to worry that DH would have trouble connecting with donor child

[ConfusedFrog]

DH and I have recently found out we are unable to have children naturally due to DH infertility. We have started to think about alternative ways to have a family – and I am leaning towards using a sperm donor. DH has brought up adoption a few times, but I have looked into it fairly extensively and while I have huge respect for anyone who does chose to adopt, I don't think that it is necessarily the right choice for us. I have started to think about the possibility of using donor sperm - but haven't yet discussed this with DH as I'm not sure it's a path he would be interested in going down..

My worry is that DH will potentially struggle to connect with the child if it's not genetically 'his' – I really don't mean for this to offend anyone who has gone down this path, I just want to do what is right for us and any potential child and am looking to hear from others who have made or haven't made this choice.

If we did use a donor, I think it would be important to ensure that the child is aware of their origins from early on (so there are no 'surprises' that could be very upsetting later in life) – but this would mean that it would be a constant reminder to DH that the child wasn't his genetic child. I think this would be upsetting for him, especially as he is very private and doesn't want people knowing about his infertility issues (and I'm pretty sure that a child who we were open with about being a donor child would talk about this with their friends at school / family / family friends etc and it would be very much open knowledge – and I wouldn't really feel comfortable telling the child not to talk about it as I wouldn't want them to feel any 'shame' about where they came from). I also worry that DH would find it difficult if the child chose to contact the donor when they turned 18.

Has anyone else been down the donor sperm path and faced any of these difficulties? Am I completely unreasonable to think that these things could even be an issue?

It’s difficult to know how it will affect them until they’re adults to be honest. Donor conception is a relatively new thing and the psychological effects not well documented. It’s up to you to decide whether you feel you want to take that chance.

@Cuppasoupmonster This is what I'm worried about.. as much as I desperately want a child, I want to make sure that any potential child would be okay. It seems to be quite mixed, and I think my next step would be to speak to DH and then, if it's something he would potentially be interested in pursuing (even slightly) then we need to connect with the Donor Conception Network..

@NotMyDayJob That's wonderful that you have your DC ❤ I almost wish that it were me with the infertility issues, as I do feel it would be somewhat easier for us all to feel involved if I were carrying the baby with a donor egg and we were able to use DH sperm. Although, that's a very easy thing to say having not been in that position (and I certainly don't mean to imply that this was easy for you in any way!!) Tbh - as another pp pointed out - I think the fact that DH is pretty much estranged from his family would not work in our favour with regard to adoption, regardless of anything else.. I think next step is just to have a very honest conversation with DH... Thank you for sharing your experience x

Yes, agree but this is difficult it turns into fights.
So I’m gonna rethink this and see what to do next.
A baby has to be wished by both, and you can’t force a man to submit.
I need to work through my heavy emotions with a man that’s not on board with me.

I'm in a same-sex couple and neither of us have any fertility problems, but we've had to work through some similar issues because we couldn't both be genetically related to a future DC. My DP wanted a baby more than I did, and wanted to be pregnant, while I didn't. But I can totally see things from your DH's perspective - I felt that if the child were not 'mine', I might struggle to bond with them and would see them as DP's baby. In the end we had reciprocal IVF, where I donated my eggs to DP and she carried 'my' baby (conceived with donor sperm). All through the pregnancy she was worried she wouldn't be able to bond with the baby because it wouldn't be related to her, and I worried I wouldn't be able to bond because I hadn't been pregnant! She was also (we are overthinkers) worried that she wouldn't bond with the baby straight away because actually that is pretty common, but that she would think it was because she wasn't related to it. I would add that we both sort of accept that it shouldn't matter about being genetically related, but we both know it does matter to us, because we had to process those emotions and make some quite difficult decisions.

Anyway, the DS is now 19 months old, and is utterly delightful, and has a very strong bond with both of us. We both took roughly equal amounts of SPL, which I recommend if you can, and I made sure I was very hands-on so I wouldn't end up as a secondary parent. Now that we have had this experience, I'm much more comfortable with the idea of a second baby conceived with the same donor sperm but DP's eggs, and I'm now sure if that happens I'll love DC2 just as much even if they're not 'mine'.

Obviously the situations aren't the same, and I would never say 'this worked out for me so it will for you', but for us, working through and talking about all the possible scenarios helped us process things and most of the things we were worried about didn't happen at all in the end (but we were prepared for them).

Absolutely @ConfusedFrog.

