So.....what bank did you use?

cetcar2013

We did meet with our potential donor during Christmas break but have since started to wonder if going through a bank would be a better option.  We're heard of- California Cryo Bank, Fairfax, Pride Angel, Xytex, Pacific Reproductive Services, and Cryos.  I'm sure there is more.  Just wondering if anyone would mind sharing their experience.  We recently messaged a couple donors on Pride Angel but are waiting to heard back. 

StacyLH24

We used Northwest Cryo. The customer service was excellent and the price was much less than some of the ones you named. Price was honestly the biggest factor for us.

singingmua

We also used NW Cryo. They definitely have the best prices that we were able find. Our first at home insem worked and our little peanut is 3 weeks old today.

Amber&Reva

Another user of NW Cryo bank.  Also for the reason of price.  The entire process is so expensive so if I could save almost 200 per vial it seemed like a no brainer to me. 

Amber&Reva

This thread already has me thinking about the donor sibling thread as far as the fact that we are 3 for 3 on NW Cryo. 

ATXmommas

We used Fairfax.  Fairfax is expensive - I think we paid $675/vial if I'm remembering correctly.  But, they offer deals. Like, buy x many, get x many free + free shipping + 2 years free storage.  We bought 8 vials, got one free (total 9), free shipping, and free storage for 2 years.  Since Fairfax has a site in Austin, we were able to ship all 9 at once for free to Austin, where the remaining vials are stored.  Our experience has been really good.  They have been extremely responsive and have good customer service.  Very positive experience overall.

redrockmama

We used pacific reproductive services. They were just fine, and we had super high counts on all 3 of our vials. Not cheap though and I'm bummed they don't have a sibling registry like some of the others.

Himee33

What @ATXmommas‌ said! We looked at every place on our list the RE gave us, the ones she would use. We fell in love with a guy on Xytex only to find out they weren't on the approved list. We had a lot of specific things we were looking for in a donor and we found him at Fairfax. They were so easy to use and we haven't had any issues. L did all the ordering and questions over their online chat. We liked the specials they ran. Their specials pop up all the time on FB. We paid $735 per vial. Shipping is $230 per vial. We took advantage of buying x amount and getting 1 free plus free storage for 2 years. We even ended up buying a few more vials and getting another 1 free. We still have about 9 vials stored with them for future use.

calsurb

We used California Cryobank because they had a donor that matched our half-Caucasian/half Asian needs. It was $795 per vial and $195 for 2 day shipping. We used 2 vials for each insemination. Definitely expensive-but the third time was a success.

We're now at the point where our ob/gyne is asking us about cord blood banking. California Cryo has a free year of storage of cord blood that's sorta swaying us. No decision, yet!

cetcar2013

Thanks for your input so far! We hadn't heard of Northwest Cryo. Think we'll look at their site tomorrow

Jazibel

We used the Sperm Bank of California. I thought all things were fair from service to pricing to the info they provided. Customer Service wise it was a little frustrating to try and get my order processed same day (from when I got a positive OPK, I ovulated within 12-24 hours generally). They technically wanted more lead time - but aside from being a little snippy and charging a rush fee they always came through. I did get pregnant with our WTBK donor from SBC in March 2011.

AandStilltrying

Ok my input is our horror story followed by a happy ending...

Started with California cyro... Got preg 1st try but was not a viable pregnancy due to hcg not rising properly and possible ectopic. Tried 2 more times and failed and had to order different donor because ours was gone. Went through same company because website was easy to navigate and was up to date. Well our 2nd donor we ordered 5 vials of to find that they should have NEVER let him be a donor. His count and motility were horrible. They offered us credit for a vial after dr. Had to submit tons of paperwork. He was so mad at them. So he told us to go to "super sperm" bank which he calls fairfax. We had great luck with them and they were super friendly. Lots of deals. And numbers all checked out great. Best of luck!!!

mrs&mrsk

we used CCB. after looking at a couple of other larger banks, we couldnt find a donor with brown hair & brown eyes without some additional background that didnt "fit" with DW's (we were trying to get a close match to her). it was super expensive and now it's even more !  ugh.  

