Single and going through IVF...did anyone struggle with choosing a sperm donor ??

[Lotti81]

Morning All,
I'm just about to start IVF....I'm being expedited due to turning 40 soon.

However, due to the pandemic there has been a shortage of donor sperm, especially those who fit my criteria.

It's all a little overwhelming. Can I hear from peoples experience of choosing their sperm donors? Did they find it difficult? Are their offspring similar to their donors (as far as you can tell of course). My criteria isn't that specific but I'm finding myself discarding profiles because of certain elements....but I don't want to throw away opportunities as time isn't on my side.

Any advice would be much appreciated....thank you x

I'm also 40 and single and expecting via IVF - but I'm only 12 weeks along (so obviously I can't tell you if DS resembles his donor yet, although I do have both adult and baby/child photos of the donor, if DS wants to see them when older ).

I also struggled choosing a donor (I think it's quite common). I originally wanted a UK one - which would have meant no photos and less information (including less genetic testing) BUT hopefully less potential donor siblings out there for DS get his head around. So pros and cons.

But because of the lack of UK donors at the time because of Covid, I had to look abroad (my IVF was expeditated too due to my age, so I didn't have time to to wait). My initial "definite" preferences were Caucasian, light eyes, light hair and taller than average (all the same as me and my immediate family) - and I managed to get 3 of the 4 by looking in the States where there is more choice.

I let go of the 4th preference by deciding that I liked the Donors description enough that it really didn't matter if DC didn't exactly match my families colouring or height (plus I struggled to get 1 or 2 of the 4 when restricting myself to UK donors at the time).

I think you often have to let go of some of your expectations when picking a donor - at first I thought other things like education, job etc might matter more to me as well, but in the end it was the donors pleasant sounding personality and his reasons for donating that made me think - "Yeah that would be a nice thing to share with my DC, if/when they ask me why I chose that donor".

Hope that helps!

@Lotti81 My daughter is only 3 months old so it's difficult to know if she's similar to her donor or not. People say she looks like me but i can also see a resemblance to the baby photos i have of her donor.

I also struggled to choose a donor so i know how you feel. I read a lot of profiles! In the end i rejected profiles if I didn't like the baby photo of the donor (although I had no preference for eye or hair colour) or didn't like the answers to the questionnaires they had completed. It's okay to discard profiles because of certain elements but if you have limited choice then you might need to decide how important these elements really are. Even if you pick a 'sporty' donor there is no guarantee your child will be good at sports. In the end i looked at it more from the perspective of how i thought my child would feel about the information - was there anything that would make them uncomfortable when they read it?

Now my daughter is here though, i don't really think about the donor at all.

Hope this helps. Good luck with it all

My daughter is almost three and is the spitting image of me as a toddler! The only thing I see as not being from me is her height. My clinic gave me a choice of two donors each time, three donors in total as I was able to use the first donor for all of my IUI attempts. The first time I agonised over it and got quite attached to the profile. The second time I deliberated but not for as long (that was about six years ago and I can’t remember anything about the profile), and the third time I went along with the clinic’s suggestion (I still had a choice but they felt one was a better match and had proven success). I still liked the sound of the profile, but the first time was the biggest decision.

The only thing I was clear about was no brown eyes as no one in my family has them and I knew it would be clear they had come from the donor. I rejected one of the donor options because they were proportionally heavily built. I have the details to show my daughter when she is old enough to go into it at that level, but that won’t be for a while yet.

Do you have a lot to choose from? I know some people seem to have almost a catalogue!

People who don't know that my son was born through double donation (sperm and eggs) quite regularly tell me he looks like me - and I paid no attention whatsoever to things like hair and eye colour when selecting donors.

To begin with I did spend ages poring over donor profiles, but I had a lot of treatment (both with my own eggs, and then not) so I became a bit more streamlined over time, in terms of making those decisions within a framework of the factors I'd decided were important to me.

If you can't find anyone who matches all of your criteria, would you consider relaxing your criteria a bit? Re-evaluating what you're using as criteria, and why? The criteria you decide on are personal to you and there's no right or wrong way to go about it but on a practical level, if what you want doesn't exist, it may be helpful to think further about your priorities in making the decision.

Best of luck!

My eldest son at 2 years old is the spitting image of the donor (I only have baby photos) but more like me character wise. My youngest looks more like me and seems to have inherited my brother's hair.

Choosing the right donor was very important to me and I was lucky to find only one that really clicked, out of all the profiles I looked at (Cryos).

The criteria that were important to me :

• Main physical attributes similar to mine (so the child would be more likely to inherit them and look like me)

• I wanted to feel some sort of connection to the donor (he has a similar sense of humor to me, and shares a lot of my interests, based on the full profile info)

• I based a lot of my initial narrowing down on the baby photos. If I didn't like it I eliminated the donor from my list (then picked from whoever remained, there were about a dozen on my shortlist before I narrowed it down further).

