Wednesday, December 11 Changed our Lives Forever!

A lot has developed over the last month and a half! As you all know, after our third attempt at insemination we were out of sperm from our frozen donor. It had taken us a lot of time and consideration to choose the donor that we did and it was heartbreaking to learn that they were out of his samples at the sperm bank. We had been weighing all of our options and going back and forth about the next steps for moving forward when we received the following message on Wednesday, December 11th:

I am the wife of donor XXXX. He would never contact you because that would be an “invasion of your privacy.”  But you posted a great deal on the blog that made me think it was ok to shoot an email.  We were rooting for you as we followed your blog posts and he was SO flattered you chose his profile.  We were really bummed after the third try failed.  He regretted not donating more and moped around for a few weeks.  We have a baby expected in February and thought it would be really cool to know there was a sibling out there.  I am writing to say that I know he would happily donate more and would do so for free, via whatever bank, doctor’s office or system works best for you.  He would be flattered. We gave all the sperm bank checks to environmental groups anyways. Lastly, it doesn’t matter who’s genes you use, because you will overwhelm the importance of genes with your NURTURE.  You two are so totally awesome, strong willed, bold, motivated, creative and smart.  To use crowd funding for something that personal, to write about it publicly, that is bold.  Your photos, adventures and goals on your photography website are so fun and outgoing and creative.  You two bubble with great mommy traits. Regardless of the donor you will be great moms.  We thank you for sharing your experiences and wish you the best.

Our initial reaction to this message was "OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING!", and our second reaction was, "What if this is some crazy internet stalker?".  We took a day to process this message, talk about it, weigh our options, and decide how to respond. Ultimately, we decided that this was an amazing opportunity and could potentially lead us down a path of knowing who our donor is.  We had always wanted to know who the donor was, but decided that if that wasn't possible we'd just deal with it. Ultimately we decided to go with a local bank that didn't provide that option.   The other amazing part of this opportunity is that if we did decide to go a route outside of the sperm bank that we could save A LOT of money, which would make the money we raised from our Indiegogo campaign stretch further. 

We decided to respond to the wife of the donor with three potential ways to move forward:
1. We call the sperm bank and have them ask the donor to donate more sperm. 
2. We bypass the sperm bank and use the doctor's office to inseminate.
3. This whole thing is too weird for us all and we move on with another donor from the sperm bank.

Ideally for us, we wanted to move forward with option number 2, but we weren't sure if the donor or his wife would be comfortable with that option. In the next email we heard back from the donor himself, that was interesting! I can't explain what it's like to go from having an anonymous profile of a person to actually beginning to communicate with your donor and learning more about who he is and that he is real. I loved that the subject of his email was "The weirdest letter I've ever had to write..."

The donor was more than open to option number 2. We had some added stipulations before we would be comfortable moving forward. In order for us to move forward with peace of mind and for the safety of all people involved we also required:

• He needed to get tested for STDs and HIV and share the results with us.
• A Legal Donor Agreement Contract.

The donor was willing to comply with all of our stipulations and we learned a lot about reproductive law in the state of Colorado during the process.  We talked with our OBGYN and she was totally on board with this new option as well. In order for our Donor Agreement to be legal the doctor has to sign off on it and send a copy to the state registrar, so it was good she was on board!

The last part of the equation was to decide whether or not we wanted to meet the donor or have any type of relationship with him and his wife.  After a lot of emails back and forth we decided that we should go ahead and meet in person and decided to do brunch. This was a BIG step for us. I was so nervous leading up to our meeting. What do you wear to meet your sperm donor? What questions should I ask? What if we don't get along or have anything in common? Will they like us in person, will we like them? What if we have nothing to talk about?

In the end, there was nothing to worry about. When we met up with them conversation was easy and felt very natural. I think maybe there was only one awkward pause the whole brunch--amazing right! I'm sure they were also nervous about meeting with us, but it didn't show.  Our donor had brought a bunch of childhood photos for us to look at which was really cool and he even paid for the brunch! Jennie and I were so excited to walk away from that brunch feeling like our family had just grown by two amazing people (well actually three now because they had just had their baby son, but we haven't met him yet)! I can't help but think back to the blog post I wrote after our third attempt didn't work out:

Alas, we'll continue trying until it does work and continue to tell ourselves that everything happens for a reason and maybe the timing wasn't right this month.

I truly believe that we were meant to meet our sperm donor and his family and that is the reason that those first three attempts didn't work. If it had, who knows if we would have ever met them. And we would have been left wondering who the other half of our child's genes belonged to. We're still not sure exactly what type of relationship we'll have moving forward or what exactly that will look like, but we are excited to know that if we want it a relationship with them is an option.

We keep joking that this whole thing feels like a Lifetime original movie because it seems so unbelievable that we've been so supported by everyone and that everything really has fallen into place. We are so truly amazed at the generosity of our donor and his wife, and so thankful that they believe in us.

Now we just sit here and wait for our next positive ovulation predictor strip so that we can do the next insemination. Here's hoping attempt number four is the one!