2brides

Fairfax because at the time they were 20m from our house and for the ICIs we did at home, L picked them up and saved us shipping. And once we were using a RE, we just had to pay for a courier fee vs shipping and saved $$$.

KH826

We used Northwest Cryo. We started with Fairfax for our first 3 IUI vials, but didn't get pregnant. We decided to switch donors at that time, and made the decision to switch banks as well. Cost was a big factor at that point, and the vials from NW were literally half the price. We found an open ID donor at NW that we liked, so it worked out. We would have been willing to pay more obviously if we hadn't been able to find what we wanted for the lower cost.  

JennaandBetsy

We used Xytex and had a great experience. Vial pricing, shipping and storage were reasonable and they had lots of variety to choose from.

FSBC

We used Fairfax as well. Paid around 750 per vial plus shipping. Our experience was great, we would recommend them for sure. They do have a family limit, but its high in my opinion, 25 reported family units.

Danni_Girl

We went through Repro-Med who then went through FairFax. Gotta love shipping to Canada and the lack of donour clinics we have. The main reason we picked FairFax was because they had the donour we wanted. Cost a lot of money though because he is an open donour.

2momsinCA

We used CCB- it's close to us and we could pick up and drop off the tanks so no delivery fees. Also we love our donor, he fit all the criteria we were looking for. We never had an issue with counts or motility either- we actually had some astronomical numbers over 100mil with well over 50% mot a couple times.

shelly2314

We used California Cryobank...mainly b/c I liked their system and sibling registry. We got pregnant on the 4th try. Our first donor didn't have that great of a sperm count, but the other one we choose was great.

Great experience with customer service as well

StacyLH24

@jrtmom‌ - I get on sometimes, but not often.

Amber&Reva

@jrtmom I went on the first time I got pregnant but haven't been on the sight in over a year at this point.

ball.and.chain

Another CCB family here.  I pretty much started with them because their donor search was so easy to use and they had such a wide range of donors.  I cared more about using a donor we really liked than cost, family limits, or anything else.  I was advised to pick a CMV- donor, we wanted ID-release/open-ID, and my wife's one request was that he be of at least partially Irish descent -- which is not that hard to find.  However, with those three requirements (the first two knocked out a lot), we weren't left with a huge pool.  I was also looking at New England Cryogenic Center, which is local, and when I narrowed by the above criteria I had about three options, none of which was particularly appealing.

Customer service was great, but as others have said, the track record for the actual sperm wasn't so good -- I had several vials of more than one donor come out with less than their guaranteed motile counts.  They refunded my money, but I often wonder if I would have gotten pregnant a lot sooner with better sperm.

KH826

jrtmom said:

We also used NW Cryobank. I had no idea others on here did too. @StacyLH24, @singingmua, @Amber&Reva, @KH826 - Are you guys on their forum too? I am, but rarely post.

I have quickly lurked twice I think. Haven't been on in a while...

themarquis0

Northwest here! Loved them - excellent prices, good service, good selection. Unlike most banks they will deliver to your house for in home insemination.

singingmua

@jrtmom‌ we tend to lurk on their forums these days to see if anyone has posted about using our donor. I posted a few times before getting pregnant, but haven't posted anything really since then.

We did report our pregnancy to the bank itself. And since Baby K was born with a bicuspid valve, we'll let the bank know that too once we get her evaluated in a couple months by a cardiologist.

Since we can't say for sure who's DNA it came from, we figure it's best to let the bank know so they can maybe post a notice for other potential users.

Esquette

I did some poking around the NW Cryobank website: Holy "Affordable" Sperm, Batman!  Does anybody know what their family limits are like?  My initial investigation was unhelpful.

