How did you know you were ready to use a donor (child ment).

[Lily5]

Hi,

I am new to treatment using a donor - but not new to IF itself. DH and I are struggling with the decision to use a donor (sperm donor) and it seems everyday I change my mind about the process. We do have a child from our first IVF/ICSI cycle, however recent attemps have failed. This has led us to the decision that we do not want to do IVF again and so are looking into DIUI.

I guess my question is - how did you know when you were definitely ready to pursue tx with a donor? The things we are struggling with are:

1. DH doesn't want to know specifics about the donor (he doesn't want to be involved in the selection) - I think he feels if he doesn't know what the donor's interests are, then he won't focus on that if the child has those same interests/features. This is putting the selection entirely on me - which is stressing me out some.

2. I'm worried he won't be as close to a child conceived by DIUI as he is to our bio child.

3. I'm not concerned about the child not looking like us - as much as I'm worried he/she won't look anything like his brother. We tried to do photo matching at one bank - but it only resulted in 2 donors neither of which had profiles that I was comfortable with.

We will not be telling anyone how this child is conceived - mostly due to the fact that we already have a child who is biologically both of ours and I do not want to make the next child feel differently - and also that no one knows of our IF issues or that the first one was conceived via IVF.

Wishing everyone the best of luck in their pursuit of a baby!
Lily5

[g4ranny]

Hi Lilly
I understand your struggle we are using DS to TTC#1. My husband and I struggled with the choice over several months. He was very lets do it DS because we want children and this way no one else is involved as with Adoption.

As for picking the donor we went with an donor from Fairfax. This was a very joint search so much different from your own. We mainly went for someone with blue eyes, Caucasian, and had a healthy medical history. We generally did not care if there were german, irish, norwegian etc.. We figured that should not really play a role. We choice three donors and went with the one that really touched our hearts as far as his essay.

Please know that if you are struggling with the issues with your husband not wanting to play a part maybe you should tell him - no matter what this is going to be our child - yours and mine. Have you spoken about adoption.

I hope this helps.
Jennifer

[deeja]

Lily- Hi read your post and can relate to what a hard decision it is to go with a donor after having 1 bio child. We are in the same boat. I have a DD (almost 2 y.o) conceived naturally and now -18 mos. after she was born, diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Failure! We had been TTC for 4-5 months when I knew something was not right with my body. I thought Clomid etc., would be next but we got the DE talk right away.

We have struggled with the same issues and fears and I'm afraid those fears don't really go away (or they haven't for me yet), but I am putting faith in our love for children and that all of those fears will vanish once a real live little person is here to depend on us for everything! I am struggling with what the child's "story" will be vs. my bio dd, but I think there are ways to describe that we are ALL different and having different biology is one of the ways. I am looking for a simplistic explanation that can be discussed at length when that child is older/mature like my age now...hey-it's a bummer but would it be a bigger bummer to say you were done with your family? that is what you have to weigh out and GL. hugs

[babywanter]

hi lily5-

we used ds for our 2nd dd. it was a tough decision about when to switch but i found out my fsh was high and was told i should consider de and i knew i would be ok with that so i felt comfortable asking my dh to consider ds. we tried 4 iui's with dh's sperm - 2 w/meds 1 iui with ds w/ meds and then moved on to ivf. we agreed to do one cycle with my eggs and ds and then move on to de/ds. that cycle worked! we both love our 2nd dd as much as our first - it is different because #2 does get less attention. i was worried about my dh feeling differently - it is hard in the beginning because i was nursing so often and he would take dd #1 so i started to get concerned. he made an effort to get to know dd#2 around the time all the big toothless smiles and cooing started and dd#2 turned him into a big pile of daddy mush. he's hooked!

i did do almost all of the ds research. i did show him my pick - who had some of the same interests as my dh - he liked that. i would want your dh to be at least a little involved - even if it is listening to a summary of the donors attributes. - i do have extra vials of ds if you are interested - i'm done they would be free. i can give you the donor info from california cryobank if you are interested.

as far as picking the ds - i picked one that had very average features - no large nose or cleft chin etc so that anything my dd did inherit from the donor wouldn't seem strange because it wasn't in either or our families. My two dds came out exactly 2 days late the same weight and height and people would have trouble guessing which one's baby photos were whose. They both look alot like me. My dh does hear occasionally how they look like him (my oldest one really looks like both of us) and he still struggles with the answers to that but that is probably the hardest part. She is a beautiful miracle and is loved completely by both of us.

i hoped this helped. bottom line - make sure your dh is really ok before you do it - if he is ok before he will most likely be fine after.