I wanted the kids to look like me but now they're here I realized that's not as important as I thought as either way they have 50% of my genes. I'm still happy to have picked a donor who shared hair /eye colour with me though.

Forgot to add - open ID was hugely important to me and is the first criteria I used to narrow them down, before any other. I believe it's the child's right to know so it was important to me that they had the choice (even if they choose not to find out, that's fine, I just want them to be able to decide for themselves). But I know other people for whom it didn't matter nearly as much !

Morning All, thank you for all your input. I'm struggling at the moment with it. As I'm being expedited it's all happening so quickly.
There is a huge shortage on donors due to covid therefore to find a British white male of average height is proving difficult. As Im having one round with the NHS I only have 3 companies I can get the donors from.
I'm worrying that if I am lucky enough to have a child that they may struggle with the fact their dad is a donor that I've chosen for them.
Also I worry that I'll live a life alone as men might reject me especially for the next few years but also may struggle to understand why I've done it the way I have....
Also coping on my own and the financial constraints. I have a decent job but surely that in itself will be a struggle.
I hope I'm not coming across negatively but a million things are running through my head.

This is a very useful thread. I am single and starting IVF soon, and I am worrying already on how to choose a donor. I feel I am adding a lot of criteria in there, like education, job, why is he doing the donation, etc.

Also, I worry a lot about the donor having more kids out there. Do you know how many children have been born from each donor?

I looked for over a year. Initially it was a bit of fun as I was just thinking about going down this path but the second was serious and had a deadline I found it so stressful.

I wanted someone tall, dark, handsome.. outgoing, smart, creative, athletic, kind. Basically a perfect human.

The longer I looked the easier it became though. I found someone smart and dark haired, not tall like I wanted and who really knows about the other parts.

I picked a donor from a US bank which had a lot of info but his baby pictures and audio interview were the things that drew me to him. w

@Lotti81 Everything you're worrying about is very normal. As far as i know, anyone using a donor has to have counselling - one session free? - so if you haven't already you could use that to talk through your concerns.

I think you might still be going through the grieving process for the way you imagined you'd have children. I also went through that and actually postponed my IVF for a few months to have time to become fully comfortable with the reality of having a baby alone. I know you say you're being expedited but if you asked they might be able to delay by a month or two.

Yes, your child may struggle at times that they have a donor not a dad, but you can talk to them about it and show them that families come in all shapes and sizes. The donor conception network has some good books for kids to help you explain your journey and show them a positive narrative about how they came to be.

In the nicest possible way, if you have a baby you probably won't have time to date in the first year or two If/when you do start looking for a relationship, would you actually want to be with the type of man who would reject you for having a baby by yourself? I do also worry a bit about being alone but I realise that i also could have ended up alone even if i didn't have a baby. More positively, I know a lot of people who met great partners in their 40s and 50s.

It is hard to make these decisions so please be kind to yourself

@Lotti81 - as pp said, your worries about how the DC will feel and how you will cope "alone" financially and otherwise are totally normal. There are books about solo motherhood that can help with some reassurance ("Going it alone" by Emily Engel is a good UK one) and the Donor Conception Network charity can help with putting you (and your future DC) in touch with other families in the same situation, either by phone/email or with meet-up groups in person. Do you have any RL support, either a close friend or family member who will be able to help you in the very early new born stage when you'll need the most support?

The dating thing is a different matter - but what helped me make the decision was deciding what was more important to me, a partner or a having a child? At almost 40, I likely didn't have the time to wait any longer to find the right man if I wanted a chance to have a child with my own eggs (I know some people get lucky in their early/mid-40's, but who is to say that would be me?). Plus there is no guarantee even if I waited a few more years that I'd find a lovely bloke!

@IsabelHerna - The donor sperm bank should be able to tell you whether or not your donor is a "proven" donor yet - ie. whether he already has a child (could be his own or one through donating sperm), as they know this can help people choose.

But in terms of numbers born from the donor- if you've had the treatment in the UK, I've heard you can apply to HEFA once you have a child to find out how many donor siblings have been registered in this country (the UK limit is 10 families, although obviously some may have more than 1 child). However if your sperm bank is international (or a UK one that exports abroad) you will never know how many children there are elsewhere - as there are often no legal requirements for the number of children to be registered in other countries. Similarly you may never know how many biological children the donor has of his own.

@IamnotwhouthinkIam Thank you so much for the information! Do you think it's better to choose a proven donor (even though this means there are donor siblings out there?) Or should I stop worrying about donor siblings?

