IUI with donor sperm

[Anonymous]

I am currently beginning IUI using donor sperm. I am curious if anyone out there has been through this. Any advice or stories would be great. I am hoping for quick results.

[Anonymous]

i did this a few years ago. i was lucky, i got pregnant on the second try. do you have specific questions?

[Anonymous]

OP here. I know donor sperm (frozen) lowers the chances each month. I was wondering:

a) How long did it take folks to get pregnant.

b) Did some folks have to change donors to get pregnant?

c) How did you choose your donor?

[Anonymous]

Lesbian mom here. We used frozen donor sperm.

We tried for 8 cycles total out of a 10 month period. (From the research I did, it appears that 8 cycles using frozen sperm of good quality is average in women with no other fertility issues...)

We also did injectible fertility meds and acupuncture and traditional chinese medicine because I had very high FSH, which is an indication of low ovarian reserve.

I had a chemical pg on the first cycle (which was unmedicated) - possibly due to my short luteal phase which I had not identified yet. (Later took progesterone suppositories to help with that.) Loved that donor, but the bank ran out of him so we had to switch donors.

We used buckets of the next guy (who was ID release, which was at the time important to us) - but he apparently was not a good match with my eggs.

We became successful using our third donor, who we also thought was a great fit for what we were looking for. Now have an amazing, healthy, joyous daughter as a result.

In terms of what we looked for, we based the physical characteristics on my partner. At first we were looking for donors of her family's national origin, but there were too few to pick from (first donor was a fit there). Most important, however, were the availability of a photo (we want to be able to show it to our daughter at a later date), clean mental and physical health family history, and personality traits (looking for someone more easygoing and extroverted than I - the birth mother - am by nature) - and, of course, has the donor been able to get anyone pg?

Essentially, it is common to start out with very specific requirements for a donor, and, over time, become more open to someone who is successful at producing babies. Even though they are all tested for motility and sperm count, they are not all equally effective. For instance, ID release was initially very important to us, but those donors are few and far between, so we had to let go of that finally and settle for a photo.

I'll check back later to see if you have any questions.

[Anonymous]

pp:
as i mentioned, i got pregnant on my second try with my first donor

re: picking a donor
i think i looked for donors who essays/voice recordings i liked/sounded like someone i liked/career interest was in an area i could see being interested in/had some education level similar to my own
i didn't really look for specific physical characteristics although i think i ended up picking someone with brown hair and eyes like me/as a single mom i guess it makes sense for my son to resemble me..no need to pick a different ethnicity arbitrarily
i think most medical stuff is already screened for so there wasn't much to look for there

in the end i realized it is really a fairly arbitrary decision, only so much you can control

good luck...

[Anonymous]

OP here. We kind of went with someone who has some physical characteristics were were happy with, and liked essays. Tried not to get too caught up in the decision, as this will not really be the "father" of the baby anyway.

Just curious how this goes, as I am new to the process.

[Anonymous]

We're doing IUI with donor sperm and I've been shocked by how many people feel like they can comment on our process. We had a gay friend who went off on us for not choosing an open ID donor. He said our child would be a teenager one day and be angry at us for not
knowing who his "father" was. It was awful. I am curious if any other women who have used donor sperm have encountered this issue? Did other people ask you very personal questions or give you their unwanted opinions?

[Anonymous]

I just watched an Oprah on this topic a few weeks ago, and I was very surprised about the reactions to this situation by the children that she featured. Worth visiting her site to see if you can watch the episode online.

The kids who did not know who their donor was felt that they were missing something and most ultimately went in search of their donor's ID. I was surprised because it seemed similar to an adoption scenario, and I have never really thought about donor sperm being anything like that situation.

[Anonymous]

I saw part of that Oprah episode. I wonder if most of the kids who grew up to want to know the donor had Father's already and how those men felt about their kids wanting to meet the donor. In my mind, using donor sperm is more of a medical necessity than anything else. I've haven't heard about a surrogate child growing up to want to meet the woman who carried them, but maybe that happens too. I fully expect that the laws will change in the next 20 years anyway and make it so all donor kids can find out who the donor was or meet some of their siblings. We at least bought all the copies of our donor's baby pictures we could so we could show those to the child someday.

[Anonymous]

Lesbian mom here (not the previous poster!)

We used frozen sperm and did 9 cycles in 19 months (we had to take off a few months here and there for financial reasons, job changes, appt scheduling, etc.) We tried all of the methods: IUI with no meds, IUI with Clomid and trigger, and IUI with injectibles. There was no medical reason it took so long. I also did acupuncture.

We chose our donors (and I say multiple, because we had 4 donors in our 9 cycles) based on appearance and medical history. We wanted a donor that had the same eye and hair color as my partner and wanted a relatively clean medical history. We switched donors after every few tries - and the time we did get pregnant was the first time using this donor (his count was MUCH higher than any of the other donors.)

We used a donor with Fairfax Cryobank (before they had ID release) because we found a donor that matched the physical appearance that we were looking for and we were able to save a lot of $$ on shipping. When we were doing this about 3-4 years ago, ID release wasn't a big thing. We figured it was like a closed adoption. You don't always get to find out who your biological parents are. Perhaps our kids will resent that we made that decision for them - who knows. Friends have asked why we didn't get an ID release donor and questioned it. Oh well.

The one thing that I do think is hard (for me) is knowing that my kids (twins) have a LOT of siblings. According to the Donor Sibling Registry, there are over 40 kids born with this donor. That is staggering to me. We haven't reached out, because right now I feel that our family involves the 4 of us and I am not eager to add others to that mix and it still feels odd to me (even though I knew about this before we did it.) Perhaps if the kids ever ask, we'll join and hook up with them.

Re: Oprah. I (and many others that I've talked to who used donor sperm) thought that the show was VERY one sided. They only talked to persons who had a strong desire to know their donor. There are young adults out there that do feel complete without knowing their donor (our nanny for one.) And really what 20 year old isn't searching for their identity and struggling to figure out who they are?

[Anonymous]

i'm the single mom: i did this 4 years ago as well and the donor ID was not as big an issue and it was difficult to find open donors. i have a friend who is looking into this now and it has changed alot. i am not sure how my son will feel about this when he gets older (he's just three now.) and i agree that it felt very strange to discover that my son has at least 20 siblings registered on the sibling donor registry. i'm not sure if connecting with siblings is something i will pursue...probably will decide how to handle it as i see how my son feels about things.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We opted agains ID Consent. We don't consider the donor as the father. Guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it when I actually do get pregnant and the child grows up.

[Anonymous]

I completely agree with no donor consent. I agree we will cross that bridge later. This will be our first IUI, excited and scared at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Hi im 25 just did an iui and im waiting i have 5 more days to find out im with my partner so thats why we decide to go ths rounte i already have two children boy and girl they were made natural. so this is ne for me all i do is pray that god blesses us.

[Anonymous]

Another lesbian couple here..

a) How long did it take folks to get pregnant. 3 tries

b) Did some folks have to change donors to get pregnant? No, but if it hadn't happened in 3 tries, we would've switched.

c) How did you choose your donor? Mostly on looks- same defining physical characteristics as the one of us who would not be biologically carrying the child. After that, he needed to be somewhat intelligent/artistic.

Oh, and we chose an anonymous donor. As others have said, we don't consider our child as having a father. We have the booklet that the donor himself filled out stating, among other things, that he wished not to ever be contacted...that he wanted a couple to get pregnant who needed assistance and to love that child, and that's all. When our child is old enough, we will certainly share the booklet with him.