Where have all the sperm gone???

[SquillosMum]

We have to use donor sperm to have children and managed to produce our lovely ds last year. We would dearly love to have a brother and/or sister for him but all the donor sperm has gone. So I am putting in a plea for all you lovely men to really think about donating some at a clinic near you and maybe you can help us and others in our situation to have a child.

Keeping my fingers crossed that something turns up!

I think the problem has arisen from the donors no longer being anonymous and their details can be given to the future child, which IMHO is ridiculous.

No good for the donor and no good for people like yourselves.

Good Luck though

Where else but MN could you make an appeal like this?

How do you find out where to donate?
Can you donate only to NHS clinics?

No idea how expensive or complicated, or what the timeframe might be, but you can import sperm from other countries. It's increasingly commonplace given the shortage here in the UK.

I agree that the shortage has been due to the change in the law, but it doesn't seem likely to be changed now, so we have to live with the current situation. I think there are strong arguments both for anonimity and for allowing info to be available and it's hard to say which is best, but it seems that there are not going to be many children born as a result of donor insemination now that the law has changed. Interestingly there are other countries that have introduced the same law and apparently have not seen the same drop in donors - not sure why.

There is info available to people thinking about donating on the HFEA website here

Thanks for the thoughts & comments, we are going to look into foreign sperm, but think it might be expensive!

I would be horrified if any male relatives of mine donated sperm and it was used. Imagine having a child out there, your own flesh and blood, which you don´t know about.

You could even bump into a child/teenager years later and be shocked by the likeness. (This happened to a friend of mine´s brother - not sperm donating - but he had got a girl pregnant and didn´t know and then bumped into her years later and the little boy and he nearly passed out as his son was so obviously his, he was identical). Makes it very diffult now as he hasn´t told his wife or parents (as he didn´t know either!) so this could cause loads of probs for him.

Not critisising you for your choice though... are you not worried about the personality of the donating father? I mean we are all a product of nurture AND nature and inherit parents´ personality traits. I would certainly want to know the person who was going to father my child. Just my personal opinion, not judging you.