LGBT Parenting
Personal question
Are you or did you choose a known, anonymous or id release donor? How did you decide? I always thought we'd go anonymous...but I recently thought id release might be a good option as well. DW wants only anonymous. We have lots of time to discuss and decide. Thank you in advance for sharing 
Me(30) & DW(33) Married August 19, 2011. Mommies to a beautiful pooch. TTC#1~IUI#1-Nov 30/12=BFN IUI#2-Dec 30/12 http://mommyandmum.blogspot.ca/
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Re: Personal question
9 IUIs = 9 BFNs
IVF October 2012: 22 eggs retrieved, 17 fertilized, 5 frozen
ET #1: 1 blast = BFP; Blighted ovum discovered at 7w5d; D&E
FET #1: 1 blast = BFP; Missed m/c discovered at 9w5d; D&E
Karyotyping: normal ~ RPL Testing: normal ~ Hysteroscopy: normal
FET #2: 1 blast transferred 10/25; BFP 10/31!
EDD 7/13/14 ~ Induced at 37w4d due to pre-eclampsia ~ Born on 6/28/14
*Everyone welcome*
We have used both and with some time, perspective, and research on the issue, we are both now firmly in the ID release camp. There is a good chance they would never want/need to contact thier donor...but what if? In the end, we just werent comfortable making the choice for our children - we felt the need to respect their right and ability to choose when the time came.
When we were speaking with a researcher on this topic, she said that the studies done to date indicate that approx 1/3 of children concieved with donor sperm never have a desire for info or contact, another 1/3 want the info but never make contact or do anything with it, and then about 1/3 do desire to contact their donor and make efforts to do so. Thats a fairly high number to me.
It was a moot point since we never concieved, but our thoughts on the topic weigh heavily on us as we have the potential to adopt from foster care.
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms
We also went with an ID options donor. It was a very long process for us. From the very beginning we knew that we FOR SURE did NOT want a known donor. For us, we were looking for sperm, not a Daddy figure. And we've heard way too many horror stories of the man later wanting parenting rights, etc. etc. so now way. With that said, we never wanted a known donor either. We always felt it was weird for the kids to ever meet their sperm donor, because we're their parents. So, over the past 4 years we used two anonymous donors, unsuccessfully.
Recently, we had a change of heart. We thought it would be good to at least have the OPTION of a known donor. First of all, we don't even have to tell our kids it's an ID donor later if we decide for them not to know. With that said, I'm not sure how likely it will be that that's actually the case. We kind of thought they may want to know their "heritage" or that part of their life, and I doubt that any part of that would take away from our life with them. It's kind of a cross that bridge when we come to it, but have our options open thing. So, right before we did IVF, we changed to a new (3rd) donor that is an ID options donor.
ID release. I didn't want to make that decision for them.
I hope they don't want to contact him, but I will keep that to myself.
Melanie and I know several children whom are older and have two moms and it seems that the children who had a Willing To Be Known donor seemed to fair better and that they fit in.
We also read some studies and a great book - they shows that if children know they are from a donor they seem to fit in better in society and dont always yearn to find out who they are made up from. Moreover, in reading this book it illustrated that children who have the option of being able to contact or know the ID of their donor they were better adjusted.
We also know several adopted chi;dren who are adults and have discussed it greatly with them. Most are ok with being adopted but all of them like the notion of knowing their BIO MOM but do not wish to contact or have relationship with them. The one friend who did not seek out her BIO MOM but the Bio MOM sought her out was not cool with this and it was hard for her...
as a pp said we are not looking for A Father /Daddy type but we choose a WTBK Donor so that if the girls ever want to know they have the choice of 1 time contact. when they are 18
-J
our Blog -http://dosbabies.wordpress.com/
Our first criteria in donors was race, in order to match my wife. We were lucky and found a donor who almost perfectly matches what we were looking for and feels like our dream donor in many ways. He happens to be WTBK, which I thought was a good thing initially, but which I now wouldn't consider otherwise. If we were to go through our stock before conceiving, I would only consider WTBK donors.
