Sperm Donors

I was recently asked an interesting question - something that I had not really pondered before then. A family member asked me if we thought we would ever tell our children that they were conceived through IVF. My initial reaction was that no, I probably wouldn't tell them since if they had been conceived in the back of the Chevy or on a white sand beach they wouldn't have that information either. But, as I began to think about it I revised my opinion. our children know from the time that they can remember that they are adopted, and special, and chosen. My husband was adopted and he was adamant that it was one of the best… [more]

When we were going through our fertility treatments, the doctor gave me a list of fertility options. I was fascinated with one of the options for couples in which the husband has a low sperm count. The doctor said he could supplement the husband's sperm with donor sperm and use both in the intrauterine insemination (IUI) process. The couple could select a donor who closely resembled the husband, and nobody would ever know which sperm actually fertilized the egg.

I had never heard of doing such a process. I always saw insemination as an "either/or" scenario. I had never considered combining the sperm of two men to increase the odds of a conception.

Of course, while this method of increasing the options of conceiving… [more]

Photo credits: Jessica Wynne for The New York Times. Caption: Shelby Siems, 44, with her son, Christopher, 2, has a boyfriend but is expecting another son from the same donor who fathered Christopher. Today's New York Times Sunday Magazine has a cover story called "Looking for Mr. Good Sperm"--which is about the how mating and procreation rituals have evolved (devolved?) from internet dating and mate shopping on Match.com (so over) to internet sperm shopping. The article is accompanied by photos of attractive women, the cover looks like something out of Sex in the City. In fact, internet sperm shopping seems exactly the thing Carrie Bradshaw might do, to create the world's cutest bebe to go with… [more]

Here's an interesting article in The New York Times, about children born of donor sperm donors who want to seek their "biological fathers" (and sometimes, vice versa). An interesting topic that eerily parallels many of the issues of adoption as well. The urge to know where one came from is, it seems, universal. The big question is, will the advances of assisted reproductive technology (ART) such as sperm and egg donation move too quickly for the ensuing moral questions? I had a few chums in college who donated sperm for the "extra bucks." They are all obviously smart, college educated people, but I don't think long-term considerations of their progeny, real living people with their own lives, were foremost on their minds when they… [more]