Coming over from IF - ? re: Donor Sperm

LuvWIfootball

If anyone has used California Cryobank or Fairfax, can you tell me about how long the process takes from choosing a donor to getting sperm shipment to clinic?  We just decided today to use DS as a backup if DHs biopsy doesn't work.  Is it reasonable to think we can still do our IVF in May or won't that be enough time?

And if we do use DS and it works, what resources are out there to help us find the best way to tell the child how he/she was conceived?  DH's biggest fear is that the child would reject him.  I'm looking for something to reassure him that it doesn't have to be like that.  He's also afraid to tell any family/friends because of what they may thing.  Although I told him only the child would ever have to know.

Any info/advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

gervaisj6

We used European Sperm Bank. It shouldn't take long-your Re's office will probably have a coordinator, they usually want you to have 3 choices in case your top choice isn't available. They charge you, place the order with the bank and the re's office stores.it til you need it. The book we have is Helping the Stork.

LuvWIfootball

gervaisj6:

We used European Sperm Bank. It shouldn't take long-your Re's office will probably have a coordinator, they usually want you to have 3 choices in case your top choice isn't available. They charge you, place the order with the bank and the re's office stores.it til you need it. The book we have is Helping the Stork.

Thanks for responding.  We already have Helping the Stork, just have to read through it all.

Yellow_Daisy

We used CCB (CA Cryobank) and you can totally still do a cycle in May.  We choose our donor and could have ordered the vials that day and had them the next.  To make the process easy when you are ready to buy open an account and do the paperwork, your RE has to do some of it and they will send it back.  Once CCB has your account created all you do is purchase online and choose the shipment option, super easy.  For our last cycle we had to wait for a new release from our donor so we actually bought the vial 2 days before we needed it and shipped it overnight and my RE had it the next day, it was no harder than any other online order.  The only time you actually have to talk to someone to place an order is when the donor's info says call rather than number of vials available. 

I have more info to share, but I need to give DS a bath and put him to bed.  I will post more an hour or so.  Also we have a DS/DE FB group if you would like to join.  PM if you want to join and give me your FB info and I will friend you and add you to the group.  We have resources on there and I have some PDFs of books about how to tell your child in age appropriate ways that I can send you too.

gervaisj6

We have also, overcoming male IF. There is a website online thas t has books you can order depending on the age you may choose to tell your.child. They are age appropriate. I struggle with the age to tell our child-since our bank wont release info til age 18.

gervaisj6

Hey YellowDaisy! : )

Yellow_Daisy

gervaisj6:

Hey YellowDaisy! : )

Hey girlie!  How are you?  How the heck did you get to 34 weeks so quickly?  Your little girl is going to be here before you know it!  Eeek!  So exciting!

Yellow_Daisy

Ok so as promised I'm back.

I loved CCB they were great to work with.  We did photo matching with them, it was very affordable, and they gave us the top 10 matches in the bank that met all our criteria and matched DH's pictures best.  La'Trice does this and she is so nice and so fast.  Can't say enough good things about working with her and the process.  We had such generic caucasian criteria that we had way too many donors to wade through and never would have decided on our own.  Having the best 10 matches handed to us made the process simple, stress free and fast.

You need to get a CMV test asap if you haven't already.  If you are negative you need to use a donor that is negative, if you're positive you can use either.

When buying vials if your donor has ICI/ART vials and you are doing IVF go for those they're the cheapest.  We ended up having to go with IUI/Premium vials for our IVF cycle because that was all our donor had available and you'll see that they are $250 more per vial than the ICI/ART.  For IVF you can use any kind of vial so just go with the cheapest option.

CCB also has a free sibling registry which is really nice because the national registry has a yearly fee attached.  If you conceive with a donor you can request access to your sibling registry, you can be as anonymous or not as you like.  Our son has 11 half siblings all born within 12 mos of each other.  Some of the families have met, some have chosen to post anonymously.  We've decided to post health related info about DS, but remain anonymous until he is old enough to decide if he wants to meet the other families or even share any identifying information with them beyond health info.  Our donor is an open donor so at 18 DS can choose to make contact through CCB if he wants to.

