As a lesbian couple, I never thought we would spend so much time talking about sperm! I like to call it baby batter for fun, but there's really no "cute" name for the stuff. I'm not looking forward to having to handle the stuff on the day of insemination--I guess that's one of the down sides to at home insemination!
The whole sperm bank industry is just really odd to me. The weirdest is looking between sperm banks and seeing how much prices increase for the bells and whistles! We are getting our sperm from a local bank and it is almost half the price of the original bank we were looking at, but still offers the same level of genetic testing and screening. The sperm bank doesn't offer face matching (where you can send a picture of your partner and have them matched with a donor), personality compatibility tests, or childhood photos, but ultimately those aren't really things that will matter in the end.
We have also gone back and forth on whether or not we want a donor who is willing to be known by our child(ren) when they turn 18. At first we thought no way--we don't want someone who had nothing to do with our child, other than some genetics, to be involved in their life at all. And then we thought, well maybe we should have that as an option for our child in case they really want to know. We've settled on using an anonymous donor--someone who is not willing to be known--because it feels like what is right for our family. We hope that our child won't have a desire to know someone who really has nothing to do with their upbringing and our child will have two loving parents, and a donor profile to tell them about the donor. We haven't settled on how exactly we're going to share with our child that we used a donor, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Anyway, looking through donor profiles is so weird! Who would have thought that we would have so much say in the genetics/health history of the person who will contribute half of our child, but I'm glad we do. It's nice to have so many donors to choose from and the ability to take someone out of the running because of family medical issues that we don't want our child pre-disposed to. Of course who knows if our child will have any medical issues, but if we have the option to try and avoid family history of cancer or other serious conditions, why not.
We settled on a donor, finally! After looking through several banks and donor profiles. The donor (at the time) is a PhD candidate in Ecology and loves the outdoors. We loved the answers on his donor profile and he has an awesome medical history. We don't have any pictures to go off of in our decision, but ultimately that's not the most important to us.
In order to purchase the sperm Jennie had to go to the doctor's office and have a paper signed giving her the all clear for at home insemination--a step that we didn't know was a part of the process, but we're glad they signed off! Jennie had her appointment last Thursday and we officially ordered three vials of sperm on Friday! So they are there and ready to go with our name on it for when she is ovulating.
We're getting really excited and every morning that she tests her ovulation (even though I know it's not even close to the right day) I ask if today is the day!
Hopefully in a couple of months from now we'll be able to announce a pregnancy, although we're trying not to get our hopes too high, we're really hoping it works the first try.
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