Using Wife's Stepbrother sperm

SackeyDrury14 · March 2014

Hello! New to the Bump here. My Fiancee and I are getting married this November and we'll begin TTC around this time next year. We've thought a lot about how we were going to conceive however, since I'm 36 we didn't want to take too much time ( if we don't take the 1st time) trying because of the large cost. Instead, we're considering her stepbrother. Now, she has 3 biological brothers but they have a different mother and they've all had either addiction issues or anger issues thus the stepbrother consideration. We also thought it would be nice to have one of our children have an actual biological tie to her stepmother, who has been a 2nd mother to her since she was 5. Has anyone out there done this? How did he feel about being a donor? Was it strange? What did you call him? (Uncle, etc) Did you decide that someday the child could know about him being the donor if they asked? We're leaning pretty heavily on doing this but I'd like more insight. Thanks!

healz413 · March 2014

Hi and welcome!
We have a lot of folks one here who have used known donors, but I don't know if anyone has used a stepbrother.

In November, we had a guy post on the board about possibly donating sperm to his sister's wife. Here's the link to that discussion. It might be interesting for you:
https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/12146886/donating-sperm-to-my-sister-s-wife

We didn't use a known donor; however, if we had, we probably would have wanted him to have an "uncle" relationship to our kid(s). I personally cannot imagine the child not always knowing who the sperm donor was, so for me it wouldn't have been a matter of someday telling the child or waiting for them to ask. That said, there are different ways to approach that.

Good luck!

Jazibel · March 2014

Hi & Welcome.

We used a KD, a friend not a relative. But it worked out really well for us thus far. We will have 2 children with this Donor, and our friends (a lesbian couple) are also currently 31 weeks pregnant by this same donor.

We are choosing to have a distant uncle relationship with him. Our kids will know him, and eventually know that he is their donor. He doesn't have any interest in "parenting" and we've signed legal documents so he doesn't have parental rights (or obligations). We see our donor a couple times a year or so, and are FB friends, etc.

We opted to pay him $100 per sample because of needing his time and commitment to our schedule, etc. We got pregnant on the first try with both kiddos (that's not our whole TTC journey, just the KD part). We did at home ICI (4 ICI's with Kaden, and 3 ICI's with this current pregnancy). We've had a few discussions on this board about how-to's etc. But I'm happy to expand on the topic if you don't find an old discussion thread right away.

Anyway, I've loved using a KD for various reasons, 1. I'm adopted and felt personally that I wanted our kiddos to have the option to know more about their genetic history if they chose too. 2. The cost. I became really stressed spending hundreds to thousands per month trying a different route, and after a m/c, my wife and I decided we needed to change course drastically and found ourselves trying with a KD the next cycle. 3. It's kind of cool to know our kiddos genetic ties. Strange - yes but so far we've been very happy.

Good luck to you!

trisholio · March 2014

Welcome to the board!

We also used a KD, but not a relative. He is a friend. We also have legal documents, which is important no matter friend or family. Make sure to ask lots of questions, even if they are awkward.

EllieTheGiraffe · March 2014

Welcome to the board!

When we used sperm donation for Nova we used a KD. He's an old highschool friend of Helena's, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, which is what we wanted too. We told Nova shortly after her seventh birthday about him, but she hasn't actually shown any interest in knowing anything about him (yet). We just refer to him by his first name, and they haven't met. We also used the same KD when we were using DS with TTC#3, but that didn't work out. We don't know our embryo donors.

However, we do know our Surrogate. She is my BIL's long-term girlfriend, and we see her at least once a month. Nova already calls her Aunty, since they have been together longer than we have had Nova, so I guess another baby would too.

pauljl · March 2014

We used my wife's biological brother as the donor, as I am the one carrying. We thought it would be cool for our child to be biologically related to everyone- even though we know that biology doesn't make a family

The first time was definitely awkward when he came to make the donation, but we quickly got over it. By the second month of trying he was stopping in to have dinner with us and work on homework (he's finishing a degree) before making his donation and leaving.

He will be an uncle to our kid- he's not interested in being a dad. However, we've all agreed that our child will grow up knowing that his/her uncle helped us to be a family.

yachee · March 2014

Hi! My wife and I used my brother as our KD, and it was definitely the best route for us. Before we started anything, we talked with him about it in depth, got all the legal stuff signed, and made him get tested for a whole slew of things. Then we started with ICIs at home for half a year. When that didn't work, we sent him to a fertility clinic to bank some frozen stuff because it was too much of a hassle to fly him up to us on a minute's notice every month.

The main reason we decided to use him was because we wanted our kids to be part of both of us and i had a big problem with the whole not-knowing-where-they-came-from thing when the kids get older, but we also thought it would be cheaper and easier to use a known donor. We were wrong. In many ways, our fertility journey was much more complicated because of it. If the ICIs had worked, it would have been both easier and cheaper, but once we moved to a RE, there were A LOT more hoops to jump through than if we had just used frozen sperm. We actually considered telling them that my wife and brother were a couple to skip all the crap.

Now that the girls are here, it has been amazing. He has no desire to be a dad, but he is SO EXCITED to be the "cool" uncle. I think it has also helped my conservative family accept the girls as actual "family." I have a suspicion that if we had used a random donor, they would view them as my wife's kids and not mine. (They are still adjusting to the whole gay thing... 7 years after telling them.) We have been very open about the fact that he was our donor, and our girls will know as soon as they can understand.

I think the coolest part of it all is actually getting to see little mini people that are truly a mix of my wife and me. Genetics are cool!

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