Mommies Here!

From time to time, I write about the quest of the perfect sperm. I have gone through about seven donors over the past 1.5 years. Unlike most of you, when I first began this madness, I did not have the foresight to purchase more sperm viles than I needed for a given cycle.

And what that means is that by the time I picked myself up after a BFN and tried to re-purchase vials of my chosen sperm, I would often discover that my donor had retired or that his sperm had been sold out. Nadia and I have fallen in love with more profiles than we can count on one hand, but we never thought that it would take us over eight cycles to get pregnant, so we never stored any viles.

When you store vials, you have to purchase a certain number of vials and then pay for storage on top of that expense. Being the eternal optimist, I never thought that that kind of financial outlay would be necessary. I was wrong.

The selection process over this past year and a half has morphed over time. Originally, we were interested in finding someone who looked like Nadia and, believe it or not, someone who shared our values. We found the perfect guy, Mr. South American. Oh, we were so naive back then and so in love. We only purchased two viles and when I needed more, we found out that he retired.

Bummer! What a let down on top of a BFN.

After that, with each new cycle, it seemed as if we had to pick ourselves up and move on to a different donors, which was crazy making at times. You would think that we would learn our lesson, but given the fact that I see the glass as half full and given the fact that Nadia doesn’t like to waste money, we’ve had to regroup and review new donor profiles on numerous occasions. I’m proud to say that all of the donors had one thing in common though, high sperm counts.

Even though I compromised many of what once were essential donor traits, there was one attribute that I insisted on having: a history of pregnancy. Nadia and I vacillated on the open and closed donor decision, race, height, and even donor IQ, but we both agreed that we needed someone with a positive track record. During this past year and a half, I’ve had South American social justice activists, African Americans guitar playing smokers, White engineers and construction workers, but during out last cycle, Nadia and I settled the One, an East Indian donor.

Having been through the egg drop drama six times before, we decided to stock up on this one. So he is the One, he could very well be the biological father of our child. We will use him for our upcoming IVF cycle.

It’s a bit odd because neither one of us is East Indian but we feel that we will add an extra dimension to our family. Our child will definately be raised as both South American and Caribbean American by virtue of her parents but s/he will also have a biological connection to a culture we no nothing about. It’s going to be quite an adventure.

And I can’t wait.

Photo Courtesy: Mahadev.org & Vaishnodevi.com

So, after getting the good news yesterday, Nadia and I spent a few hours last night selecting a new donor. All of the donors we previously selected have retired.

So let’s recap, shall we?

First there was the South American dreamboat we immediately fell in love with after listening to his audio interview for the first time. His pitch perfect voice was the perfect gift wrap to his comments on social justice and family. Then there was the African/Native American/German who was absolutely perfect except for his smoking which caused his sperm count to be respectable with ‘room for improvement’, according to Dr. Feelgood. Most recently, we used a French/English/Dutch donor who –according to the message boards anyway– was extremely fertile. But four unsuccessful rounds of IUIs later– unfortunately, or maybe fortunately– all of these lovely specimens are retired from the game.

I am not exactly sure why we feel we have to start from scratch evertime a donor retires but we do. So last night Nadia and I put all of our cards on the table–again–and (re)hashed out what we are looking for in a donor. Even though we know that there is no perfect donor, I guess we always worry that we’ve overlooked the One who will answer our prayers, get us pregnant, and make all of our dreams come true.

So starting from scratch meant thinking about what it is we really want in a donor. Do we want open donor? An ethnic donor? and if so, what ethnicity would we choose? African American? Latino? Mixed race?

We also talked about how important it is that our donors boys cans swim? Every cycle represents over a thousand dollars in sperm and shipping costs not to mention the emotional toll it takes.

Nadia was really concerned about whether or not Baby Godot would somehow resent us for not choosing an open donor. She works with adolescents and thinks that these type of decisions can come back to bite parents on the a**

I, on the other hand, was most concerned with choosing an ‘effective’ donor. Is there a definitive way of knowing how many offspring he has? Three donors into this, I also feel strongly about having someone who is Latino and, possibly, someone who looks like Nadia.

Well to make a long story short, we decided on a closed Latino donor who has a pregnancy track record.

We both feel good about the decision and even though I can honestly say that this journey has tested our relationship, it has also brought us closer together.

Even though I had some reservations about starting back on the fertility hamster wheel so close to my surgery, I can’t wait ’til this cycle begins.

Bring on Auntie Flo!

I am just catching up on my Sunday New York Times reading and I came across the Modern Love column in the Styles Section. The piece, entitled, “The Man I Wish Was Your Father” happens to be about a lesbian mom who is reflecting on her donor choice.

