Known donor - How does it work?

[wannabmums]

Hello,

My partner and I are just starting our journey (which we hope will not be too long!) of creating our first child. We've had a good read through some of the other threads on here, which have been very interesting and helpful, thank you! So nice to hear real people's experiences - you can get so bogged down by just reading scientific stuff on other websites.

For this first try we used fresh sperm, through a clinic. It was delivered to us, from what we can gather about 30-45 minutes after it was collected from the donor's house (the how long before that he produced it we don't know). It is of course very expensive through a clinic, and quite stressful to organise, creating a lot more tension than seems good for optimal chances of conceiving. Apart from the worry of making sure we 'order' it for the right 2 days, etc., there is also the concern over trust - trusting the clinic, that they have carried out the necessary tests, and trusting the donor, that the sperm is fresh, and that it is safe.

We had decided to use a clinic to avoid any of the problems associated with known donors, but on reflection, as it seems so difficult to get pregnant, for anyone, even those using the 'conventional' method, it seems we'd be upping our chances a lot by using a known donor, who could come to our place (ensuring the sperm is fresh and warm), and we'd be able to do more inseminations per cycle this way.

We know of a chap who might be suitable, and we think would be happy to do it. He would go for all necessary tests, and we could go with him, and see the results, not just be told the results by a clinic, which would also help to put our minds at rest.

Clearly this would be a more trusted method, and would increase chances of conceiving, but we need some advice on custody issues, etc. What papers need to be drawn up? We would not want him to be directly involved in the parenting of our child, nor want him to have any rights to our child, nor want him to feel that we would put any financial responsibility on him. We would be happy for him to see our child (as a good friend of ours), but not as a 'dad'. Do you think this is a good idea? Is this similar to how other people work it?

How have other lesbian parents got on with this issue? All information/advice/experiences very gratefully received!

Its such a difficult one, and has to suit you. One thing I found helpful was to assume that I couldn't predict the future. We could all agree that our parenting would work a certain way, then people's lives change and their views change. We chose someone who we trusted enough that we could communicate well enough that we would be able to talk about issues if they came up. We wanted donor to be 'known', but not a dad figure, but we felt that if he changed his mind he was someone we could cope with being in our lives.

There are no guarantees of anything. I really wanted the clinic option as the most safe and separate, but it just didn't work out for us. But I trusted him to be healthy and safe, but theoretically I could have caught anything. And you don't know really that a known donor is more fertile than a selected clinic donor, even it its fresh, most men are less fertile than those selected for clinic donation.

Its really hard to gauge trust - especially when you're so desperate for a baby you try to ignore the worries or the cautions. I would try to think about worst case scenario. And rather than going through drawing up rules, work on planning how you might talk about issues that come up - e.g. contact, parenting choices, how long to donate for, what tests you'd go for, would he go through IVF if necessary.

For safety you could always go through a clinic where you get him to donate there specifically for you. Our NHS clinic said they were willing for us to do that (as private paying patients) - they'd basically do the checks and the insems for us so it would have been safe sperm.

In terms of your questions: we had no papers drawn up before, but he's not named on birth cert. so has no legal rights (though he could have applied for them), and now DP has legally adopted DS. We have irregular contact, just cos its hard to keep in touch, but its been fine so far, and we've been away for the weekend with a group including him. This may change now DS is older and understands more about not having a daddy.

Although we think about this a lot cos we have to, I think there would be fewer messy divorces and family difficulties if straight couples had to think hard about this before getting pregnant, so its not necessarily a bad thing. Good luck with making your decisions!

Oh and Lisa Saffron book was good, also theres a Lesbian Insemination group on MSN, plus I think gingerbeer website has stuff on it. Mumsnet is essential!

I second everything kayjayel said! I chose a known donor (a friend of a friend) because (a) I wanted my child to have a dad and know him, and (b) I knew that fresh sperm is more fertile than frozen. I'm glad we went this route - my dd loves her dad, who does regular childcare and pays child support.

There are significant downsides, though. The main one was the length of time it took to find the right donor. Easy to find men who were interested, and to spend months developing plans with them, but then one after the other they all pulled out. This took YEARS, till I was nearing the end of my fertility and wishing I'd gone to a clinic in the first place.

I also think you shouldn't underestimate how hard it can be to have a known donor after your child is born. I think men commonly underestimate how strongly they will feel about their child once it is born, and previous agreements about maintaining a more distant relationship suddenly seem wildly unreasonable to them. There is no legal agreement you can draw up that can prevent a donor from applying to court for parental rights (though the courts are beginning to be more sympathetic to lesbian mothers in this situation) though I think a written contract is a useful tool for establishing absolute clarity for all involved.