-Wendy

[50/50]

I knew I was ready to move on after 5 failed iuis and 3 failed ivfs. My last failed ivf was so heartbreaking. I knew what I wanted most was to be a mom, a bio connection was only secondary. At 41 I feel/felt I didn't have much time to waste so I had to either move to donor or adopt. For some reason I was having a difficult time moving on to adoption. It was like my body was moving that direction (researching adoption) but mentally and emotionally I wanted to experience pregnancy.

DH at first wanted to move straight to intl adoption. He felt he was not ready for anymore disappointment and atleast intl adoption we would end up with a child. After finding the egg donor, DH was on board very quickly. We were both so excited to move fwd.

I have to admit though DH struggled with the thought of using DS when we first began our IF struggles. This was when we thought my eggs were still good. After many therapy sessions and serious marital issues we started using DS and DH seemed to be fine with it. I did notice a huge difference when we did our last DE/DS cycle. He seemed a lot more at ease with the fact it was equal in the sense that we were both not bio connected.

Good luck on your journey!

((hugs))
50/50

[Lily5]

Thank you everyone for your posts. It helps so much to know I can come to this site and get support/info. I did have a discussion w/DH and asked him my questions - and he says he is ready to move forward and really "wants" to have another baby. This put me more at ease, because I was really hoping he wasn't just agreeing because he knew how dissapointed I was when our last IVF failed. We talked about the selection and he's still not into sitting in front of the computer to search with me - but he's okay with me sharing the info I've found. I think I need to step back from the selection process a bit myself - it's not a quest for the perfect "sperm"!

Thanks again for all your input.
Lily5

[mmi]

We very reluctantly went to donor. When do you know you are ready??? money and just stress exhaustion from ttc made us "try" it. My only regret, that we didnt' go to it sooner. Once that miracle is placed in your arms, you will forget the biology thing. Not all biological siblings are clones, not even my two from donor. Everythign thinks the first looks like me and our second like dh People truly see what they want to see. We have not told and I doubt anyone suspects anything. I think the three most important traits are hair color, eye color and skin tone. That is what most people look at when they see your kids. It is a tough decision. I wish you the best of luck in your decision. We were very happy with fairfax cryobank.

[flicka7]

It's simple. After 6 IVF's and 6 years of trying, I couldn't have a baby any other way. It was easy to move on, because we had been talking about since my 2nd failed IVF. It was my logical next step. It's still complicated, but it worked for us, so now we know that it was the right answer.

[Basilissa]

Hi!
I know it's been a while since you asked this question...

DH and I went through IUI's and IVF/ICSI. Each time, the sperm count was lower and lower and the "health" of the remaining sperm was questionable at best.

Our decision wasn't simple. I wanted to have a child, so did DH, but he already had two from a previous marriage.

Our RE suggested we do "one more" IVF/ICSI, but we were simply out of money.....but we ordred the drugs anyway (our insurance covered the drugs).

I gently brought up the subject of donor sperm to DH. He didn't even hesitate, he said, "Yes, let's look into that. You deserve to be a mommy. I want to give that to you, no matter what."

So I did the research on two banks nearby. I chose one bank and asked for the profiles. We were able to quickly choose a donor just from eye/hair color and blood type. When it came time for the DIUI, DH also "produced" and his sperm was mixed with the donor sperm.

I had the same fears as you too. Will DH love the child the same etc? Will he just not be connected???

No. He loved DD, I dare say, more than his other two....(shhhhh don't tell). We did not tell anyone either. It's nobody else's business. People always say how much she looks like him too. So everyone believes what you tell them anyway right?

I still have all the paper work from the donor bank. My dilema now is do I destroy it? Hide it? Do I EVER tell DD?

Good luck with your decision. It's hard, it takes some soul searching from you and DH.

[nathanzmom]

The fact that your husband is not getting involved in donor selection is a very bad sign to me. Is he going with your when you get inseminated? I didn't think so. And you guys aren't going to be open with the resultant child, either.

Your husband wants to pretend like there is no donor involved. BUT THERE IS. I don't think that is fair to whatever child comes from this medical procedure.

I urge you to consider whether councelling with an infertility counsellor might not help. Go alone (at first) if you have to.

My first husband was sterile. We used DI. I forced him to come to the first insemination. He said he was fine with it. We even told our child and close family about using DI, and he was seemingly okay with it. But...ultimately we ended up divorced. I don't think he really bonded with our child. If I had it to do over things would have been different.

Sorry to be negative.

JL