Advice for my mate who's single but wants to get pregnant

[ElmMum]

One of my best friends is desperate to start a family but just hasn't met the right man. She's been considering doing it alone for a while now and has recently had a couple of appointments with a fertility clinic.

But she's bottled it twice because it feels, I think, a bit clinical. Plus the way the woman described the sperm donor kind of put her off.

She's also talked to a gay friend but he's not sure he would definitely not want anything to do with the baby so she doesn't want to take a chance.

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of thing. What can she do in the UK to get pregnant safely?

Bumping this myself... this topic has a lot of busy threads! Any advice v welcome

What way did the woman describe the donor? you mean because it sounded so formal, or did she imply the donor was a freak or something?

My husband and I have found a nice man through a group who is willing to donate his sperm(husband has had vasectomy and not 100% reversal will work)he helps a few couples and have found through the group lots of other people willing to donate sperm free of charge who sign away parental rights and maintenace payments. that is one option

The big advantage of going through the clinic route is that there are lots of safety checks. They screen the donor for all sorts of diseases (including HIV), collect the sperm, freeze it, wait 6 months, test again, and only then release the sperm for fertilisation. The downside is that frozen sperm isn't quite as good as fresh at fertilising eggs, and you don't get a great choice of donors, especially as there is a shortage at the moment.

What was wrong with the donor, by the way? I would have thought that it would be easier for a single Mum to find a donor as she wouldn't be trying to match physical characteristics to her partner.

There is a growing trend for women and couples to travel abroad to have treatment with donor sperm and eggs, but then you have to be very sure that the regulations in that country are as good as the UK.

ElmMum - there was a thread here on women who had difficulty persuading/finding a DP/DH who will commit to having children. Most usefully, spicemonster/makipuppy talked a lot about the issue of sperm donors and also an organisation called Donor Conception Network.

Finding a donor is difficult but not impossible and spicemonster/makipuppy are both having/had donor babies I believe. I considered becoming a sperm donor after going through IVF ten years ago but backed out because of the fear of the 'knock on the door' once the child(ren) reached 18. A lot of men do not want any contact at all or any possibility of contact from a donor child. Sperm donation rates collapsed once it became possible for donor children to contact biological partners. It is still possible though as there are men who will donate. Also sperm can be imported from the USA as Xenia said her sister did who had all her children by IVF alone.

The issues of finding a domor are discussed more towards the end of the thread I linked above but the whole the thread is relevant to your friend.

Just came across this post today. Apart from women feeling broody but still single. Are people aware some men are in exactly the same situation?
I am a single educated man and would love to have a family. Does anyone know of any groups out there which can put people in similar circumstance in touch??