Sperm Banks vs. Known Donors

One of the first things we did once we decided that, yeah, we do want to have children was buy The New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth. This book is fantastic and was recommended in several online groups we were reading at the time. We each read the book cover to cover and then talked about a lot of the conversation starters in the book to try to make some decisions about how and why we wanted to do this. One of the biggest discussions it sparked was where to get our sperm.

R, my partner, really liked the idea of using someone we know. Its MUCH cheaper and that way you get to see the person, talk to them about why they want to give you their genes to have babies and see if you vibe before making a decision. Fresh sperm also lives a lot longer than frozen and you usually get it in much greater quantities. On the other hand, I have a hangup about using fresh sperm from someone I’ve met. Vibing with them is great, but I worry that, once we have the baby, I will always think of them as “R and KD’s” baby and not mine. Yes, its stupid. Add that to the fact that there are way fewer legal issues when using sperm bank sperm and we decided it was worth it to go the sperm bank way.

We made an appointment at our local sperm bank but as the appointment got closer, our future (logistics-wise) started to look a little more dicey and we really weren’t sure which state we’d be living in six months down the road, so we put our plans on hold.

We’re settled into a new place and ready to get things back on track, so about two months ago, we filled out an application and sent it in to a sperm bank that is across the country.  We felt good about the place and they had a good selection of donors who sounded like they looked a bit like me.  After about two weeks and a few follow up emails we were denied because we apparently don’t make enough money.

People in our position (people without sperm readily available to them) don’t go into this lightly. We certainly aren’t wealthy, but we live comfortably and we wouldn’t be trying to have a baby if we thought that we weren’t able to be financially responsible for one. Realistically, if we could afford to buy the sperm to get pregnant, we could afford to raise a child. Who knew that the sperm bank system was so classist?

After re-discussing our options, we decided that we would try a few ads and see if anything panned out. Luckily, one of the first responses we got was from someone who sounded damn-near perfect . We also got a whole lot of way-less-than-perfect responses, sometimes complete with ‘look at my sexy, sexy abs’ pictures. Every question we asked our KD, in person and through email was answered perfectly. I wasn’t even sure what I thought was a good reason to be motivated to give your sperm to someone but when we heard his answer, I knew it was the best explanation I could have hoped for.

We’re paying him, so I’m not sure it will end up being much cheaper than a sperm bank, but it is fresh so it should go much faster and we get the benefit of actually meeting with him before we enter into this. He is as interested in making sure that he isn’t responsible for the baby as we are, so I really feel like we got the best of both worlds with him. I’m sure there will be a few awkward moments to come and until he severs parental rights, I will continue to be worried about the legal side of things, but most of all I am just excited that we found him.