Donor egg and donor sperm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to come across as mean spirited but I truly don't want it to be - I just don't understand using both donor egg and donor sperm, at that point why not just adopt a child and save your body the trauma? I say that as someone who desperately wanted children and went through IUI and IVF - it was the single most damaging thing I have ever done to my body. I worry about the cancer implications of some of the drugs I took and what would happen in the future. If we needed both donor egg and sperm, I would just go for adoption. The costs of adoption and the time it takes can be comparable to artificial insemination.

I sort of am wondering that as well. I had a horrible pregnancy and difficult birth that damaged my body permanently. If there is no aspect to the child that is your genetics and you can save yourself the experience of all the invasive rounds and cost of IVF and difficulties of pregnancy and put your funds towards adoption, why put yourself through that? Ultimately it’s the experience of being a parent you want, OP. The experience of pregnancy and birth, while meaningful and important, are very temporary states in the grand scheme of parenting a child for its whole life.

It is incredibly difficult, time consuming and expensive to adopt an infant. There are very few opportunities and those that come up often have major issues attached like prenatal drug and alcohol exposure. Beyond that, it's really not your business how someone wants to build a family.

This.

As a person who has personally gone through years of infertility: congratulations, just adopt PP. You have just offered up the most classic example of an uninformed, insulting recommendation that everyone rolls their eyes at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not use a donor embryo then?

It can take years to get off donor embryo lists, also there are a lot of orgs out there with certain roots that frankly discriminate when directing embryos. Its not a fun world. Also it can be more difficult than you think to have success. By definition the family that created the embryos (or had them before they were donated) use the best graded embryos first. It can take multiple rounds of transfers before it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not use a donor embryo then?

It can take years to get off donor embryo lists, also there are a lot of orgs out there with certain roots that frankly discriminate when directing embryos. Its not a fun world. Also it can be more difficult than you think to have success. By definition the family that created the embryos (or had them before they were donated) use the best graded embryos first. It can take multiple rounds of transfers before it works.

I'm the PP with the long response. This is absolutely true and something to be aware of. Any organization that calls it "embryo adoption" versus "embryo donation" is likely religiously affiliated and will make you go through expensive and time consuming hoops that no fertility clinic based program would. That's assuming you meet their criteria for a desired family (sorry single and gay intended parents). If I was pursuing embryo donation through an agency, I would stay away from those ones.

[Anonymous]

We are a two-mom family so only used donor sperm but the conversation with our kids is similar to what yours probably would look like. We talked about it with our sons starting when they were babies and keep adding details as they understand more. There are lots of good books and resources out there as the kids get older.

The Donor Sibling Registry: https://www.donorsiblingregistry.com/ is a good starting point and has lots of books and resources.

From everything I’ve read, it’s usually best for the kid to tell them young. We have SMC friends who waited until their kids were about 5, and even by age 5, some of the kids were mad or upset to discover that they had more ‘family’ than they thought. Everyone has to figure it out for themselves and their family though.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for providing an explanation, OP, it’s helpful. Sounds like you have made your decision and given it a lot of thoughts and research. And I see others are weighing in with good advice about what to tell the child, which is consistent with what I’ve heard from friends who did donor sperm and were strongly counseled to be open with the kids about their origin. Wishing you the best.

[Anonymous]

We did it last year at Shady Grove. We didn’t find any suitable matches with donor embryos. We will tell our baby early on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is going to come across as mean spirited but I truly don't want it to be - I just don't understand using both donor egg and donor sperm, at that point why not just adopt a child and save your body the trauma? I say that as someone who desperately wanted children and went through IUI and IVF - it was the single most damaging thing I have ever done to my body. I worry about the cancer implications of some of the drugs I took and what would happen in the future. If we needed both donor egg and sperm, I would just go for adoption. The costs of adoption and the time it takes can be comparable to artificial insemination.

Do you think people just walk down to the adoption supermarket and leave with a healthy infant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My clinic (Shady Grove) said they would not do it. They require at least one intended parent to have a biological connection in some way. I wasn’t asking, it just came up. I wonder PP if you had any pushback?

False. We did double donor at SG last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My clinic (Shady Grove) said they would not do it. They require at least one intended parent to have a biological connection in some way. I wasn’t asking, it just came up. I wonder PP if you had any pushback?

False. We did double donor at SG last year.

+1 I am a single woman who had to move to DE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to come across as mean spirited but I truly don't want it to be - I just don't understand using both donor egg and donor sperm, at that point why not just adopt a child and save your body the trauma? I say that as someone who desperately wanted children and went through IUI and IVF - it was the single most damaging thing I have ever done to my body. I worry about the cancer implications of some of the drugs I took and what would happen in the future. If we needed both donor egg and sperm, I would just go for adoption. The costs of adoption and the time it takes can be comparable to artificial insemination.

I sort of am wondering that as well. I had a horrible pregnancy and difficult birth that damaged my body permanently. If there is no aspect to the child that is your genetics and you can save yourself the experience of all the invasive rounds and cost of IVF and difficulties of pregnancy and put your funds towards adoption, why put yourself through that? Ultimately it’s the experience of being a parent you want, OP. The experience of pregnancy and birth, while meaningful and important, are very temporary states in the grand scheme of parenting a child for its whole life.

It's really none of your business about how others decide to have their children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to come across as mean spirited but I truly don't want it to be - I just don't understand using both donor egg and donor sperm, at that point why not just adopt a child and save your body the trauma? I say that as someone who desperately wanted children and went through IUI and IVF - it was the single most damaging thing I have ever done to my body. I worry about the cancer implications of some of the drugs I took and what would happen in the future. If we needed both donor egg and sperm, I would just go for adoption. The costs of adoption and the time it takes can be comparable to artificial insemination.

