@RubyStar22 I'm sorry to hear the result wasn't the one you were wanting. I definitely resonate with the feeling you described of double grief. My Husband also had a hard time talking at first, I think men and women process things differently generally. I know I'm someone who just wants to talk it out so much but my Husband wants to have a lot of self reflection first.
We are currently waiting for our FET sometime soon and used donor sperm. At first, before we had even had any SA or investigations my husabnd said he was against donor, but then I think when confronted with reality he came to accept it. I've mentioned it before in an earlier post but the book " Three makes baby" was so useful in helping imagine what our family could look like.
We will definitely be telling our children about their route into this world. I work in mental health and from experience all I can say is family secrets always hurt, and they always get out. I want to raise children that know they were so wanted, so loved and have nothing to be ashamed about...so I suppose if I kept their origin story away from them that would be counter productibe of what we are trying to achieve.
Saying that, I do think that a lot of the hesitation surrounding the decision to tell stems from insecurity and it is really difficult to come to terms with- the 'What if they want to meet and see them as their parents..'. I totally get why some people would be unsure about how much to tell. Our fertility counsellor recommended some really good age approrpriate children's books to help introduce the idea of their origin story- some charities even do personalised ones!
The way we chose our donor was really simple, our fertility clinic has its own bank, but can also use ones abroad if needed. Our donor profiles didn't have photos, but had all their demographics, occupation, education level and some info about if they carried any genetic diseases. That bit felt really simple to whittle it down to people that vaguely represented my husband physically. There was also a section about why they chose to donate, a little bit about them and then a goodwill message to any potential children. I think the goodwill message to any children was actually the most important bit for me. It was a bit surreal and felt like looking at dating profiles really, but we both just clicked with one profile luckily. Don't get me wrong, I do wonder if I should have gone for one from abroad where I can see their pictures, but a little bit of me thinks it's better not to know in a way.
Hope this is useful, we are all here for you and we will all get through this.