. It's a lot to ask of someone, and quite an intense, permanent tie.

LaireAndLia · April 2014

In the UK, it is illegal to use a known donor unless they are a relative, for egg, sperm and embryo donation. And to be perfectly honest, I personally don't see the point in using a known donor unless it is a relative. We did consider using my brother for his sperm for a very short period, because we had already decided on using Laire's eggs, but since we also decided I would be the one carrying, I didn't feel comfortable with having a product of my brother's sperm inside me, in all honesty. So using a known donor was completely off the table.