To not want my partner to be an anonymous sperm donor?

[BamBamPadam]

We’ve been together a few years, own a home together and I’m in my 2nd trimester of pregnancy.

Early in our relationship my partner told me he was considering doing sperm donation for a bit of pocket money/fun money. He had a holiday coming up at the time and wanted some spends. He had decided to ask my opinion before going ahead with it which I really appreciated as we were aiming for a long-term relationship at the time. I said I wasn’t personally comfortable with it as it felt like a huge thing to be doing just for some pocket money. I also was quite honest and open by the fact that the thought of a load of other women being pregnant with his offspring was weird to me and would put a dampener on the relationship. He understood and binned off the idea.

His best friend who is a single man and doesn’t plan on having his own kids (he spends half the year in Thailand and loves the bachelor life) has recently donated sperm and has been encouraging my partner to do it. Both on the basis of a bit of extra money and to “help people”. My partner has slowly been coming around to the idea and has mentioned to me he’d like to look into an anonymous donation again.

I told him I wasn’t comfortable with it. I don’t want to worry about my child having random siblings everywhere. I don’t want any random strangers who resemble my partner joining us for Sunday dinner in 18 years expecting him to step up and be their dad. And then on a slightly more unreasonable note - I don’t like the idea of other women being pregnant with his baby! I’m not usually a possessively jealous type and I know it’s very common to have children with more than one person and that’s normal nowadays. But I am otherwise in a really happy relationship with him and I feel like having children by him should be something that only I get the “privilege” of whilst we’re in a relationship? I don’t know if that makes sense. I think that’s a relatively normal thing to feel whilst pregnant isn’t it? If he had an older child with an ex partner it’d be different of course but the thought of other women being pregnant by him whilst I’m raising his newborn…it just freaks me out even though no cheating would’ve occurred. It just feels so wrong on a primal level. Maybe I’m just hormonal, I don’t know. I can understand people like his mate being donors but I don’t get why you’d do it if you have your own famil.

He hasn’t been nasty about my feelings but says I’m being overly sensitive about the emotional aspect of it and he doesn’t see why I’d feel jealousy towards any women that end up the recipient of his sperm. He also says the extra money will be useful for stuff for our baby. He says he’ll consider my feelings but that he will still go ahead with it if he wants too whether I like it or not.

I just hate hate hate the whole idea of it and I am so angry that he wants to risk upsetting me and bringing a load of resentment into our relationship for the sake of a few hundred quid (maximum).

I'd leave a man over this. He's talking about producing countless half siblings for your child like it's completely his decision and not a big deal! I'm hoping, for your sake, that once he meets your child he'll realise the enormity of what he's suggesting.

This was my feeling - so gross, some men get a kick out of the thought of lots of women pregnant and self admiring how virile the are.
it would be an absolute deal breaker for me too op - yuck!

If you think it’s impossible for a sperm donor to never think of himself as a father of some kind to unknown kids out in the world, or for a kid to never associate their donor with a missing father figure, I think you’re the one without much insight possibly?
Thx very much for the condescension x

@JohnnysMama well you don’t need to upset yourself with this thought any more, because it’s pure fiction. Donated sperm can only be used to conceive for a maximum of 10 families. This is to minimise the risk of consanguineous couplings. Google is readily available to find out this information.

This was exactly my thoughts too.

@Grammarninja countless? Tell me, how many children can a sperm donor in the UK conceive via donation?

That's assuming he is planning on going through legal, regulated UK clinics. If he is expecting to get paid several hundred pounds then he either very ill informed, planning on travelling over seas to donate where the same regulation may not apply or donating via 'private arrangements' which are obviously unregulated.

There’s actually an acute shortage of donors at the moment

Yeah sure, "hundreds" of British women are going to pay him hundreds of pounds for his amazing spunk.

I doubt 'hundreds' would but that isn't the OPs concern. With 'private arrangements' he effectively become a one night stand dad from a legal point of view which would concern me more than worrying about 100s of children.

Even if it was 1 family it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s intentionally outside of a committed relationship with ONE woman. It is disrespectful if he does or even thinking about it. It’s WRONG. You should call things by its name.