@IsabelHerna - The problem with choosing a proven donor is that it limits your options and you risk missing out on the donor. Unless the donor has his own child/children, often by the time his sperm has proven successful for other families, all his 10 UK "slots" have gone. His potential fertility is also supposed to be thoroughly checked by the sperm bank anyway - so in theory having a proven donor should make no difference (I saw it as a bonus rather than a necessity- in the end the donor I chose happened to have his own children).

The donor sibling thing is a different matter. Some see many siblings as a bonus - it means there is a higher chance some of them might be willing to contact or meet your DC in the future if that's what your DC wants (could be lovely for some DC kids, especially if they have no siblings in their own family).

Others see the potential of many siblings out there as a lot for a child to get their head around - after all in non donor families, it would be incredibly unusual to have at least 40 or more siblings (very common for sperm banks who export to lots of different countries). If this is the way you feel, then pick a donor from a UK bank that doesn't export abroad - it should hopefully guarantee a maximum of 10 -20 donor siblings (10 families) plus however many children the donor has of his own .

Personally I think it's difficult to guess how a child could feel, and whichever you pick they may never know the full number of siblings (either the donors own children and/or unregistered children if international). For me a combination of the shortage of UK donors, plus the big bonus of adult and child photos of the donor to show my DC, meant I was accepting of the downside of picking a US donor. My DS will most likely be an only child - but I can't still can't guess how he will feel about likely having lots of donor siblings, and can only hope I've made the right choice.

Hope this helps - it's a complicated subject but sorry about the essay!

@IamnotwhouthinkIam Thank you so much, you really helped me!

You're right, in the end, I can never know how the child is going to feel in 10, 20, or 30 years from now, I just can do the best I can atm and hope for the best.

I do not think I am going to use a UK donor from a clinic that doesn't export, because I would prefer to choose a clinic outside of the UK, so I think that's an one way street from the sound of it.

@IsabelHerna - Ah, then much of what I said won't apply anyway. As far as I know, you can only contact HEFA to find out about Donor siblings if you have had treatment in the UK (as notification of babies born by donor gametes to the HEFA is mandatory for licensed UK clinics).

Every country has it's own rules on donors - and many don't have any central regulatory body like HEFA so they won't keep track of numbers. Also bear in mind that in some counties (Spain for instance), donors have to be anonymous so your DC will also not be able to find out who their donor is either once they are adults (and may have to be reliant on DNA testing companies if they want to try to find out.)

@IamnotwhouthinkIam Oh okay then, I have to find which rules apply to each country and then make a plan to deal with that.

I guess there are kids' books for anonymous sperm donors I can get and find ways on how to best handle it.

Thank you so much for all the information!

I got my sperm donor from a clinic in California. The choice is a bit mind boggling, but I narrowed it down by same ethnicity, hair and eye colour, and then looked through the profiles a bit more. It is time consuming, and frankly, boring, even though it's so important. Personality was also important to me, as was the Myers Briggs results (I have loud mouths :)).
My DD is only 9 mo and she doesn't look at all like me, but she is totally the same as I was when I was a baby, which actually I like more. I know plenty of couples who've had their "own" children, but the kids look like they are totally unrelated anyway!
Being able to have siblings with the same donor was essential for me. I'm currently 19 weeks with DD2, and will probably be having a 3rd in the future. I'd have been devastated if they weren't "full" siblings.

Well I chose my donor. The process was a bit of a roller coaster for me. I got really concerned with damaging me future child with a hypothetical father that I would show them on a piece of paper when the time came. But after speaking with my mum and best friends I got my head straight. I was dead set on a tall, white British male with intelligence in some form and a good personality. In the end I went for a Greek donor that had very little detail. But his description was nice and he was doing it because he watched his friend struggle to make a family. It boiled down to what I would be happy to show to my child that they would be proud of.

There's still a long way to go but due to age I am being expedited so looking at November for treatment. The odds are against me factually but I'm going to keep positive xx

Hi everyone, I just wanted to update where I was and see if anyone had success stories....

So I'm on the short protocol, I'm guessing due to my low AMH. I'm on my second day of Menopur....6 ampules a day......hopefully I'm not messing up the injections...

When they last looked at my ovaries I only had 3 follicles in one and 2 in the other. This was pre menopur.

Keep on reading advice to eat a lot of protein and diary! Which I'm trying to fit in as much healthy food as I can.....

Are there success stories out there with low AMH on the short protocol.....it's so hard not to pray this works but it feels a bit hopeless...... x

Congrats on choosing your donor and starting IVF .
Can't help you myself but the infertility boards have lots of posts about IVF protocols etc so you might have more luck finding success stories there.
Hope it all goes well!

Thank you @ingkir 😊 x

Heya I'm
Late to jump on.. I've only just found this group so months sur if your still going..

@Lotti81 did you manage to chose one?

I'm also looking for success stories with doner?

What happens at the clinic.. like process wise.

Did anyone use medication?