The one part of this whole process that we were right about from the
beginning is that, one way or another, we were going to need sperm from
an adult male outside of our marriage. We kept an eye on the news over
the years leading up to our baby-making, but apparently all of the
scientists have been busy doing something else rather than figuring out
how to create life without men (rude) (and probably a conspiracy to keep
men relevant).
When you are in a lesbian relationship, a single woman, or a woman attempting to make a baby with a man who cannot produce sperm, you have four broad options depending on a) what you feel comfortable with, b) what you think will be best for your child/family in the future, c) what you can afford, and, as we discovered, d) how much time you have.
What you feel comfortable with
Relying on a person outside of your relationship is fucking weird and awkward and uncomfortable and sad and invasive and it kind of makes you feel like you're trying to do something strange and unnatural which is fucked up because making a tiny human with the person you love is the most natural thing of all time. For each couple, though, there will be some things that feel acutely more uncomfortable than other things. Some couples cannot stand the idea of using a known donor, as they don't want anybody else in the child's life feeling as though they are a third "parent" in any capacity. Others feel deeply uncomfortable conducting the process in a clinic, feeling as though that brings too much sterility to a beautiful, loving process. Like every choice we made, there was no right or wrong - I felt most comfortable using a turkey baster at home, my wife felt most comfortable using a clinic-supplied donor and medical insemination. Spoiler alert: neither of us got what we wanted.
What you think will be best for your child/family in the future
As overwhelming as it is to try to get your own thoughts in line and balance them with your partner's, the person who this decision is most central to needs someone to speak for them as well. This chapter in our autobiographies is the very spine of theirs. It is something that you are going to have to explain to every medical practitioner who ever cares for your child, that as a family you will have to navigate every Father's Day. Again: no right answer, in fact more of a giant question mark that we clutched to our chest and murmered pre-emptive apologies to. Do you think that your child's donor being anonymous is the best choice for them/you as a family? Or do you think that knowing who the donor is from day one will work better? Do you have any idea what you're doing? How the hell are you supposed to figure any of this out? Should you even BE a parent?! Why the hell do we not have any tonic for the gin I very badly need?
What you can afford
Here is the current list of treatment costs at Fertility Associates.
The first time I looked at this I thought "oh look, the cheapest option is IUI and it's only $1,300 if we use our own donor!". Hah. Hahahahahah. Hahahahahahahhhhhhh.
Initial appointment: $270
2x follow-up consultations: $165 ea
2x counselling for couple: $314
2x counselling for donor: $314
Initial donor screening + full medical assessment: $1,300
Additional tests: $245
Freezing: $220 per sample
And then you start paying $1,300 per attempt.
Cumulative birth rate from IUI using donor sperm doesn't even hit 50% until four attempts.
Hahahahahahahahaahhhaaa.
Anybody wanna come jerk off in my bathroom? (kidding)
How much time you have
It takes two years to get to the top of the IUI donor waiting list, and then however long it takes you to get pregnant, and then (hopefully) nine months of pregnancy. That means from the moment that you decide to make your first appointment, you're looking at best-case scenario three years until there's an infant in your life if you want to use donor insemination, probably closer to four. Even if you BYO donor, there's a six-month quarantine period before you can use it (although we signed a waiver to reduce that to three months) and that's after they've finished donating all the samples you might ever need which is after they've finished the whole approval process including being counselled up to the eyeballs and preliminary samples have been tested and approved and other things that take a Very Long Time when your wife's fertility is a ticking time bomb. Basically, if you want to get started within nine months of deciding to start a family, you're going to need to be doing it at home or using a donor who has already been through the donor approval process at your fertility clinic of choice.
So just figure out the answer to all of those things, acquire the amount of money that your ideal method requires, and make a baby!
There are, of course, because there always are, other factors to consider also. An early jaunt around the internet lead me to this post, which lead me to eat two tubs of Little Island ice cream in two days and do some impassioned ranting on the internet about how it's simply outrageous how few men donate sperm. This is literally the most legit website to find a private donor outside of a clinic in New Zealand, and just looking at it makes me want to liberally apply hand sanitiser and take a brisk walk in the sunshine even though I'm sure there are some truly excellent men willing to become donors in there somewhere. Friends and families have endless reckons about how and where and why and who-with to do things, and almost everybody will mis-label your donor as the "father" or "dad" so often that you will spend a lot more time with a smile pasted on your face than you should have to.
For Linda and I, the process pretty much decided itself. Linda felt strongly that for her, insemination would need to be a clinical process. This was a relief in that it was kind of the equivalent of playing the 50/50 cheat in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire except only the free options were gone which was certainly not ideal from a financial perspective. Then Linda's blood tests came back and chose for us - there was no time for the waiting list. We would be using someone we knew, and we needed to choose somebody fast.