I wasn't referring to the OPs concerns, which are entirely valid but to those of JonnysMama whose making some rather wild claims upthread.

Clearly we have a different viewpoint to you, which is fine. There are multiple people on this thread who have said they have benefited from donors.

Clearly there are no guarantees the kids resulting will lead happy lives, but there are no guarantees on that for anyone. Both my parents lost a parent very young. These kids will certainly have been wanted by those families who have them. They will have my husband's DNA but he will not be their father.

And yeah, for him it's altruism not some weird breeding fetish or desire to populate the world with his supersperm. He's someone that has always loved and appreciated children even before we had our own, who really likes to help others, and who found out there was a big shortage of donors since it's no longer anonymous and a lot of men aren't suitable for various reasons.

Clearly the motivations of the OP's partner appear quite different.

Yeah…this is weird. He likes the idea of other women being inseminated by him and I agree about it sounding like some sort of power trip.

I would put my foot down pretty firmly about this. Tell him in no uncertain terms that if he goes ahead or brings it up again, it’s over.

"...multiple people on this thread who have said they have benefited from donors."

That sounds like a fantasy!

The op's man obviously has a huge fantasy, it's gross. The very idea of fathering innocent human beings with whom you will never have any contact is quite disgusting. I know it used to be popular amongst students at one time, they considered it an easy way of making money but they were young and thoughtless. I wonder if now they think about children they may have fathered and regret it. I feel the same about women donating eggs.

This is off the scale UNREASONABLE! You are NOT being hormonal. Your partner is either extremely immature, completely irresponsible, borderline freaky or a combination of all three. For me - this would be a deal breaker in a relationship. Easy for me to say, but I appreciate much more difficult for you in your position. Do NOT doubt yourself. Make it plain that if he reserves the right to ignore your feelings, you reserve the right to reconsider the value of your relationship with him. Seriously. Be strong.

There’s a major ethical issue - a man can donate to ten women. More than one woman is too much. There’s a risk that your child could end up dating a half sibling. Egg donation is an ethical minefield too as poor young women think of the money and not the issues the treatment can do to their bodies.

Maybe when your baby arrives he will appreciate what huge thing it is to help create a whole new person and realise donating needs to be taken a lot more seriously.

Donors in the UK have no legal or financial obligations to children born from their donation. They are not named on the birth certificate and have no parental rights. But, when the child reaches 18 it will have the right to get details of who the donor was. This includes name and address which, of course, could be out of date by then.

Like most (all?) people who've done donor conception, I am aware of what the rules are - did you not realise that clinics were required to discuss this?

The likelihood of a child dating their half sibling is absolutely minute, and frankly, the sorts of people who worry about this seem usually to be those who have either watched too many Soaps with storylines about sibling attraction, or who have weird hang-ups around the subject.

I agree with you that egg donation is much more ethically complex than sperm donation.

I'd tell him it's fine if he wants to be a sperm donor. He can join his single mate & do what the fuck he likes with his life. Bye!

my worry, in your situation, is that he'll agree not to then do it behind your back. The sensible thing to do would be to separate now & move to where you want to live before you have your baby (while you still have that freedom). Because with his attitude I wouldn't trust him over this or anything else now.

However, that's with a lot more life lived & experiences had. When I was much younger I'd have thought/hoped/assumed he would be honest & not do something that would hurt me so much.

sometimes when we get older (I'm 57) we know that maybe we can't be good examples (stupid relationship decisions), but we do hope to be good lessons 💕

Tell him to get a paper round if he wants some extra cash

Yes, you always have to acvount for law changes.

To me it's basically family planning even if the child isn't going to live with you which should always be a decision for you both. Keeping in mind that laws surrounding surrogacy and donation can be updated as well.
Anyway, sounds like her dh is not doing for the right reasons anyway and wouldn't make it passed the first counselling session.

What a shame you are already pregnant to this absolute tool. If he goes ahead with it, you should prepare yourself for random young adults turning up at your door, demanding resources, time and love from him. Or you could just bin him off, if he won't let go of this bizarre fixation.