Advice for Potential Donors

In a comment left in response to a guest post to the New York Times Motherlode blog written by Wendy Kramer of the Donor Sibling Registry and Naomi Cahn titled "Emailing a Sperm Donor: You May Want to Sit Down" the following advice was offered. Wise words any potential donor should take to heart before deciding to donate. 

If the donor didn't want to help create a human being (who likely will have questions about his/her origins as most people do), then the donor shouldn't donate. There is no law forcing someone to donate egg or sperm.

If they want to do it out of the goodness of their heart, then out of the goodness of their heart, they should realize that the person created has fundamental rights to know about him/herself.

If the donor is doing it for money to pay for college, he/she should know the person he/she helped create may have reasonable issues with identity decades later. The donor risks his/her "creation" wanting contact or probing decades later with questions about donor's life and history. the little sperm or egg doesn't stay little, but grows up into a human being with human feelings, desires, and questions.

If donor can't handle contributing to these dilemmas, then don't donate recklessly. Again, it's a choice the donor is making voluntarily and should be properly informed about. It's certainly not the fault of the person who was created with the assistance of this donor.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/emailing-a-sperm-donor-you-may-want-to-sit-down/?_r=0

My Son Now Realizes the Donor Is a Real Person. I Think.

One of the downsides to referring to the donor, as the donor, is that it does dehumanize that person. Yesterday my kids had a play date with one of his classmates, in this case the boy who like my son is donor conceived and has two moms.

While tucking my son in I mentioned that like he and his sister have a common donor and are full siblings and that similarly his classmate and his baby brother also are full siblings as they share a common donor. I realized my son did not understand that the donor was a man like me when he asked whether the donor was a man or a woman. I explained that the donor was a man like me but that his sperm “worked” where mine did not and that is why we needed his help in making he and his sister. I reminded him that “T” their half sibling was created like them from the donor's sperm and an egg provided by her mommy.

I explained that the donor was a young man when he sold/gave his sperm to the sperm bank and that he is older now and may have a family of his own and that those children would also technically be my son’s half siblings. My son then asked if we know if there really are any more half-siblings like “T” out there. I said I did not know but I check the list where I found out about “T”.

I did not give the “donor” another name as I don’t really know what to call him. I did not go as far as to tell me my son that someday if he wishes he may want to meet this man. I did tell him that no matter what I will always be his and his sister’s daddy and that I love them both very very much. He smiled at that. I was afraid to humanize the donor too much as I was scared to, in effect, out right state that this man is his biological father and possibly scare my 5 ¾ year old son into thinking this man may come for him as the thought that I may place a fear into his head was in my own.

When I told my wife of this conversation she asked how in depth were our son’s questions or was I pushing the subject. I admitted that I started the conversation but I had not pushed the topic on him and would have changed the topic if he showed no interest in it.

Donor or Father ?

The other night I saw a post on the Yahoo DSR group by Tom, a donor conceived adult, that was part of a thread addressing the ongoing debate and fact that donors are indeed fathers, biological fathers at a minimum. Tom stated the following as part of a larger post:

My point is this: *all other things being equal* a biological parentwill be better than a non-biologically related parent. And quite significantly better too.

Something about his post made me respond with the following:

We live in a strange world all of us on this site. For each of the heterosexual families out here they certainly would have preferred to not go through infertility and the subsequent choices they made but here we are. Whether it was right or wrong no longer matters now that we are here.

The trick is now dealing with the deck we have created and determining what is best for the kids. I try my best every day to bethe best father, dad, whatever term you want to apply to my kids. Sometimes I do well and others I screw up and forget they are only 5 and 3 and expect to much of them but I believe in all cases I am acting as their dad through and through.

I was struck by Tom's use of the phrase "all other things being equal". Yes without a doubt the sperm donor is the natural father to my children. If he had married my wife and produced these kids with her and raised them I am sure he'd be a great father to him. But he did not and was not part of that particular equation.

His part in the process so far has been genetic and the kids have grown thus far due to a mix of his genetic and my nuture. Which one has played a greater part? The question is irrelevant and unfair to them and to each man involved. If we look at it in that manner it makes it a competition and does not serve any purpose but force the children to look at me as competing with a ghost.

If the kids someday look to find this man and create some sort of relationship so be it. But the fact is at this point his contribution has been in the creation and what his genes bring to these kids. I am not discounting this man as his contributions help define who these children are but I still believe until these children define him as the father that decision is their alone.

AFA Mtg re Donor Conception for Parents

AFA SPECIAL PARENTING SEMINAR

"The American Fertility Association invites you to a Special Parenting Seminar on Monday, December 10, 2007 from 7-9pm. Admission is free but space is very limited. You must register prior to the seminar date to attend.