I think it is vital to (a) choose a donor who you trust to maintain integrity with what you have agreed, (b) talk very honestly and clearly about what you are offering. For example, I found that potential donors who had agreed to an 'uncle' type relationship went on to demand rights to name the child, to be at the birth, to have the child come live with them if they decided that that's what they wanted! It's hard to be absolutely clear about what you are offering at the same time as trying to woo someone in to fathering a child for you, but it is essential.

Finally (sorry I've posted at such length - it's a subject close to my heart) I would recommend you (a) don't put the donor's name on the birth certificate, (b) have a civil partnership (protects the rights of the non-biological mother), and (c) apply for a parental responsibility order or go for full adoption once your child is born. There are a few solicitors who are really experienced in this field (if you want names, email me).

Very best of luck.

When you say "What papers need to be drawn up?" I wonder what you are referring to. You might like to write down some agreement to clarify things for yourselves, but such a document would not have any legal standing, as I understand it, in the unhappy event that you ended up in court.

Equally, whether or not you want the donor to have any 'rights' on the child would not make a difference if he applied to a court for a parental responsibility order. Legally, the judge must decide what is in the best interest of the child.

Also, in terms of financial responsibility, if you ever end up on income support, again, what you want will not come into it.

This is all worse-case-scenario stuff, but you might want to think about it.

Hi

We have a new baby (2.5 weeks old), with a known donor who will be an involved father, on the birth certificate etc. So perhaps my story isn't so relevant. But I would echo hester's comments to talk through very honestly what you all expect. We were reluctant to raise some issues (eg money, beyond saying "he will contribute") and it just means we're having to do the hard conversations now, sleep deprived, when it would have been better to get it all out earlier.

We drew up an agreement before starting, that set out our expectations and intentions. It's not legally binding, but would be "taken into account" in any dispute in family courts. But just the act of drawing up the agreement did force us to face up to quite a few issues.

As sparks says, it is difficult to really have a known donor with no involvement. 1. you can't predict how he'll feel when "his" baby arrives and 2. if you ever need income support, the CSA won't care what agreements you've come to.

Good luck!

really interesting to read this.

I have lesbian friends who have 2 children and I just wanted to pick your collective brains about something my children have asked me about.

We talk about their two mummies - referring to them by name - but when my girls ask me re: fathers, I say everyone has a father - but their friend has two mummies - and just the seed bit of the father came from him - and we don't know who he is.

the mums however tell their daughter that she doesn't have a father, fullstop. i think their daughter once got into a bit of a strop with my youngest who told her "everyone has a daddy"...

how should i tackle this if it comes up again?

tia

I think it depends on the age of the children. Little ones can't be expected to differentiate between genetic and social parenthood - telling a child born via sperm donation, for example, that s/he has a father may well be confusing, and possibly distressing. Clearly, you need to reinforce what your friends are telling their dd, and it's always more helpful to keep the emphasis on what they do have, rather than on what they don't, i.e. "You have a daddy and a mummy, and x has two mummies".

Could you sit down with your dd and explain to her that while it always needs a man and a woman to start a baby, we use the words 'mummy' and 'daddy' to mean the people who love you and help you grow up; that some children have a mummy and daddy, others have two mummies or two daddies, others have one mummy or one daddy etc.

After all, she'll be going through school with plenty of kids who don't have a daddy either.

thanks hester, have done all of that, the positive stuff. she understands that but was a bit vehement re: her friend's denial re: father. not trying to stir it, just want to be straightforward with my own kids - who are admittedly older and therefore capable of asking more complex questions and expecting different kind of answers!

Kids don't like complexity or diversity, do they? All you can do is your best to get your dd to handle it sensitively, accept the limitations of her age, and remember that your friends' child will face far, far more insensitive/intrusive questioning at school - your dd is just giving her a bit of preparation!

thanks hester

one of the mums said her dd was the only child at nursery who hadn't been invited to a little boy's party - I think the mum had only just found out about them being lesbians.

we talk about diversity all the time and I hope I'm setting a good example for my girls. we knew our friends long before the L-word was mentioned at home so they had good role models where difference just never came into it - they're our friends like all our other friends.

My dd would be the same - insisting she does not have a father. She has a donor and does talk about him sometimes, but would never refer to him as her father. She has been know to talk to other kids about her donor and even explain in great detail about the process of donor insemination .

