My boyfriend donated sperm

[Kala101]

Hi I'm looking for some advice as I'm in a crisis state. I met my boyfriend almost a year ago. He told me two months in that he had donated sperm to a sperm bank. Recently we've become serious and I've been so disturbed by this aspect of his past, although he has reassured me that he only sees those offspring as genetic links not a family.

I really want to have kids with the right person and have my own family. I feel this would be so disruptive to a future family. I also feel jealous and disgusted that his sperm was inside these women. I'm too emotional about this.

I am going against the grain here and will say YANBU @Kala101

It would not sit well with me either.

Sperm donors USED to be able to remain anonymous, but not anymore, and yes, you COULD get a tap tap tap on the door in 15 years or so (depending on when he donated his tadpoles,) from someone wanting to meet their 'daddy.'

It put many men off donating when the anonymity was taken away (unsurprisingly!) But some men still do it.

Some of what you say is a bit odd though, like 'ewww, my boyfriend's sperm is in these women!' But maybe you just worded what you wanted to say, a bit badly.

But yeah YANBU. This is not like donating blood, or bone marrow, or food (to a food bank,) or even a kidney! He is basically donating human lives! People. Actual offspring of his.

I don't know why you are getting such a hard time. I would find this hard to accept too.

I do agree that you need to split with him though, as this is never going away. He actually sounds too blasé and devil-may-care to me, and seems to care about himself more than you. He doesn't seem to care about your feelings at all. You deserve better. End it now.

It might be a good idea to seek therapy if this is the only issue in your relationship. It is absolutely something you can learn to accept

Quite expat. Despite all the shaming you've had for this particular boundary OP, not wanting your partner to have/potentially have other children who might contact him later in life is actually a pretty normal viewpoint. The problem is when people who feel like this try and get into relationships with people who do have children and can't get over it.

I only thought of how it would feel to donate eggs as I was trying to put myself in his shoes. My friends also thought sperm donation thing was very strange.

I do know there would be plenty of women out there who wouldn't be able to accept this as it doesn't feel natural.

OP I want to apologise for being harsh to you. As you've posted more throughout the thread I kind of get the impression that you just don't understand the procedure and the process and you didn't really know where else to turn for opinions because it isn't the sort of thing people talk about a lot.

I really think you've got a good chance of overcoming this, by educating yourself and coming to terms with the way things are.

Once again, sorry.

Wow, agree with PP that you should probably end this relationship now. It sounds like you're not the right person for him to have kids with, either.

As someone who is mother to two beautiful DC conceived via sperm donor, I know that it is an incredibly altruistic thing to do and I will be eternally grateful. They can contact him if they choose aged 18, but they have their own parents so I'm sure any such contact would be pretty limited.

It comes off as insecure and frankly quite barking that you're jealous of his sperm being inside women. You need to educate yourself on the process of fertility treatment. A huge amount of donor sperm is used for IVF, in which case none of the sperm goes into the woman. In the case of IUI, the sperm is washed so all the fluid is removed, and then the best sperm from the sample are suspended in a different liquid before insemination. Even if the sperm was used for home insemination, I can promise you that the women see it as an entirely sexless process.

In the nicest possible way, please get a grip.

I have 3 wonderful DS's, naturally. If Dh wanted to donate his sperm, before I met him, I would personally be happy that some other people could have DC's as great as ours DS's.

Although I think that sperm/egg donation is a wonderful thing, I could not have children with a man who had donor children. For the simple fact that these would be our childrens biological siblings. This is the same reason I could never donate my eggs, however altruistic it would be. I couldn’t stand the thought that my biological children were out there somewhere being brought up by someone else. I could no more do that than get be up one of my children for adoption.

The fact that it’s not completely anonymous is wrong in my opinion.

I mean, plenty of people, when they are single and childfree, they don't want to get involved with someone who has kids, but if he's a sperm donor he's all of the sudden Mr Wonderful and you're a terrible person for this being a dealbreaker.

It's a perfectly acceptable boundary and again, your mistake was not ending things when he first told you.

I wouldn't want kids with a man who had done this when it's not anonymous because depending on the child it could cause a lot of disruption if one of them rocks up wanting to know about the paternal side of their family.

The vitriol on this thread is completely uncalled for. It’s perfectly ok to not feel comfortable with the idea that your partner potentially has other children out there who may come looking for him at some point. In fact the number of donations dropped significantly after the law was changed to enable donor conceived children to trace their biological parents.

This kind of thing is important to children conceived through donation, and anyone who says that it isn’t is deluding themselves.

OP you don’t have to be comfortable with this. Not wanting to be in a relationship with a man who potentially has numerous children out there does not make you a bad person. Neither does not wanting to adopt or not wanting to conceive using donor sperm or eggs.

