Online sperm donation. Weird weird weird....

[Sporkle99]

....and I can't believe women actually use some of them! My friend is looking to have a child via a sperm donor, but doesn't want to spend thousands and has been looking online on an app called just a baby. She's looking to find someone she can get to know for some time then co parent (she knows I am posting here about our discoveries on the app last night). There are men on there who literally state that they have a pregnancy kink and they want to 'plant their seed and watch it grow' with a link to 'verified reviews' from women who state things like 'we both got what we wanted out of it. He's super reliable, kind, etc etc'. Some of them are ex sperm bank donors who reached the maximum limit and are now fathering 100+ children via these apps.

I also considered going it alone but couldn't find a way that morally sat right with me. My friend is now starting to feel the same.

Has anyone else come across this before? My eyes were opened pretty wide last night. Absolutely bonkers. Just can't imagine ever learning that I was conceived partly to fulfil someone's kink....

Not sure what I want from this thread other than a little decompression!

Can I ask, how does your child feel about their conception story now they’re a bit older? Do they ask about their father? Are you a lesbian couple or did you use a sperm donor to go it alone? (Curious)

Tbf, what you did is completely different to what the OP is talking about. Sounds like you found an arrangement with a man who wanted to be a father and you have a situation not unlike 2 divorced parents. I think that’s quite nice and your children still have 2 parents. Finding a man online simply for his sperm is a different story altogether and comes with a lot of risks and, in my opinion, is not a nice situation for any child as they grow up and understand.

I think it's selfish to knowingly bring a kid into the world with an absent father/mother agreed from the outset.

I do appreciate it’s different but I felt OP was conflating a lot of things in her post. She also says at one point that her friend was considering the possibility of looking for a coparent?

The reality is there can be a range of different arrangements , with different levels of contact, so the division between sperm donor/
coparent might even begin to blur (as they often do in more conventional families let’s face it 😅) .
My kids’ dad is 100% involved, so yes we are like any other family where the parents are committed parents but no longer a couple (only we never were a couple) , but other people may choose to ”coparent” to some extent but on a much less frequent/
equally shared basis, or a man may offer sperm “donation” and say they are happy to be known to the child and even have some contact but not in the capacity of a “parenting” relationship as such.

There are also men on there who say that they are strictly interested in “donation” and want no contact whatsoever. Some of these men are even explicit about getting some kink from it (as OP mentions) and only wanting to do “natural conception” etc. I would also personally be v suspicious/ cautious of such men and certainly wouldn’t go near them personally! But, as noted previously there are all sorts of weirdos on the internet 😅 (and in life).

But all in all , i suppose I have two points: 1) the types of arrangements / families created through these sites are really variable and OP shouldn’t conflate them all into one extreme stereotyped situation, which I suspect is really rare in practice.

2. Even for those looking strictly for donation- I don’t think informal donation is inherently more wrong/ less valid than going the clinic donation route. There are certain safeguards in using a clinic , but these safeguards are also limited , as a pp has pointed out. There are ways to mitigate against many of the same risks doing it informally, and there are also advantages to going an informal route. Having more of a known relationship with the donor (for both oneself and one’s child) being one, saving a hell of a lot of money , of course , being another (I.e. financially , informal donation is much less risky).

‘It is expensive though. Have you looked into it? You can’t just have it delivered to your house to do self insemination.’

looked into it? Done it! Twice.

And actually, yes you can just buy sperm too…

Yea but you have to have it delivered to a clinic. When I was looking a few years ago there was one charity. (I think somewhere in Birmingham?) that accepted to take responsibility for storing the sperm and you could go and do SI there. It still cost at least £500+ a pop -just for the opportunity to go so SI- then there’s the cost of the sperm itself , (plus cost of transport there and back). You have to time it exactly right and only have essentially one pop per cycle, and what if you don’t do the SI properly? It costs extra for the assistance of a nurse. If you have to travel there and back, what about work? I worked out that cost would be in the 1000s each insemination, even for the cheapest method using the cheapest sperm. And how many vials of sperm will you need to buy before you (hopefully eventually) get lucky?- you just don’t know. (When people conceive naturally they usually try to have sex multiple times a cycle during fertile days , and often it takes months of this trying!) Etc etc.
Please do not pretend this is not a huge financial/ logistical undertaking/ risk, without any guarantees.

Yes- I couldnt risk knowing that my child could potentially meet a sexual partner and find out that they're their sibling!

What was his incentive? Total altruism? Did you pay him? Kink? Did he tell you how manny babies he has helped make?

You can't buy sperm for home insemination any more in the UK. The HFEA changed the regulations so it's no longer possible.

The "cheapest" official, regulated option now is generally IUI which will cost around £1000-2000 per attempt. Plus the cost of sperm (another £1000-£1500). So women trying to conceive at UK clinics these days are looking at around £3000 for each attempt at pregnancy. I was told each IUI insemination has approx a 10-15% chance of success. It's really not surprising that a lot of women will look at those numbers and then look for other options.

Thank you , that was much more succinctly put than my long waffle 😂😅.

These is (or was a few years
ago) also one clinic that will let you do SI for cheaper than IUI. But the probability of success with SI is lower , and it depends, of course, where you live whether you can get to said clinic and the cost of doing so!

The incentive thing was strange to me as well, but what are the incentives of the men who donate to clinics? Yes, they get paid a little , but it’s not much, and since there’s a limit on how much you can donate , it’s hardly a way to make a living.
If you read why these men donate (formally) a lot of them talk about primarily wanting to help families who can’t conceive through other means , due to infertility, being a same sex couple, etc.
One guy I briefly spoke to online said very similar, he said he’d watched a documentary about how it was really hard to get sperm in the UK , the supply shortages and the costs/ barriers etc, and the types of families that were struggling, and that motivated him to join this site. Of course whether that’s true or not I wouldn’t know (maybe there were other more personal motivations), but it was interesting that it was very similar to the types of things “formal” donors say, (and after all who knows whether they have secret fetishes/
kinks too.)