I think sometimes kids run into problems and we, as parents, just need to let them get on with it and work things out for themselves. It's not always easy.

what kind of a person would scapegoat a child because they disapproved of her parents?

I'm dreading this happening to dd...

i know hester.. but mostly they've had good experiences esp with nursery where the workers helped some of the more -ahem- traditional parents to get over themselves a bit - and their time there was really good. i suspect school will be a little trickier..

i do think though living in London you probably have the best chance of things mostly going well. my friends have lesbian friends in the provinces and I don't think they've had such good experiences.

Hi
Dp and I chose a known donor - an old school friend of dp's. We wanted someone we knew who wouldn't necessarily want to help 'parent' our children, but who was willing to be named on the birth certificate. This felt really important to us - that our children would know who their father was. We had an offer from a lovely gay friend of mine but he wanted to remain anonymous, so we said no.

So, our donor is wonderful and also happens to be a lawyer. We drew up a document which indicated how we wanted to parent. It's not legally binding in any way, but if there were any problems later down the line, the document would be evidence of our intentions at the time.

The document stated that our donor would be named on the birth certificate and could have contact with our children. He actually didn't really want any contact at all, but we were happy to have this in as we knew there might be a chance of things turning out differently once children came along.

We spent a year in total discussing it and checking out how we all felt about it.

It's worked out brilliantly. Ds's are 6 and 3 and adore their Dad! He actually sees them and is more involved than he ever thought he would be - and it's lovely. We live very near him now and he sees them every 2 - 3 weeks. Takes them out sometimes but more often than not comes round to tea and then helps with bedtime stories.

It's a lovely developing relationship between them all and I'm sure as ds's get older (and a bit easier?!) he'll take them out more and have them over. And we're really pleased with that.

I thought I might be jealous at first (dp had ds1) but actually when you see them together it's just wonderful. And gives us a break every now and then..!

Blimey, that was a long post! Let me know if you want to chat at all.

P.S. It's turned out that our donor actually has parental responsibility for ds2, as by the time we'd had him the law had changed and because he's on the birth certificate he automatically has it. And dp hasn't got it yet 'cos we've been useless at sorting out the paperwork..!

But 6 years down the line of all this means it's not an issue - just one of those things.

My DW & I are combining fresh with frozen sperm (2 different donors) and I've drawn up a VERY thorough contract, according to South African laws (we live here). If anyone is interested I could forward it to you...?

name change for obv reasons

i'm sil of a mum who went down the known donor route and i'm pretty sure we're living one of the worst case scenarios.

sil didn't think it necc to have written confirmation for exchange of sperm for monies, as it wouldn't be a legal document.

Donor claimed not to want parental contact, as this suited sil; only a photo and letter of progress once a year. sil and donor became closer friends. Donor started spending more time with my nephew and his step brothers, which most, most sadly involved inappropriate touches from donor.

Donor states he wants more and more contact with my nephew and applies for custody. meanwhile police take donor to court for behaviour with step brothers. He is found not guilty thanks to concurrent case seemingly influencing the need to go to court to stop him from gaining custody.

In middle of custody case, sil flees country with nephew.

The family courts are a shambles; he has been given parental custody.

i'm currently in the middle of abduction case whilst with first baby, dh with nervous breakdown and mil will have to sell house. Received another summons this morning, just before logging on, for court to go through all my finance records.

I'm sure you won't even have a glimpse of these sorts of dealings in your life. But Please, please make sure all arrangements are water tight to how you wish to raise your child. You cannot be too careful about protecting you and your child's safety and your own piece of mind.

Olliemarie - some time has passed since you posted your message, but if you see this I would be very interested in seeing the contract that you drew up. My partner, myself and our known donor (a very close gay friend) are all ex South Africans living in the UK. We have discussed this for years, and very seriously over the last year. Just when you think you've explored every possible emotion a new pops up! But we've reached the point where we're fed up of talking and are ready to start trying. We've written up some documents, however not contracts. If you are happy to share your documents I would be so grateful!

temm09, I have a contract I can show you, if you like.

Thanks Hester, that would be fantastic! I will send you a CAT message.

Hey Temm09. I only saw this now. Please let me know if you still would like this. Mail me. tolwagen at aim dot com

hi there.....i know this is a really old post, but I too would be realyl interested in having a look at any "agreements" people have had drawn up in the past when having a known donor involved....any help would be greatly appreciated - im new to the site, so not entirely sure what CAT is!?
ill have a nose and find out!
thanks