The Final Five

We ordered long profiles for the final five!!! They are on their way and we hope to have the decision made by this weekend. Wish us luck. :) Also, thanks so much to all of you for your support, encouragement, and sarcastic comments it really means a lot!

Choices, Choices, Choices...

We keep getting questions about what criteria we used to select a sperm bank and what criteria we are using to select a donor....so Taylor suggested I write a blog entry about it! The selection of the bank was primarily mine, as I worked for almost two years as the Donor Program Coordinator for California Cryobank and know something (probably too much) about sperm banking and sperm donors. We would have used California Crybank because I think they do a fabulous job of screening the donors (they are the only bank I know of with Genetic Counselors on staff) and they offer a lot of information (for purchase) about the donors. However, I strongly felt that it would be morally and ethically wrong to use a donor that I knew as they were guaranteed anonymity and if we used a donor I didn't know my friends still there would be in a very awkward position of knowing who our donor was when we didn't. In addition, while California Cryobank has "open" donors who agree to one contact with an offspring when the offspring is 18 or older that contact does not have be identifying (it could be an e-mail, letter, phone call etc.). We really want our child to be able to have identifying contact with the donor if they would like.

The bank we selected, The Sperm Bank of California is the only non-profit sperm bank that I am aware of (I love the non-profits!), it started as a feminist women's health clinic, they are against and do not follow the FDA recommendation and American Association of Tissue Banks regulation that men who have had sex with men in the past five years not be accepted as donors, they pioneered the identity-release program wherein offspring can receive identifying information about their donors at age 18, they are proactive in terms of conducting research in the field, are a small bank and are willing to share more information about donors in personal interaction sense, and limit the number of families created per donor to 10 (some banks limit the number of vials and the number of families created can be much larger than 10).

In regard to our donor selection we have used a variety of factors. One factor related to Taylor wanting to minimize the history of addictive behaviors in the donor's family as that is a concern with my family history. Another factor was an arbitrary (we admit it!) limit of no donors under 18 or over 40. In factoring information about their medical history - we didn't pay too much attention as we know they are screened by the bank which usually includes the medical director and a contracted genetic counselor. We paid specific attention to their reasons for wanting to be an identity release donor (we didn't look at any who are not identity release donors). We were also really interested in all of their other answers which included information about their interests and personality. The next steps in choosing the donor are to buy their longer profiles which will also give us more questions and answers from the donors as well as overall sperm analysis (including whether their sperm has led to other pregnancies) and staff impressions.

We sent out our narrowed down list of ten donors (it has been further narrowed down at this point) to friends and family and it has been so interesting to see what criteria other people use. It has also been really interesting to see the issues that this has brought up for other people in terms of their comfort level around this process, ethnicity/race, and concerns about homophobia. We really appreciate all of you that have contributed to this process!!! :)

The Rising Cost of Sperm

So, we had planned out a fun relaxing trip to CA in January that would include picking up the sperm (from whatever donor we eventually decide on) and delivering it to the bank I used to work at (California Cryobank) for storage, visiting friends and revisiting all the places we love and miss in San Francisco. Then I checked the website for The Sperm Bank of California (where we are buying the sperm) last night and found good and bad news. Good news we don't have to be registered to buy the long profiles, medical charts, and staff impressions...this is good as our doctor is on maternity leave and we have to wait to get some of the information needed to register; Bad news is that the prices are going up $50 per vial as of the first of January which is kinda significant. We are now thinking that we should go in December over Solstice for the big buying and transferring extravaganza which is stressful but perhaps a precursor of the reality that not everything can be planned? Just as an FYI for all y'all not following the rising cost of sperm; a vial of IUI, Identity-Release sperm now goes for about $500 bucks; 2 per month and an average of 5 months to get pregnant...you do the math because I don't want to think about it! :)

Welcome to the blog!

Yes, I finally got around to setting it up and hope to post regularly about our journey to parenthood and eventually (hopefully) our adventures in parenting. This is mostly for friends and family to be able to keep updated on what we are doing but anyone is welcome to read. :) Taylor and I are so excited about becoming parents and get more and more excited everyday...although we also admit to moments of terror. When I started my new job we decided to give ourselves six months (which will be March 2008) to see how the job goes and to work on a list we generated of things we wanted to do both to prepare ourselves and my body for pregnancy. We planned a budget, started couples counseling, found a doctor to do the insemination, switched insurance, changed our diet, started getting rid of toxins in our environment, and of course started reviewing profiles of sperm donors from the bank we have chosen (don't worry I will have a whole post about the fun of that!). We certainly realize the challenges that we face as a queer couple bringing a child into the world and into our lives but more importantly we realize the love we have to give and the joy that we feel when thinking about expanding our family. Much love to you all! Megan