Do you think people just walk down to the adoption supermarket and leave with a healthy infant?

Why didn't I just think of that!!!

-every mother who went through fertility treatments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to come across as mean spirited but I truly don't want it to be - I just don't understand using both donor egg and donor sperm, at that point why not just adopt a child and save your body the trauma? I say that as someone who desperately wanted children and went through IUI and IVF - it was the single most damaging thing I have ever done to my body. I worry about the cancer implications of some of the drugs I took and what would happen in the future. If we needed both donor egg and sperm, I would just go for adoption. The costs of adoption and the time it takes can be comparable to artificial insemination.

NP here. We considered both adoption and donor embryo, but ultimately decided to do neither. Donor egg only wasn't an option because of MFI and I wasn't willing (physically and emotionally) to risk more failed cycles if the sperm was too poor quality. We had a donor via a friend who had leftover embryos from IVF, but there are many Facebook and other private groups for individuals to connect and donate directly without going through an agency.

Cost - donor embryo, especially if you can find a known donor, can be very affordable. Legal fees for the contractual piece, plus the cost of transporting the embryos and the FET(s). That's a few thousand versus $30-60,000 for adoption. If you go through a donor embryo agency, the costs can skyrocket and be comparable to adoption. Some are religiously affiliated and require home visits like an adoption agency, which of course costs thousands and thousands of dollars.

Time - the adoption process, domestic or international, is usually a few years. Donor embryo can take a few months if you aren't going through an agency that adds in many more steps. Even if you do, it would be similar and a wash in terms of weighing pros and cons.

Certainty - after years of infertility, we weren't willing to start a process that could lead to multiple failed adoptions. Talking with people that adopted, this is MUCH more common than you think, especially if you're concerned about ethical issues* and are willing to walk away from situations that don't feel right. Of course a FET could fail, but the odds of a PGT-A normal transfer are pretty good, especially if you have 2-3 embryos to try.

Control of uterine environment - if you read adoption forums, you can pretty much guarantee that most children up for adoption have exposure to less than ideal prenatal conditions - malnutrition and poverty in international adoptions and drug and alcohol exposure in domestic adoptions. Not all, but most. Plus if you're doing anything other than a newborn adoption, that child has suffered trauma from an unstable or abusive home environment, or just from disrupted placements. Embryo donation avoids those issues completely.

Pregnancy/breastfeeding - we had secondary infertility and I felt confident my body could handle pregnancy, and I really wanted to be able to breastfeed again. If you're primary infertility, the desire to experience pregnancy can be significant and is an important consideration. And because you mention the damage to your body from fertility treatments, let me say that we did 5 rounds of IVF and my RE said that it is closer to 10 before the risks of cancer and complications from the hormones start to rise. And a donor embryo transfer is an FET, those are either very low hormones or even natural cycle. Nothing like a fresh stim cycle.

* on the ethical issue point, I was initially really drawn to adoption, but did a lot of research and realized that the ethical issues in international and domestic adoptions are HUGE. I couldn't get my head around participating in a system that has a lot of problems without doing so with my eyes open and doing a lot of extra effort to ensure the adoption was ethical, and didn't feel emotionally prepared to do that after suffering many losses and failures with infertility.

OP here. I’m quoting your post, PP, because I could have written it myself.

To answer some of the questions asked, we are a lesbian couple who wanted our donors to match our ethnicities. We found an ethnic sperm donor that we liked (not easy to do), so after a few IUIs and many, many rounds of IVF, all unsuccessful, we considered adoption. We went to information sessions and talked with representatives from the most well-respected agencies... and learned that adoption was going to be difficult, expensive, and likely would take years. We’re already in our 40s. We also were counseled by adoption agency reps that we should really be willing to accept a baby whose mother used drugs while pregnant, had mental health issues, and that we needed to be willing to maintain contact (and potentially have annual visits) with birth mom. And that there was no guarantee that we’d be able to adopt even if we accepted all of those terms.

I actually found a post on DCUM during that time that described using donor eggs as “like hitting the adoption lottery,” and it resonated with me. I had always wanted to be a mother, to experience pregnancy, and to breastfeed my baby. Add to this that we were tapped out financially and SGFC has a donor egg program that offers a full refund if you’re unsuccessful after 6 separate embryo transfers. It sounded like our best chance to have a baby in a reasonable timeframe. And it ended up being just that; I got pregnant with the first transfer and we could not be happier with our beautiful boy.

There are several resources that talk about using one donor, but I haven’t found any that discuss two donors being used. We plan to tell our child his story from a very young age, so I just wondered what others in this situation told their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is going to come across as mean spirited but I truly don't want it to be - I just don't understand using both donor egg and donor sperm, at that point why not just adopt a child and save your body the trauma? I say that as someone who desperately wanted children and went through IUI and IVF - it was the single most damaging thing I have ever done to my body. I worry about the cancer implications of some of the drugs I took and what would happen in the future. If we needed both donor egg and sperm, I would just go for adoption. The costs of adoption and the time it takes can be comparable to artificial insemination.

Because adoption can be very expensive and you can spend all that money and come out with no child. It took us six years to adopt and we spent a fortune as the adoption industry is pretty slimy.

[Anonymous]

Np here who appreciates hearing the explanations. I'm like the questioning pp. With no experience in this realm, I don't understand it. It's great to have a place where sensitive questions can be asked and answered. Reading this, I'll be able to be more sensitive to people in real life going through this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Np here who appreciates hearing the explanations. I'm like the questioning pp. With no experience in this realm, I don't understand it. It's great to have a place where sensitive questions can be asked and answered. Reading this, I'll be able to be more sensitive to people in real life going through this.

So you lack basic empathy? Nice.