My daughter was created by donor
Sperm does not go in the vagina it is usually in a Petri dish , the embryo is implanted, but unless he is a virgin he has put his sperm in a few girls vaginas
There is the donor registry where there are many wonderful stories of donor siblings ( diblings) and donors can contact each other before they are 18
He has done a wonderful thing, if any kids get In touch I'm not sure how it would be disruptive? he can choose to have no contact, give a email / photo and leave it at that or be totally involved in their lives as he chooses. There is no financial or legal obligations on his part.

Lokissister

Completely agree.

private I wondered the same thing....

I think my wording was a little harsh in my original post OP and I actually do agree with expat. If you can't accept it you shouldn't have to. If you're going to continue feeling unhappy about this, imagine how you'll feel in 15 years time if you stay with him - continually waiting for a knock on the door that you don't know will ever come.

At a year in op, if this is bothering you now, without any of the potential enquiries and letters from his genetic children in the years to come, it's time to get out. Honestly it is. There will be so many other hard times and challenges when you are together a long time and it'll nag at you every time the chips are down....no matter how much you feel you've come to terms with it.
I do get where you are coming from, although it's a lovely thing to have done....I'd honestly find it hard if not impossible too. But that's more about me and my personality than the actual deed iyswim.
But on the other side, these children ( young adults when/if they get in touch) will have almost certainly have had good lives. They were wanted. Their dad or mum didn't leave. Young mum not left pregnant, not a result of rape.. I guess you could say their start is just different. I don't know, but I feel they d be less likely to want a 'dad' than those children ( like me ten years ago) looking for their birth father, with all the ' why did you leave', why didn't you stay in touch?
They'll be more asjusted, I think I'm trying to say and making a hash of!

I am a mother to a child conceived with with the help of a donor.

I do think some of the reactions to the OP are harsh. I expect many people have different things that might bother them about their partners and have to decide whether those things are deal breakers. What bothers person A might be perfectly fine to person B. Yes the OP’s partner has done a generous thing (I am grateful to our donor every day) but she’s uncomfortable that he has genetic offspring out there somewhere who might turn up. She doesn’t like the idea that potentially there are so many potential genetic half siblings of an children they might have together. If it’s ok for people not to donate eggs or sperm themselves because they don’t like the idea then surely it’s ok to not like the idea their partner has donated.

OP - I don’t know where you could go or how you could find people who feel the same (not Mumsnet it seems!) I think you need to really think hard about whether you can imagine being without this man. And whether you can move past this or whether it’s going to fester and mean the relationship is non-viable.

You could perhaps approach a therapist who works with fertility clinics (donors and recipients have to attend at least one session) to talk things through.

I know that he doesn't have kids in the traditional sense and he will never get to hold them as babies and raise them. He thinks it's about nurture and he would be ready to adopt kids if we couldn't have them.

NB: we know our donor had a child of their own. And we could apply to the HFEA to find out about any other children born by the same donor’s donations too. No details but whether they exist or not, yes.

You're not a bad person for not accepting this. You don't need therapy and it doesn't make you jealous or barking . Move on having learned that this is one of your boundaries/dealbreakers and that's perfectly fine.

He's not the person for you, Kala, and that doesn't make either one of you a bad person.

Sorry, I said ‘therapist’ but actually it’s a counsellor you have to speak to if you are a donor or donated eggs or sperm or embryos recipient. You could ask the clinic where your partner made his donation

I don’t think she needs therapy to change her mind or because she ‘jealous or barking’. Just that a professional with knowledge of fertility treatment could be a neutral person with whom to talk through her feelings and clarify them. Certainly our sessions were helpful.

Sorry to derail the thread slightly, but for those of you with donor conceived children, hypothetically, if you were in the position where your child needed something medical ie kidney/bone marrow donation and they needed a family match, are you able to approach the donor?

Sorry if this is an intrusive question, feel free to not answer if I have crossed a line.

He won't be raising babies OP, but there is a possibility an 18 year old might get in touch a few years down the line, and the reality is that he may then have a decision to make. It is possible that some kind of relationship will emerge, maybe while you have your own younger children. They might find themselves with a sibling.

You not wanting to have to deal with this is a perfectly valid and reasonable feeling, and not something that you need counselling to work on. The drop in the number of donations after anonymity was waived suggests you've a fair amount of company in fact, be it from men themselves or their partners. Not wanting your partner to have other children is fine.

Just, if this is a big enough problem for you, have the courage of that conviction. You know this is a concern now, so don't sleepwalk into something more serious despite that.

I'm surprised at the responses you're getting. I don't know if this would be an issue for me or not, but I can definitely see why someone would struggle with it. I thought about donating my eggs a few times but I didn't because I couldn't help feeling that I would be the mother of any resulting children, and the idea that I could have children walking around anywhere on the earth and never know it was too strange for me to handle.

This is just how I felt about it, nothing more.

Lokissister

I actually thought about how donating eggs and how it'd feel. And honestly, it wouldn't matter to me and I wouldn't feel like they were my children. This is why it's such a complex issue for me.