I think your DH's fears/concerns are very normal and valid.  Initially my DH had those fears.  Now I don't think he even thinks of the fact that we used DS to conceive.  We started telling our son that he was donor conceived at about 3 weeks old.  I tell him a little story about how mommy and daddy had trouble having a baby and a nice person helped us and that is how we got him.  It's very vague, but helps me to put to words to the story and think about how to express myself as he gets older.  There are lots of books written for each age group to talk about donor conception.

This site is awesome!  https://www.donor-conception-network.org/  I wish we had something like this in the US.  If you go to their main page and scroll about two thirds of the way down the page in the left column their is a PDF titled Donor Offspring Speak.  It's fabulous and enlightening.  I think hearing from children and some donor conceived adults about how they feel about it, being told, not being told, etc is really helpful.  I have all their Telling and Talking books broken down by age group in PDFs and if you want them I can email them to you.

We are probably a little different than most people but we are very open about having used a donor.  It's not a secret or something we're embarrassed about or worry about, we are totally comfortable answering questions and anything else.  Everyone we know knows that M was donor conceived although to be honest people forget and I think even though everyone knows no one ever thinks about it.  We've never had someone say a negative thing to us and mostly we found people to be very curious and ask very thoughtful questions that we were happy to answer.  We've received nothing but support from everyone and our son is adored by all of our family.

I think that's all I've got for now, but if you have any questions please feel free to ask and if you want to join the FB group just send me a PM.

KayJayDee

We used Fairfax Cryobank, but had a slightly different situation, since their main office is local. We picked up our own vials and took the tank to our IUI appts. So i'm not sure about turnaround time for shipping, etc, but you'll definitely have enough time to get everything staightened out by May. Just a suggestion: ask your RE what preparation type is best for IVF. We did IUI and bought IUI prepared vials the first time around. Turns out that even though those vials have already been washed and prepped for IUI, our clinic washes them again post-thaw, so the sperm count was lower than it 'should' have been.

This last cycle we had to pick a new donor at the last minute. Our RE recommended ICI prepped vials. They have not been washed, so when they get washed post thaw the count was significantly higher. Not sure how this factors into IVF, but for us it made a big difference. Also ICI vials are cheaper, so if you don't need IVF prepped vials, don't get them. 

Good luck!

 

JM1977

We used California Cryobank and were very pleased with them.  I thought their selection of donors was great, and they were very easy to work with.  Like YellowDaisy said, the process can go as quickly as you need it to. 

I think your DH's concerns make total sense.  It's a lot to think about.  We had to meet with a psychologist when we were pursuing DE/DS, and that was very helpful.  We were able to talk through all of those concerns.  Now that we have our baby girl, we just feel a complete connection with her, and we don't really think about how she was conceived other than feeling so grateful to her two wonderful donors.  We do plan to disclose in age-appropriate ways over time, but really she's just our daughter and we can't imagine it any other way.

SeaSoul

Hi there,

We didn't use either of those banks (we chose our donor through a website called sperm center, which draws from all of the banks in the country, rather than choosing a bank first and then a donor from their inventory), but you should be fine to cycle in May.  At least in our experience, once you've chosen a donor and paid for the vial(s) they will ship it overnight whenever you request.

You already got great info on resources to help with telling your child (and I think it's wonderful that you're planning to do so!).  It's only natural that your DH will have the feelings you described.  I think if you do end up with a DS pregnancy, the more he thinks about it, the more he'll be comfortable with it.  And that will certainly be the case once s/he is born!  He may even decide to tell some people, which I think would be a good thing.  Otherwise, even if the child knows, it's going to feel like a big secret, and secrets can make life hard.  In our case, we have told all of our family and close friends...we don't typically volunteer the info to strangers or acquaintances. 

Like other posters, we have already been talking to our son about how he was conceived...there are age-appropriate ways of doing so (consult the resources that were already given for more details).  The biggest thing is to bring it up often from the time they are a baby, so it never seems like a big announcement, it's just something they've always known (which lessens the possibility of negative feelings).

Good luck!

LuvWIfootball

I wanted to thank everyone for their responses.  All were helpful. 

gervaisj6

Yellow_Daisy:

gervaisj6:

Hey YellowDaisy! : )

Hey girlie!  How are you?  How the heck did you get to 34 weeks so quickly?  Your little girl is going to be here before you know it!  Eeek!  So exciting!

 

 

I know, right?!   I am excited, but terrified- She is still breech, that scares me, and also, giving birth scares me... scary! : /