We saw Mr Jonathan Ramsay, a consultant urologist. He investigated the reasons for our azoospermia. He gave my husband a drug to increase sperm production, then discovered a blockage, then removed the blockage. That’s the bare bones, but it was a lot more detailed and complex. It won’t work in all cases, and we were very lucky, but we needed to explore all of our options. We wouldn’t have been aware of this as an option if we’d have just followed our local infertility pathway.

What I remember most, was coming out of our first half an hour with Mr Ramsay and my husband saying he felt like he had more answers in that half an hour, than he had received in over two years on the NHS pathway for us.

I’d recommend searching Mr Ramsay’s name on various fertility boards. He is so highly rated when it comes to male factor infertility.

Happy to answer any other questions.

Look up the Donor Conception Network a fantastic organisation and they run courses and discussions for and by people in exactly your situation to help you tease out the issues, and make a decision.

So I spoke with DH today and this is just not something he is interested in at all - and I know he won’t change his mind. He thinks it would be like me having a child with someone else. I don’t know what to do or where to go from here. I’m feeling so depressed and so alone.

@FlattenedAsAPancccake thank you for sharing. I’m going to try to convince DH to see Mr Jonathan Ramsay - I’ve heard a lot of good things about him. Unfortunately due to DH medical history I’m not sure there is much that can be done. But I need to know for sure..

Just remember that this is your life, not his. Don’t have regrets when you are 70 that you lived someone else’s life x

I'm so sorry to hear this. It is possible he still needs time to grieve etc. Is it a flat no to any sort of counselling or looking into it? While I'm not saying it's a deal-breaker have you told him it could be a deal breaker?

What I would say is, from my own experience and those of friends, if you want children and you know that won't change you will need to evaluate the relationship. I have friends who are child free both by choice and not by choice and it has always been a joint decision to not try/ stop trying. Where one partner has refused to move forward the relationships have almost exclusively broken up.

I'm not saying 'ltb' but you need to be 100% sure you can live with this as the impact/resentment would almost certainly mean you would break up anyway or at least be in an unhappy relationship. You will always wonder 'what if'.

I am so sorry, this must be very tough.

A friend of mine has twins that she gave birth to, that are from donor eggs AND donor sperm. As far as I know, it's never yet been an issue for her or her DH.
As for the twins themselves, they are still pretty young, but know that mummy and daddy had to "borrow" an egg from another lady to make them. They aren't yet of an age to really understand what that means. I expect there will be a lot of questions and possibly tears in the future, on both sides, but it'll be handled.

I’m so sorry to hear the conversation with your DH didn’t go well. I came here to recommend this Instagram account (he has a website with the same name if you aren’t on Instagram)

Knackered knackers

It's definitely worth you pursuing the counselling that your clinic offer. They are experienced in this and it really does help you come to terms with your thoughts.

You and DH also need to agree to be open and honest with each other at all times through the process, and to respect each other's choices. One person secretly hoping to pursue a route and the other secretly wanting to go another way will only cause hurt and feelings of resentment.

All of the comments and thoughts you've written here are natural when you first look into donation as a solution to infertility, which is why the counselling is so important. I had pretty much exactly the same thoughts, especially around the issue of wanting to be as open as possible with the child, but not wanting the whole world to know about my fertility problems, but then not wanting to ask the child to not talk about it. The reality is that it rarely came up in conversation with anyone ever! (How often do you ask your friends how their child was conceived?)

In my case, I used donor eggs. I struggled with the thought that it wouldn't be "my" biological child, that it would grow up and want to go off to find its "real" mother, that family wouldn't love it as much as their genetically related relatives, and so on. In the end, when I was ready to go ahead, I'd come to think of it as only one cell and the rest of that person was going to come from me. That one cell was an incredibly generous gift and I never took for granted the value or meaning of it, but my body grew it, my spirit nurtured it, my life raised it.

If your DH is willing to consider using a donor, he needs to consider what it is that makes him a father. Is it producing a sperm, or is it everything else that he will do for the rest of the child's life?

You recently found out about his infertility. we found out 8 months ago from his infertility, and in the beginning he said exactly the same.
I don’t want another man’s child.

we are now in month 9 and he made some comments that indicate that a change of mind is possible about this subject.
Please give it some time, I know it’s difficult because I am older then 38 and I long for a baby more then anything.

I advice you to read as much as possible about male infertility, and mourning infertility.

We had so many fights and I felt so horrible but they are going through a massive mourning process, this unfortunately takes a lot of time and in the beginning they emotionally shut down and then they say stuff like this.