When you are in a lesbian relationship, a single woman, or a woman attempting to make a baby with a man who cannot produce sperm, you have four broad options depending on a) what you feel comfortable with, b) what you think will be best for your child/family in the future, c) what you can afford, and, as we discovered, d) how much time you have.
For free
|
For thousands of dollars
| |
Someone you know
|
Actual sex or DIY insemination with
someone you know (no mandated time frames)
|
Sperm donation in clinic + insemination
(lengthy approval process, counselling sessions, and 3-6 month quarantine period)
|
Complete stranger
|
Actual sex or DIY insemination with a benevolent
stranger from the internet (no mandated time frames)
|
Clinic-supplied donor + insemination
(two-year waitlist for IUI, six months for IVF, limited donor selection)
|
What you feel comfortable with
Relying on a person outside of your relationship is fucking weird and awkward and uncomfortable and sad and invasive and it kind of makes you feel like you're trying to do something strange and unnatural which is fucked up because making a tiny human with the person you love is the most natural thing of all time. For each couple, though, there will be some things that feel acutely more uncomfortable than other things. Some couples cannot stand the idea of using a known donor, as they don't want anybody else in the child's life feeling as though they are a third "parent" in any capacity. Others feel deeply uncomfortable conducting the process in a clinic, feeling as though that brings too much sterility to a beautiful, loving process. Like every choice we made, there was no right or wrong - I felt most comfortable using a turkey baster at home, my wife felt most comfortable using a clinic-supplied donor and medical insemination. Spoiler alert: neither of us got what we wanted.
What you think will be best for your child/family in the future
As overwhelming as it is to try to get your own thoughts in line and balance them with your partner's, the person who this decision is most central to needs someone to speak for them as well. This chapter in our autobiographies is the very spine of theirs. It is something that you are going to have to explain to every medical practitioner who ever cares for your child, that as a family you will have to navigate every Father's Day. Again: no right answer, in fact more of a giant question mark that we clutched to our chest and murmered pre-emptive apologies to. Do you think that your child's donor being anonymous is the best choice for them/you as a family? Or do you think that knowing who the donor is from day one will work better? Do you have any idea what you're doing? How the hell are you supposed to figure any of this out? Should you even BE a parent?! Why the hell do we not have any tonic for the gin I very badly need?
What you can afford
Here is the current list of treatment costs at Fertility Associates.
The first time I looked at this I thought "oh look, the cheapest option is IUI and it's only $1,300 if we use our own donor!". Hah. Hahahahahah. Hahahahahahahhhhhhh.
Initial appointment: $270
2x follow-up consultations: $165 ea
2x counselling for couple: $314
2x counselling for donor: $314
Initial donor screening + full medical assessment: $1,300
Additional tests: $245
Freezing: $220 per sample
And then you start paying $1,300 per attempt.
Cumulative birth rate from IUI using donor sperm doesn't even hit 50% until four attempts.
Hahahahahahahahaahhhaaa.
Anybody wanna come jerk off in my bathroom? (kidding)
How much time you have
It takes two years to get to the top of the IUI donor waiting list, and then however long it takes you to get pregnant, and then (hopefully) nine months of pregnancy. That means from the moment that you decide to make your first appointment, you're looking at best-case scenario three years until there's an infant in your life if you want to use donor insemination, probably closer to four. Even if you BYO donor, there's a six-month quarantine period before you can use it (although we signed a waiver to reduce that to three months) and that's after they've finished donating all the samples you might ever need which is after they've finished the whole approval process including being counselled up to the eyeballs and preliminary samples have been tested and approved and other things that take a Very Long Time when your wife's fertility is a ticking time bomb. Basically, if you want to get started within nine months of deciding to start a family, you're going to need to be doing it at home or using a donor who has already been through the donor approval process at your fertility clinic of choice.
So just figure out the answer to all of those things, acquire the amount of money that your ideal method requires, and make a baby!
There are, of course, because there always are, other factors to consider also. An early jaunt around the internet lead me to this post, which lead me to eat two tubs of Little Island ice cream in two days and do some impassioned ranting on the internet about how it's simply outrageous how few men donate sperm. This is literally the most legit website to find a private donor outside of a clinic in New Zealand, and just looking at it makes me want to liberally apply hand sanitiser and take a brisk walk in the sunshine even though I'm sure there are some truly excellent men willing to become donors in there somewhere. Friends and families have endless reckons about how and where and why and who-with to do things, and almost everybody will mis-label your donor as the "father" or "dad" so often that you will spend a lot more time with a smile pasted on your face than you should have to.
For Linda and I, the process pretty much decided itself. Linda felt strongly that for her, insemination would need to be a clinical process. This was a relief in that it was kind of the equivalent of playing the 50/50 cheat in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire except only the free options were gone which was certainly not ideal from a financial perspective. Then Linda's blood tests came back and chose for us - there was no time for the waiting list. We would be using someone we knew, and we needed to choose somebody fast.
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