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!!! :)