If your DH wanted to donate sperm how would you feel?

[Spider]

Numbers of sperm donors have plummetted aparently, since they lost the right to be anonymous.

So if your dh wanted to donate sperm to couples who wanted children but needed sperm, would you have any problem with that?

If so what?

I have a good reason for asking but I'm off to pick up the kids now and will check back with interest.

Am a bit tipsy we are having mini glastonbury here so won't elaborate and say what I really want as don't want to speak out of turn Hope you are ok spider xxx

I don't think it sounds awful at all.
Sperm shouldn't be treated as a commodity or a right. It's part of family history. It makes people. It's dh's unique DNA. It's what I've chosen to share with him. It goes deep, deep down. I don't understand how anyone can be so casual about it.

He has always had major problems with the whole idea of IVF up to now. I think it's part of a basic wish to spread his seed without having the responsibility to look after it.

I think it's naive of him because with or without the anonymity laws he'd know and I'd know and my kids would probably know that out there, somewhere, there are half brothers and sisters knocking about and yet we've never even met the biological mother. Weird.

I'm slightly emboldened by alcohol here but I have always thought if dh didn't have sperm I'd want either his brother's or that of a gay friend. Not some stranger.

I feel bad saying this as some very, very close friends of mine had a son this way and I'm really not judging them but can only speak about my own gut response.

Why should you feel bad about your feelings, Spider? There's nothing abnormal or wrong about how you feel about it, it's just how it is.

Hi noddy. Say what you like. I'm pissed too.
Are you going tomorrow? I think I'm going to cry off again as there's a street party down the road.

I know expat it's just that I know how much pain it caused my friends the discovery that his sperm was no good and they the years of traumatic inftertility treatment. Never having been in their situation I guess I oughtn't to judge but I find the whole area of egg and sperm donation to strangers really quite disturbing for all concerned.

It's not something I could do, and I wouldn't be comfortable with my husband doing it. Simply because of how well '12lb naturally' put it.

Having had children, we see how they grow and how much of ourselves are in them, and we wouldn't want that to happen and our not have any input at all into how they're brought up.

And both girls SO resemble their daddy.

Yes I agree with 12lbnaturally.

onlyjoking I'm fascinated to know more about you donating eggs. Do you ever think about the people they have created and what they're up to?

OH spider

I wouldnt like it. LIke you spider i would think about it too much. It would keep me awake at night. Ds looks exactly like his father, if dh donated there could be another version of him out there somewhere and i wouldnt know if he /she is happy. Actually it would break my heart not to know if they were happy - god im such a soppy moo.

well after all the heartbreak of an ectopic & a MC then being told we may need IVF it made me think about how much we take things for granted, we didn't need IVF in the end and had twin DD's then DS (pictures in profile), i know how hard it was when we thought we would never have children, i felt that we had been very very lucky, that's when i decided to donate eggs, as a result of which a little girl was born, i am glad i did it but given the changes in the law re contacting donors i wouldn't do it now.

There are alot of misconceptions here.

I think that the removal of anonymity has caused the number of potential donors to drop dramatically. But, if donors looked into the regulations put in place by the HFEA (the governing body), they would discover that many of the fears expressed here are simply not factors.

First - any recipient of donor sperm (and I presume eggs too), must sign a legal document agreeing that the donor has no legal or financial responsibilities to any child born as a result of the treatment. So, there would be no scenario of a child 'turning up' on the doorstep demanding financial support in later years.

Each donor is limited to 10 'live' children. Each child born as a result is registered and thus there is little (if any) chance of siblings unknowingly meeting/marrying.

People who receive donor sperm (and presumably eggs) are required by law to have several sessions with mental health professionals who assess their suitability. There are all sorts of issues addressed - motivation, level of emotional/practical support, etc to ensure that the recipient has considered the complexity of what they're considering. This means that some people can be turned down if they are judged to be unstable or unsuitable.

The process for approval for being a sperm/egg donor and recipient is (I imagine) similar to becoming an adoptive parent - by that I mean, there is nothing impulsive about it. It is a long and complicated process designed to protect the child.

Spider, I hope that you are feeling a bit better this morning. What an awful thing to happen.

EB, I wouldn't want the children to arrive, even if they have no right to financial support. These children may want significant amounts of emotional support, and this might have a significant effect on my relationship with dh (This is theoretical anyway as he is dying but YKWIM) and also mu my children.

I can understand why the rules on anonymity have been changed, for the mental well being of the children. However the situation is now clear, men have to be prepared to be seen as the biological father, and realise that they may well be contacted in later life by their child. In that situation I would not want my DH 'fathering' other children.

I do realise the grief that is caused by infertility, but I would also have to consider the well being of my family.

MB - I understand what you say. It is a very emotive and sensitive topic. Few people would welcome the thought of an 'interloper' invading the sanctity of a family and upsetting the balance. I honestly don't know how I would feel if I was married to someone who had donated (or was considering it).

However, many donor conceived children are born into families where one partner is infertile. In that sense, the child certainly already has a father/mother in the emotional sense. Or, if the child is born to a single parent there is every reason to think the mother might form a relationship with a man who would act/be the emotional father.

I imagine the donor meeting the child conceived as a result to be a similar scenario to an adopted child wanting to trace their birth mother/father. Sometimes an ongoing relationship is forged, but sometimes it simply satisfies a curiosity, or is the 'final piece of the jigsaw'. (Parents of adopted children, please set me straight if you don't agree.)

my lesbian cousin has asked dh on lots of occasions to donate to her so she can have a baby.

It is also worth noting that a donor can specify, to some extent, who receives their sperm. Some donors state 'no single women' or 'no lesbian couples'.

EB, I can completely undetsand why a child concieved from donor gametes would want to find their biological parents. Apart from anything else they may need to know about their extended families medical history.

The situation as it now stands if far more like your partner fathering a child by 'natural means, not economicaly I realise, but in emotional terms.

I would have had no qualms about DH donating sperm when the law protected their anionymity. In fact dh had to have sperm stored before he had chemo for his testicular cancer. He had to make a 'will' and wheras I was quite happy to donete the sperm if I had no need of it, dh did not want this to happen.

With the law as it stands, I would not want my dh to be an 'emotionaly liable' father. For totaly selfish reasons, and I'm not particularly happy with that theought. But if I am honest I would be horrified at the thought of ahafl sibling to my own kids torning up at a later date, with unknown consequences,

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Spider - can I just say that, even if he has the most altruistic motives (and as you can see from my posts, I think donation is a good thing), his timing for discussing this is dreadful. I'm sorry for the pain it has caused you.

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My child was conceived this way. Thank god for sperm donors.