Sperm Donor Question
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Anonymous
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I am not 100% sure this is the correct forum to post this, but I think so.
A good friend has asked me to donate sperm for her to conceive. She froze her eggs at Shady Grove several years ago. I am willing to donate sperm and had a brief consultation with a doctor there on the process. While this is a good friend of mine, I want to be sure there are no complications later. Should I get a contract drawn up to ensure I am not named the father or am under any obligation to the child beyond the donation? Should I consult with an attorney? If it matters, we both are Virginia residents, but the eggs and the location are in Maryland. Thanks for any words of advice. |
Anonymous
| In my experience, the person using the donor is usually in charge of getting the legal paperwork done, and then, yes, you should have an attorney review it. If she is using a shady grove location in MD, you will both have to do a mandatory counseling session with a social worker, which is a good opportunity to talk about any non-legal concerns you have. |
Anonymous
| Thank you. Yes, I meant to write and the doctor's location is in Maryland. |
Anonymous
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I was a donor some years ago. I would advise against it. The cases where the dad has later been on the hook to support the kid are always when he had some form of existing relationship with the mom. I would definitely consult an attorney.
While her request is flattering, there are plenty of high quality donors out there for her to use. |
Anonymous
This. It is a very rare person to pull this off with no strings attached. Even more rare to have two people |
Anonymous
Did this happen to you? What is your relationship (if any) with the child now? And the mom? |
Anonymous
| You might want to take a look at the Known Donor Registry. I think they might have resources that could be useful to you as you consider this. https://knowndonorregistry.com/ |
Anonymous
| Thank you. This has been helpful! |
Anonymous
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Look up Michele Zavos. She is the top lawyer in this area for known donors. She works in DC and Maryland.
DC has the best laws to protect both donors and intended parents of this situation. Maryland is ok too, Virginia less so. I believe the law is applicable based on where the mother gives birth. If you go through a fertility clinic, they will require that you go to a therapist before they will allow you to donate. The therapist will help you think through the emotional side of this. |
Anonymous
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Thank you all. I had looked at the Virginia Code and Section 20-158 states that a donor, as defined in Virginia Code Section 20-156, is not the parent of a child conceived through assisted conception if the donor is the not the husband of the gestational mother. While the Code sounds pretty solid, I am no lawyer and will definitely call this week (and thanks for the referral). I have another appointment with the doctor at the facility and think I will be doing some type of blood test (CMV and Sema-4, if memory serves).
Again, thanks for your guidance. I will follow up with the professionals to be sure I am doing this right, and to see whether I should do this at all. |
Anonymous
PP disappeared from the conversation. You can’t just say you advise against it without any reason at all. Care to explain? |
Anonymous
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Hi OP. We're a lesbian couple who used a known donor. We have a 2.5 year old, a 7 year old, and DW is pregnant with our third currently.
It was a big decision to use a known donor, and one that we discussed for many years. Ultimately we didn't want the biological father of our kids to be some omnipotent force that they would never meet, and we didn't really want an unknown number of half siblings out there either. We asked a very good friend from college, but he had to meet a lot of criteria, the most important of which was that he did not want to be a "dad." He is gay and would never have had kids otherwise. He was willing to help us create our family but even now, years later, even with our kids knowing who he is and having a relationship with his parents, they do NOT view him as a "dad." He doesn't view himself that way either. Here's what we did and what I would recommend: - Bank your sperm with SG or another reputable cryobank. We used Fairfax Cryobank. This is for legal reasons and so your friend can have a supply. This puts a lot of legal stuff in place to begin. - SG will make you meet with a social worker/therapist alone and with your friend who wants to use you as a donor. You'll take a personality test and your friend will get the results. The social worker will discuss the results with your friend. This will all cost your friend a good amount of money. - Your friend should contact a lawyer to determine what needs to happen for you to legally relinquish your rights to this child. For us this happened through a second parent adoption, but if she's a single mother, the process is probably going to look different. Our kids were born in DC so basically they lived with us for six months, the donor didn't need to do or sign anything, and then I (the non-bio mom) adopted both kids when they were each six months old. - Talk to your friend about what your relationship would look like with these kids - if you even want to have one. I would get this all out in the open even before you meet with the social worker at SG. Then there won't be any surprises. We have been very happy with our arrangement. I don't ever plan on coming after our donor for money (he has none anyway), and he would never be able to come after our kids for any sort of custody because of how we proceeded legally through the whole thing. If you want to do it, make sure your expectations align with your friend's expectations and just be open with one another before you get in too far and she spends too much money. |
Anonymous
| 20:08 here again. I also highly recommend that your friend contact and use Michelle Zavos. We used her firm for both of our second parent adoptions and for all of the legal paperwork. She's fantastic. |
Anonymous
I am the donor PP. All of my donor children were via moms I did not know. I mentioned those cases where the dad had to pay child support because I’d heard about them, not because they happened to me. |
Anonymous
| It's a famous case they cover in business law classes. Can't remember the names, but there is precedent that you can't sign away a child's rights. A guy signed a contract with a woman that he would not be on the hook for child support and then donated his sperm. The mother won child support in court years later based on the idea that the mother and father can't legally sign away the child's right to financial support. |