D is for Donor Sperm and Decisions

D is for Donor Sperm and in my case that donor sperm has a specific ID #BGM 9581 and has helped give me 3 beautiful children.  I have written many posts that involve BGM9581 and I am very happy with my/our Decision to use a donor to help us create our family.  Which is really what it all boils down to Decision (which also starts with D).  When a couple is faced with infertility no matter what their Diagnosis (another D) they are then ultimately faced with life altering Decisions.  What will be the next step, and all these decisions have to be made when emotions are running high and Desperation (D again) is at its peak.

For me I was making decisions and choices based on years of heartache and the longing to have a child.  Our choices seemed simple to me at the time, Adoption, Donor Sperm or No kids at all.  Well the last one was out for me, I wanted children and even though my husband was unable to have children of his own he knew that not have any children at all was not an option.  We looked into Adoption and went to a few seminars, but after much consideration we decided to use a Sperm Donor.  When I was looking through the online catalogues picking and poking through my donor options;  hair colour, eye colour, height, ethnicity, attached or detached earlobes, I will be honest and say, I didn’t much care, all I wanted to do was pick one and get on with having a baby.  I never thought to stop and think about the ramifications of my decisions.  I picked an anonymous donor, not because he was anonymous, but because he matched my husbands looks the most and because he was a Canadian compliant donor, we do not pay men to donate here in Canada so we have a serious lack of sperm in our country and therefore we buy the majority of our specimen from the US.  (But that is another topic and one I feel strongly about.  You can read a bit more about that topic on my post Buying and Selling Eggs, Sperm and Embryo’s is a Crime here in Canada! )

After I had my first child and was about to have my twins I started to blog about my journey about using donor sperm and being a mom to donor conceived children.  The blog started out with me telling my story and in the process I started to join groups and read others blogs about being donor parents and donor conceived children and it was through these avenues that I discovered I had possibly made a very large error in my decision making.   I had NOT done my DUE DILIGENCE, I had neglected to research the world of donor sperm and sperm banks and how it would affect my children’s futures.  I realized that I had been making my mind up about things in my selfish effort to have a baby in my arms.  Please do not get me wrong, I love my children and would do it all over again, the only thing I would do differently is SLOW DOWN, BREATH and Make Better Informed Ethical Decisions for my family!

So yup D is for DONOR and D is for Decisions, Due Diligence, Desperation and Diagnosis!