My partner doesn't want to know much about the donor beyond the basics and I think may feel less secure with the idea of our future kids someday meeting their donor, but she wants to do what we think is best for them by giving them the option.
Also, even "anonymous" donors don't always stay that way. I know with a little research I could probably find our donor's identity with the info we already have. In fact, there are many families who do so all the time, but it's not a guarantee and I'd hate to have a child resent me for choosing something that could prohibit them from finding out about a part of them-self. I'd hate for our insecurities as parents to override our children's needs or desires later on.
We talked ALOT about this and it seems we are opposite of most responses in the post. We have chosen an anonymous donor and will continue to do so should we need to switch donors. It really came down to as grateful as we are that our dodnor as donated we really do not know him whatsoever and we just do not trust that.
We also talked to DW cousins who are both adopted from Columbia and asked if they felt like they were missing out not knowing anything about their birth parents. The told us the only thing they would like to know was the family medical history and what they looked like. I also spoke to my older brother who has a different bio dad and asked him about how he felt about his father whom he never met until my brother was over 30 years old. He said he was really indifferent to meeting him and only sought him out because he wanted to know health history. He discovered a lot about his health history and that he was literally his fathers clone but other than that the relationship was over.
So what we have started to do and are planning on doing is gathering as much information as we possibly can. We have bought the lifetime phot series, printed everything we possibly can, and saved the recording of his interview. We are going to put this in a book for our future child and hope this is enough. If it is not, between the DSR and the internet I would imagine finding info about this gentleman would not be that complicated (although I know contact is not allowed). We will only ever choose donors who have very complete health histories and a lifetime photo series. Our future children may not be overly happy with us for making this decision (and I am not saying we wont regret it)...but when it really comes down to it this is a guy who *bleeped in a cup for money and while some of these guys may have the best of intentions it is mostly a monetary transaction. I grew up with an abusive, dead-beat dad and in all honesty would have prefered him to b anonymous donor (I used to beg my mom to tell me she had an affair with the milkman).
Everybody has to make this choice for themselve ultimately...we just happen to be making this choice.
We seem to be in the minority here in that we are strongly considering a known donor. It is very important to DW to know the personality and temperament of the donor. She's a scientist and I think believes much more is determined through genetics than I do. I was originally very opposed to the idea because of the potential legal issues, but after doing more research I am open to it. We will be living in a state with second-parent adoption, and so we would plan for the donor to terminate his parental rights shortly after birth. I have stipulated that it has to be a donor I really trust. We have about 4 people who we are considering as potential donors. We are not looking for a father figure in our donor, and envision this person either being a "friend of the family" or a "favorite uncle" to our child. None of our potential donors are geographically close right now.
I also want to mention that this was a pretty involved discussion over the course of nine months or so, and one we are still not finished having. It is really not an easy decision for us, especially because we came from such different points of view originally.
AMH 0.5, AFC 5-8, FSH 7ish
IVF #1 - antagonist. Empty follicle syndrome. 1 retrieved, 0 fertilized.
IVF #2 - antagonist. Ovulated early. 3 retrieved, 2 fertilized, 0 blasts
We decided on an unknown donor. We feel we can give our child so much love and affection that hopefully they will be content and educated enough to understand he or she has 2 mommies.
You def have to just decide what is right for you.
We chose an ID option donor. I had initially wanted to explore a known donor and that terrified Kel. For us, the ID option preserved what I was seeking in the known donor. I think that one of the reasons we used donor sperm to become parents was an acknowledgement of the significance of a biological connection and I didn't want the method by which we were able to secure that biological connection to also be one that precluded our children from exploring their own connections later in life. This was less of a concern to Kel, but the legal protections of using banked sperm addressed her fears related to the known donor, so it was a good compromise for us.
(I feel the need to insert some sort of disclaimer here--I know a lot of us, including myself, are parenting children we are not biologically related to and that they are every bit as much our children and every bit as loved as those to whom we are biologically related. Please don't interpret my comments as making some sort of superiority claim on biological relations, because I certainly don't feel that way. )