I used a donor (from a clinic) but did look at one of these websites in the early stages. I have rarely been so revolted. So many sleazy men wanting unprotected sex and clearly turned on by writing the ad. I felt I needed a shower after reading a few lines - it just felt grubby.

The clinic I used did genetic testing on the donor (and on me) - I saw the results.

Most sperm donors are from the USA and are young (20s) so the “little bit of money” is a significant incentive. The process is highly regulated and safe. I have nothing against it but money is likely to be the primary motivator for a guy in his early 20s.

I’m sure you are right: I don’t know about the sperm market in the US and what motivates donors.

When I was looking into possible donation, I was looking at some companies in Denmark. There were men from a range of professions/ backgrounds. Yes many were younger , so I’m sure the money didn’t go amiss. When asked about motivations, people spoke about wanting to help create different kinds of families; be able to give the gift of a baby to parents who wouldn’t have the opportunity otherwise, etc.
Like all things, I’m sure peoples motivations are multiple, layered and variable. No doubt money is a significant factor, and I’m sure there would be many fewer donors without it, but it certainly can’t be the full story , including in formal donor settings. There are also significant risks /
complications associated with donating one’s sperm.

That is horrifying, and even worse to think an unconvinced pedophile could do exactly the same as your third example.

And you believed him? Some random off the internet? How long did you know him before you AI yourself? I was with DH for 8 years before we had kids. Met all his family, saw how he parented DSD, lived with him. Again there is a reason that sperm banks are regulated!

The chance of finding a decent non fetish having male who is going to be willing and able to successfully co parent with are almost impossible

Present 👋 ! Woman successfully coparenting with a decent, “non fetish having” male met on a coparenting/ informal sperm donation site. (well he may well have his fetishes - that’s really his business 😆 - but they certainly have nothing to do with me or our children).

These dangerous and should-be-illegal apps enabled me to create the most delightful and beautiful little humans I have ever known.

So , yeh, If you ask me what’s dangerous, it’s the wild and unrestrained ignorance/ judgement of people like you, which has the potential to further restrict the reproductive freedoms of women, lgbt people and others.

Would you like a gold star?
is yours the new standard. Make sure you are together 8years, must be married, live together first (I hope you did things in that order! 😜) oh and don’t forget they should have an DSD so you can see how they parent in practice first. Many people -(the judgemental type like you)- would consider that a big red flag in a male partner, but never mind…

Yes, I believed him, not least because the things he told me were true.
I felt I knew him long enough, and longer than many people do before they get married/ start a family. Im sure it wasn’t “long enough” in your mind. i also met his family, they were lovely and supportive.
He didn’t have any existing children I could observe him parenting 🤔🤔 but thinking about it, I did actually prefer it that way.

incidentally I have a fairly conservative friend who was shocked when I told her what I was doing. She had recently got married to her DP of around 5 years. They were trying to conceive at the time. I was telling her about the coparenting agreement we had put together and the issues it covered- schooling, religion, diet, discipline, housing, finance etc (I could go on). About half way through the convo panic started to appear on her face and without thinking she blurted out “god I don’t know what ‘DH name’ thinks about half of this stuff”.

Why the snark? You asked questions, and I answered. I really don't know why a man already having a child is a red flag? Especially when most teen fathers fuck off the first chance they get, and he not only stuck around but brought her up himself!

So if we are to go by your thinking all sperm donors on the internet are perfectly honest and well-meaning chaps who just want to be dads. There are no paedos, no fetishists, no predators, no time wasters. Just poor poor men who can't have children? Right, now I've got a bridge to sell you.

So if we are to go by your thinking all sperm donors on the internet are perfectly honest and well-meaning chaps who just want to be dads. There are no paedos, no fetishists, no predators, no time wasters. Just poor poor men who can't have children

yeh you obviously haven’t read any of my posts have you?. Of course I didn’t say (nor do I think) anything of the sort, quite the opposite.

You weren’t simply answering questions I asked. I didn’t ask how long you’d known your partner or if you met his family. I asked if you and your partner had genetic testing before ttc, or if you got any police checks done to see if he was a secret paedo. The truth is you can never 100% know if someone is lying to you, but there are ways to do your due diligence. ( most of the information the clinics rely on is verbal testimony from the donor as well. They do STI testing , so did my coparent, and provided proof of this. Other genetic and health checks are not verified by clinics as standard but rely on what the donor reports).
I didn’t know my coparent for 8 years, no- Not close. but that’s not the only standard for evaluating a person/ a relationship.

What I should have said is, I felt I knew him long enough to be certain that he was a good person, who would make a really loving father and a reliable / dependable coparent. I’ve now known him for many years and , while I have discovered a lot more over that time, those core impressions have remained exactly as they were.

‘Most sperm donors are from the USA and are young (20s) so the “little bit of money”

there wasn’t a single USA donor listed when we chose our donor. Chatting to the people in the clinic they said that a high proportion of their donors came from links to the clinic- men or family of couples getting IVF who’d been made aware of how some people struggled, and of the sperm donor shortage in the U.K. changed after the new laws around donor conceived children being able to contact their donors after the age of 18.

the donors got £25 to donate, after they completed all the testing etc, then another £25 6 months later when that sample cleared more tests and was able to be used.

Hardly a fortune, but perhaps if you were a student near by popping in a couple of times a week, then 6 months later for more blood tests was worth it.

To be fair, meeting a random on a site for sperm donation is absolutely no different to the many women that post on here saying they had a one night stand, etc and are now pregnant.