known donor Vs unknown donor - head is spinning!

[tricky77]

hi all,
today is my first day on this site, and already I found some really useful and interesting posts....so it has prompted me to start my own thread to try and search for some wise words, help and guidance in our attempts to enter the world of gay parenting!
my girlfriend and i have been together for 7yrs, and have been talking about starting a family for a couple of years now. We're getting "civil-d" this year, which is all very exciting in itself, but it has also prompted us to really try and come to some kind of decision as to how we want to go about getting pregnant....because we keep going back and forth on the same debate of the pros and cons of "known donor Vs unknown donor" - and keep coming out of these debates none the wiser!
So, i wanted to start a thread here in the hope of getting in contact with other gay mums who may have had the exact same debates, and to hear your stories and experiences as to how things have worked out for you?
our gut feeling has always been that we would like to go with a known donor, because we feel it would be important for the child to know who their father was, and to be able to form a relationship with them...but for the child to always see myself and my partner has their parents....so, in an ideal world, our kd would be the kind of uncle figure that has been talked about. BUT, then are worry is if the kd then wants more involvement along the way, and wants to play a bigger a part in the childs life, and the decision making....and would their input make matters more complicated in the long run, as it would be 3 parents trying to decide whats best for their child instead of 2......and would sometimes the kd and one of us agree with each other, and therefore casue a divide in our relationship....aaagh - hence the head spin!
then, on the flip side, using an unknown donor would mean none of those complications would happen, as there would be no confusion as to who the parents would be....but then how would this affect the child when they grow older and want to know where they came from, and who their father is....and would they miss having a key male figure to spend time with etc.......
im sorry that my first thread on here is a complete rambling mess - its hard to stop once I started!

our situation recently has taken an interesting turn, because we have been introduced to a friend of a friend who is interested in being a father....he is gay, and his partner already has a 15yr old daughter who he spends time with too....he seems lovely, and we all agreed to spend more time together getting to know each other and see what happens - but i guess that now that someone has come into our lives who is a potential KD, all these questions are buzzing through our minds. this guy seems very keen to be an involved father, which is great in one respect, but it does the raise the question of HOW involved?
so, i guess my first question, for those of you who have used a kd, is where do you start in terms of creating some kind of legal agreement at the beginning as to who makes the final decisions, rights of access etc.....
i could go on and list a whole load of other questions......but im pretty sure this first post is quite long enough!
sorry again for the ramblers, but any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

Hi there - can burble about my experiences..!

Dp and I have two ds's (had one each) by a KD who is wonderful and known as Daddy to ds's.

We were clear from the beginning we wanted ds's to know their Daddy is - we wanted him named on the birth certificate for example. We had a shortlist of 3 and our number 1 choice agreed straight away! He's straight and was single at the time - went to school with dp so we both knew him for years before having ds's.

We took a year to sort out the 'agreement' - we wrote the agreement out although were clear it wasn't legal as such, but may be taken into consideration by any courts if needed.

In it, we agreed that KD could see ds's up to a certain level (way more than he wanted to!!), that he would be on the birth certificate, that we wouldn't expect any money from him, nor any kind of childcare other than that he wanted to do.

8 years later and it's working really well. We've ended up living about a mile away from him (not on purpose - we moved to live near our parents and he's up here as well) and he comes round for tea every couple of weeks. The boys adore him and as they get older he does more with them - not loads but enough that they have a fantastic relationship with him. I think ideally dp and I would like KD to actually see them more, but it's an evolving thing - babies definitely weren't his cup of tea but boys who play football in the garden and like cars are! I think in future I can see them going off camping or to football matches (which happens occasionally now) and stuff.

We're 'lucky' in that KD doesn't and has never wanted to be actively involved in the parenting side - but if he did I think we're all confident enough that we would be able to sort it out.

From time to time ds1 in particular complains that he wishes Daddy lived with us, but that's life and I'd rather it was that way round than them not knowing who their Daddy is.

Anyway, will stop wittering but happy to answer any questions!

thanks DottyDot for your story.....can i ask, out of your other 3 KD on the "shortlist", did you or your DP know them previously as well, or did you meet them through a donor website or anything?
My girlf and i have been reading through these posts again, and have realised that we hadnt really thought about the option of going with a KD who we didnt previously know through friends or anything (ie, through something like Rainbow Families like you did DrivingMissCrazy) - and nelix2000.....can i ask where you met your KD as well?

are there any other sites or organisations that anyone can recommend we look into if we wanted to consider this option as well please?

thanks again for any help....our heads are still spinning....and after turning 33 on sunday, im getting even more aware that time is a ticking!

yes, we used Rainbow Network too - now a-goner. You'll find that donors are in considerable demand (ours was receiving about 50 requests a week at one point!) We also spent a good bit of time talking to him - like KD v anon, there's upsides and downsides - upside is that you assume nothing, downside is that you don't know the person really (and this can freak you out sometimes) - but this can turn out to be true of friends, as well. And that you might spend a lot of time talking to someone only to decide that something really isn't right. The key thing for us was trying to ensure that his motives were good - and so far, we've been proved right.

Hi there - our KD and everyone else on the list were good friends. Our KD went to secondary school with dp and the others we either went to school with or had known for along time through work/university.

We both couldn't get our heads around not knowing (as well as possible) the donor! Just our personal take on it - we wanted to be able to talk to ds's about their Dad and therefore to have some kind of shared family knowledge, if that makes sense?

dotty makes sense to me - it's just nice for DD to know that she looks a bit like her nana, and a bit like her grandma and just generally where her people are from and what they're like. I'm glad too, that when it arises (she's 15 months) that she will be able to use this information to fend off idiots and bigots ('my daddy's a doctor'...etc, or 'my grandma has a spotty dog', whatever)

Just my small contribution:

Using a kd versus an ukd means that you have better access to the donor's medical history. Hopefully you'll never need to delve into it, but in the event of an unfortunate medical condition/incident it's better if you know the donor.

padraig - that's probably true, although our KD failed to reveal his congenital flat feet in initial negotiations - are you Irish? (just going by the name, so)

thanks again everyone - we've been looking a few donor websites, so are still thinking about that option as well as a possibilty - and are also hoping to "put the word" out to a couple of our gay guy mates as well - in the hope that maybe a friend of a friend may pop up! We have a veeeeery limited amount of gay mates unfortunately, so we need to try and work on that too!!

i do have one other question (well, truth be told, i probably have about another million....!) - but, can anyone recommend any good family law solicitors who work a lot with gay families?.....London based?

We need a solicitor to help us sort out wills etc for post civil ceremony, but we thought it would be good to find someone we are also comfortable with to use for any future family issue we may have re. parental agreements etc...

thanks