2MamazInSeattle

CCB here - all goodness (a lot of what @ball.and.chain said). We only needed 1 vial since we did IVF, so cost wasn't a big concern. I loved and wanted to use Sperm Bank of California for the low sibling counts, but their donor pool was too small for us to find a match for us (being CMV- narrowed it considerably at all the clinics). All happy w/CCB here!

floyd1rl

My wife and I chose to go with Midwest, mainly for their prices, and the fact that they would ship right to our door as we wanted to do it in the privacy of our own home. We ordered 2 vials, had them shipped from out of state and received them the next day. Recevied a positive pregnancy just this past Wednesday

KH826

Esquette said:

I did some poking around the NW Cryobank website: Holy "Affordable" Sperm, Batman!  Does anybody know what their family limits are like?  My initial investigation was unhelpful.

The website says the limit is "25 family units," but I think perhaps they mean 25 children NOT living in the same home, which is not how it reads. Unless I am misunderstanding. Here is what the site says: https://www.nwcryobank.com/cryobank-regulations-and-statistics/ 

ATXmommas

@kh826 - From the description, it sounds exactly like Fairfax' policy. 25 family units means that up to 25 families can conceive using the donor, but the number of children per household is NOT limited. That's my interpretation.

KH826

ATXmommas said:

@kh826 - From the description, it sounds exactly like Fairfax' policy. 25 family units means that up to 25 families can conceive using the donor, but the number of children per household is NOT limited. That's my interpretation.

Yes, I believe that is correct. I just think it is confusing the way they worded it. At any rate, that seems to be the standard "family limit."

This thread has prompted me to look at our donor profile again (twice in one week!), and it looks like he is super popular. Hmmm... not sure how I feel about that...  

ATXmommas

@KH826‌ - As I mentioned in the donor sibling thread, I just found out that there are at least 25 other children conceived using our donor. It's been a lot to process. Here are a few thoughts I've had to help absorb the impact -

- I don't regret for a second anything about how we chose to grow our family. I think any of us who is fortunate enough to have a child on the outside absolutely cannot conceive of our child(ren) being anyone other than who they are - meaning, knowing what I know now, I don't wish it to be any different. This puts me in the "it is what is" camp. Having lots of diblings is neither good or bad. It just is.

- I get a little bit of a kick out of our donor being popular. There's something nice about so many other families recognizing the great qualities we found in our donor.

BostonGayGal

We wanted a Filipino donor and there were only 35 of them back when we bought sperm in 2010. California Cryo had most of them so we used them in case we needed to switch donor bid-course.

TheWhitfields

We actually used Cryobiology, Inc. 

We attempted IUI number 1 without success. We actually think we had a chemical pregnancy that cycle.

Successful IUI with the second attempt (different donor) and we're now 5 months into the pregnancy!

KLake42

We're using California Cryo, mainly because we ran a search of several banks, and this is where we found a donor we really liked (who met all of our "necessary" criteria, and on top of that, has a bizarre resemblance to my wife (based on both his baby photos and his creative/extrovert personality).  But we're just getting started, so we don't know how good his juice is yet.  I like the sibling registry, and the large number of open ID donors that they have, and their customer service was really good.

beanie1977

We used NW Cryo. We love our donor and are happy to use a local bank- no shipping fees!

Bioadobe

This thread may be dated, but we used Xytex. I love that they have an app and lots of pictures/essays/health info.

thereallolo

We used Xytex, mainly because we had a free trail for their unlimited photos and profiles. The donor we chose turned out to be very popular. He had 30 families (they say they go to 35 max). We are currently 16 weeks pregnant. His donor profile currently says that he is now unavailable... Probably reached him max limit I wiould suppose.

RikkiJean2389

We used a this NY. LOVED all the freebies- baby pics, extended profile, etc. AND they were very affordable. Their website says that if you purchase a MOT5 vile, you should use three of them, however my RE, said that was unnecessary and the post thaw count has always been over 17 mil! Give them a shot!

vcollings

We are using Cryobiology as well.  It's very convenient as we live in the same city and are using the fertility clinic right next door to the bank.  They've been wonderful so far.