Finding The ONE

Finding the right sperm donor is a pretty crazy process.  We started looking a few weeks ago and there are so many choices that your head starts to spin after looking at just a few.  First off, it’s hard to decide which website to use.  There are dozens of sites and each one has different donors, different info available for free and different info available for $, the sperm varies in prices along with shipping, there are different things to search by like eye color, hair color, size, weight, ethnic background, etc.  So much variation, so much to decide.  And what is important to us about our baby's sperm donor?  We have decided that all we really care about is blue eyes and yes to previously reported pregnancies.  We’d also like someone who is funny, smart, kind, and doesn’t seem like a big douche bag.  Not too much to ask for, right?

           

We’ve narrowed it down to two different websites, California Cryobank and Fairfax Cryobank.  They both have a good selection and have lots of interesting stuff you can see about the donors.  I’m leaning towards the California Cryobank, mostly because they post with each person what their “Celebrity” look-a-likes are, and I think that is really funny and really interesting.  I also feel like I’ve been into more of their donors than on the Fairfax site, but on the Fairfax site on some of the donors you can see what they call “lifetime” photos of the donor which includes baby pictures, kid/teenage pictures and an adult picture.  Plus they ask all of the donors what is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you and one guy put that he once saw a squirrel slap a pigeon and that made us laugh so hard that he is now my favorite over all between both sites.  Is that a good enough reason to pick someone?  Probably not, but after a while it seems like any one of them would work just fine.  

And even in picking out a donor, there is so much to know.  Like first off, S doesn’t know her blood type.  And we certainly don’t know if she is RH+ or RH- or her CMV status or really what either of those even mean.  And then there is the question of using ICI or IUI sperm.  ICI is something that you can do at home where the sperm is just put in close to the cervix and IUI is typically something that would be done at a doctor’s office because it has to go through the cervix and into the uterus.  We would prefer to do the ICI first and then try the IUI if that’s not successful, depending on the opinions of our doctor. 

Speaking of doctor, we have two very exciting appointments tomorrow.  Tomorrow at 12 we are taking a tour of the South Austin Birthing Center and then at 1:45 S has an appointment at her OB/GYN for a preconception check up to make sure we are good to go on the physical end of things and also so we can ask some questions like the stuff I listed above plus to find out about her insurance coverage on this.  And I was able to get off work, so I'll be able to go to both apointments.  Nice.

It’s all very exciting and seems to be moving fast.  S tends to get freaked out if we look too far into the future, for example I want to go look at cribs and pick out a name, while she can’t handle much more than 45 minutes worth of looking at potential sperm donors.  By the way, this is our list of possible names so far, in no particular order:

Lilly

Jonathan

Charlotte

Olivia

Grace

Natalie

Claire

Sophie

Lucy

Julian

Kennedy

Harper

Sadie

Alice

Skyler (which I HATE, but S loves, so I’m being forced to consider it further)

Joshua

Emery

Coleman

Luke

Noah

Felix

So that’s all for so far, I’m sure after the tour and doctor’s apointment there will be more to tell.

-L