The author, Virginia Smith, started out wanting a known donor who would be a part of her children’s lives. She fantasized about her kids having a relationship with their ‘father’ even though she was fully prepared to be a single parent and pay for everything. She even kind of ‘fell in love’ with a potential candidate, named Andrew. She writes “And so we began our odd seduction a courtship that was not about sexuality or marriage but nevertheless involved many of the same concerns…” Eventually, she changed her mind about using Andrew’s sperm out of fear.

Fifteen years ago when she started her TTC journey AIDS was everywhere. The fear of AIDS touching her family and her children lead her to withdraw from Andrew and use an anonymous open donor. She writes, “I couldn’t take it any more, the overwhelming fear that AIDS could devastate our lives and the lives of the children we might have together. Even continuing the friendship was too painful.”

I was glad to see this topic featured in Modern Love and I choose not to judge Virginia’s decision because choosing a donor is so very complicated.

Nadia and I have decided to go with an open anonymous donor because we want the child to be ‘ours’. We fear having a known donor who might one day fight for custody or fail to relinquish his rights when the time comes for Nadia to adopt. And even though I am confident our decision, I have to admit that I waiver sometimes. If we went with a known donor who wanted to be involved, Nadia and I could definitely use the extra pair of hands. And the child would benefit from that extended security blanket –you know, it takes a village to raise a child.

At the end of her piece, Virginia Smith seems to be a bit melancholy about her choice. She winds up googling Andrew only to discover that he is still alive and still with the man he introduced her to many years ago. Even though she loves her children, she seems to second guess her choice to go with an anonymous donor.

Right now, Nadia and I feel good about our decision to go with an open anonymous donor. I just hope we don’t have any regrets.

Okay, so we are probably going to do the next round of inseminations with a blond- haired green-eyed French, German, Englishman. What?!?

When I first started this process, I did not even look at the sperm bank message boards to investigate the buzz about my donor. I considered this a deeply sacred experience that was to be shared between me, my partner, the sperm bank, the doctor, his business partner and all of the nurses on staff.

After Nadia and I made our donor selection the first time, I just knew that donor 57ddwas the one for me. He was Mr. Social Justice South American. He was not materialistic and had brown, wavy hair, just like my wife. When we listened to his voice for the first time on the audio recording, it was like love at first utterance, if you believe in miracles.

We were totally enraptured. We bought his picture and squealed when the downloading image first came into focus.

But as I have mentioned before on this blog, it all came crashing to an end when I confirmed with the sperm bank staff that my donor had retired. This explains why on two occasions I had to order my second choice sperm, donor number 37zz, one of the few open African-American donors. He is African-American, Native-American, German-Jewish and a smoker. I’ve used him twice and there is no bun baking in my oven.

In light of the fact that I will now be on injectable fertility hormones for 8-10 days, I’ve been scavenging the sperm bank message boards to see who recently got pregnant and by whom. This is how I came to choose donor 37ee. He seems quite effective. He is also an open donor, which means a lot to Nadia and me. It’s not exaclty love, but if it works this time around it could be.

Thousands of dollars later, I need a dude whose boys can swim fast and hard up my uterus even after I’ve jumped out of the stirrups to hustle my way to work.

Okay, so I did an early pregnancy test today and it was BFN (big fat negative) so I think I may need to do the injectables. I am not looking forward to excessive bloating and nausea, but hey, it’s for a noble cause right?

Nadia and I just spent our entire morning and afternoon trying to select another donor since three out of the four original donors we selected have retired!

We settled on a German, French dude, which may seem a bit odd since I am African American and she is Latina, but judging from the message board, this is someone who seems to be very fertile. At this stage in the game–round 4–I really need someone who is an open donor who can get me pregnant sooner rather than later.

So here we go again, but this time around I will have the pleasure of being pumped up on fertility drugs.

So, I just tried to order sperm for my next insemination and it turns out that two of my three possible baby daddies have retired.

What?!?

I can now choose to start all over again and try to identify two more donors, so I have more in rotation, or I may have to just hope and pray that donor 37## is always available when I need him.

This is both depressing and anxiety producing. Selecting a donor is a very time-consuming process. And at the end of the day, you never know if you’ve made the right choice.

I want to puke.

Who will be my baby Daddy? Have you ever poured over a sperm donor catalogue? This weekend my partner, Nadia, had our first taste.

” Donor #345 has a cleft chin.”

“Donor #567 is 5′9 with dark curly hair”. ”

“Donor #789 has an MBA and says he loves his mother.”

The new era in genetics is very overwheming. And I am not quite sure how I feel about it.

But I do know that I want to have a baby.