For those considering using a egg/sperm donor it is a rare opportunity to meet other parents who are now parenting donor children.

For parents of egg/sperm donor children, it is a chance to exchange thoughts, ideas and learn helpful tools that may assist you with the unique, yet similar, challenges of raising children created through this family building option.

And finally, for those who wondered about “who are these donors”, it can be a great opportunity to hear how some donors view their roles in this amazing process.

For more information or to register please contact:
Patricia Mendell, LCSW, at (718) 230-9383
Location: 902 Broadway (between 20- 21 Street) 13th floor "

Mummy, Daddy, Donor

no. 375

OK, this article, online at the Guardian Unlimited, got me. I admit it, my eyes welled up, and I almost cried. I am a sucker for this kid of story. The article, linked through the blog title above, introduces the reader to an egg donor whose eggs resulted in triplets being born to a couple living in San Francisco, CA. In what is certainly a rare occurence, the egg donor meets her genetic children and their birth parents and ends up participating, unplanned on her part, in the children's baptism. You feel the donor's emotions and when you hear the priest's words you feel the raw emotion.

I am not sure how I will internally react when my kids truly understand and ask about their donor. I don't think I could ever had thought to include the donor in the brith milah ceremony (Jewish circumcision) where my son entered into his covenant with g-d. Perhaps my thoughts would have been different if it was a known donor, but still that level of involvement may have been too much. But when I read this article I was moved by the acts of each of these individuals, the birth parents and the donor and I pray these children will process this all with the love and altrusim of the parties involved. I suspect they will. G-d I hope my own kids do someday.

Beneath the article there is a note that this story is one of several captured in the book Everthing Conceivable by Liza Mundy.

Oregon Man Deemed Donor - No Rights to Sperm Mistakenly Provided to Second Couple

no. 354

"Judge says accidental sperm donor has no right to know if he's a father"
Posted by The Oregonian April 16, 2007 15:56PM
-- Ashbel S. Green

Excerpts:

"A Portland man whose sperm was inadvertently given to a Salem-area woman has no right to find out whether he is a father, a Multnomah County judge has ruled.

Circuit Judge Henry Kantor said he was not finished writing his opinion, but wanted the parties to know his decision because it had been so long - nearly seven months - since they argued the case before him.The man, who sued for a paternity test under the initials M.H., claimed that he produced a sperm sample at Oregon Health & Science University's fertility clinic in September to impregnate his fiancee. The same day, a Marion County couple that had struggled to start a family was visiting the clinic. A mix-up occurred, and clinic workers gave M.H.'s sperm sample to the woman."

"Michael G. Smith, the attorney for the Marion County couple, praised the decision. He said he expected M.H. to appeal. "I think essentially what they would be doing is to ask the Oregon Court of Appeals to declare Oregon's artificial insemination statute unconstitutional, which is a tall order," Smith said"

Full text of the Oregonian article at the Annex.

My Opinion:

I can understand the plight of the couple given the sperm by mistake but I think the judge got the decision wrong. I'll have to wait to see the written opinion once it is public but to me it appears the decision has a fatal flaw.

I have posted the Oregon statute on the Annex but it essentially says a Donor has no rights to the children created by the donated sperm. [Oregon State Law Section 109.239].

The flaw as I see it is that the intent of the plaintoff was never to be a donor but that his sperm only be used with respect to his wife so how did he become reclassified as a donor? If he is not a donor his rights should not be cut off. I disagree with the defendant's attorney. The appeal does not have to invalidate the law but it does have to attack the application of the law to this plaintiff.

NYMag: Israeli Donor Egg Farming

no. 348

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/30032/

By Kira Peikoff

NY Magazine

April 9, 2007

The entire text is posted at this blog’s Annex.

Excerpts:

"There is a shortage of Jewish in vitro eggs. Hopeful parents are turning to the Promised Land. "

“Here’s a riddle for your rabbi: If your baby is born from in vitro fertilization, and the donated egg isn’t from a Jewish woman, is the baby really Jewish? Although different branches of Judaism have different answers—Reform says it’s about how the kid’s raised; Orthodox rabbis tend to believe a conversion is necessary—many parents want to make sure their child is a member of the tribe down to its DNA. The problem is there aren’t enough Jewish eggs to go around. So a new type of yenta has arrived on the IVF scene who finds suitable donors, usually from Israel, to match with Americans seeking to become pregnant.”

My observations:

As the full article notes “Israelis may identify more strongly with infertile couples because of their society’s strong pressure to reproduce”. Based on Rachel’s site and other information I have seen IVF and related ART techniques are much more common and accepted in Israel based on societal pressure. My only concerns, beyond the normal issues surrounding the donor conceived created, is whether the women donating are putting aside their health issues and risks for a chance at the money offered. The article certainly closes on the exorbitant monies they can earn.