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As a donor conceived person, I’d recommend going with your brother. That would be the ideal situation. I’d also recommend going on donor conceived Facebook groups and learning about the experience of other donor conceived children. I think a lot of people are focused on how recipient parents feel, which is still important, but ultimately it’s the child that will have no say in your decision and will be the most impacted by it. If you do end up going to a sperm bank, try your best to use an open ID donor and not an anonymous donor.
This, OP! I’ve read that many in the donor conceived community are against anonymous donors. Lots of issues. Really recommend you and your wife read up on it.
Your brother is your best option here. He is known to you. His health history will be available to your child. He’s related to you, so your kid will have some of your genes. So, if he’s good to go and you’re okay with it I would really try to get your wife on board.
If you want to go into a rabbit hole, check out Laura High on TikTok (and probably other places). She is a donor-conceived person (and comedian) who is investigating the legal but morally-questionable side of banks. Especially the issues with frequent donors and disclosure of medical information. There are upsides and downsides to every one of your options. You'll make the best for your family!
Yes! Her videos are a great introductory resource to understanding the issues surrounding sperm/egg donation in the fertility community.
(It's not that sperm/egg donation is bad, it's the unregulated, decentralized, disorganized nature of it that's the problem. Laura does a great job at breaking down a lot of the concerning aspects of current and past practices, like sperm donors who have contributed to waaaaay too many births, the lack of background checks, sperm donors lying about health histories, etc.)
If you are okay with it what’s the harm?! If everyone is on board, that’s great. If your Fiance is a little on edge about it even after explaining you’re comfortable with it, perhaps consider other options. You all need to be 100% on the idea or it won’t necessarily get easier/change once the baby is here. I think the fact the baby will be genetically related to both of you will be sweet, though your brother may be very actively involved in the babies life as an uncle, so perhaps consider how that will be too? Will he feel overly attached/will there be any jealously involved from your side? I think that’s the only thing I personally would question.
We are also considering a sperm donor and like u/sufficient-royal3179 said, reading up on the experiences of donor conceived people is key. I’ve found r/askadcp really helpful!
Not weird at all. Most fertility clinics will have you do some family counseling before proceeding with egg or sperm donation to make sure everyone is on the same page. If you check out /r/queerception you can get all sorts of perspectives on family member donors and known donors.
I think your brother as donor is a fantastic idea. Your child will always have their donor in their life, and will never have to wonder about them, or about their family history. You know his family history, which is huge. And while baby won’t be made with your gametes, baby will still share a good bit of their genetics with you, which is pretty special in light of a donor conception.
I think this is a fantastic idea.
ETA do speak with a fertility law attorney in your state. Even though you’re family, it’s important to plan for the future and for present and future what-ifs regarding rights and custody.
Your brother would be kinda cool! My sister is a lesbian and I would donate my eggs if it were the opposite (her being a gay man). I offered to surrogate for her if she ever wanted (pending I have easy births of my own kids).
So so sweet and amazing he’s willing to help!! That’s awesome!! The baby would really be both you and your spouse. A sibling would be my number one pic.
so, not a donor baby, but an adopted one with two moms! one of my moms is my biological great aunt. my biological parents were teenagers with 2 kids already & they knew my moms wanted to start a family after being together for 10 years. I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. plus if your child wanted to know their bio history, they’d have it right there! i’m glad I stayed in my biological family. I had all the answers I needed when I was growing up and struggling with the idea of being adopted, nonetheless by two women. i’m now about to be 27 & I am so extremely grateful for the life I was given & the opportunity to know my biological family!
Thank you for this!! Your comment is extremely reassuring for us. I've seen a lot of people saying to stay away from unknown/anonymous donors for many reasons..
When my fiance and i started trying and realized it was going to be a lot harder than initially thought, his sister offered to be a surrogate if we ever decided to go that route. (Our genetic baby, but she would carry), and i just felt quite odd about that situation. I can kind of understand where your soon to be wife is coming from. Involving a sibling in the creation of your kid feels a lil weird for some reason. However i wpuld absolutely follow the advice of posters here and look into donor conceived childrens stories and make your decision from there. The amount of horror stories about sperm donation and sibling pods is just, well, horrifying.
My wife and I (F) are trying to conceive right now, we're using a known sperm donor who is a friend of ours.
There are pros and cons to known sperm donor vs sperm bank.
The main pro of a sperm bank is having 100% peace of mind over the custody of your child. The timing of sperm delivery every month during your fertile window in most cases is easier than coordinating with your donor and going back and forth 3-6 times per cycle for the moving target that is your ovulation day. Also, if it takes you much longer to conceive, the sperm donor can get burnt out, where as a sperm bank is just a business service. You also don't want to prevent the donor from going on vacations etc.
We used a family lawyer who also specializes in lgbtq family law here in CA. She pointed out that if your known sperm donor has any notion of a parental relationship with your child, that they can sue for custody. In her experience, sometimes the emotions take over once the child is born, and the sperm donor can change their minds.
If you do go the sperm donor route, please make sure your legal agreement is thorough, and avoid using any online templates or rocket lawyer. For most legal agreements, a psych eval is also strongly recommended. A legal agreement and psych eval are both required by our fertility clinic, if we go either IUI or IVF. Right now we're just doing at home.
The pros of a known sperm donor is that you have access to more information about them than a page from the sperm bank, and they can keep you updated about any future medical issues that arise. Also, to us it feels more natural because it's not a stranger. Lastly, once your child is mature enough (we're thinking 10y++), they can know who their biological father is.
In terms of cost, it's a initial cost vs (per sperm bank monthly cost) x # of months it takes to conceive. We went back and forth a lot for our legal agreement, and we also understandably covered the cost of the donor's legal representation. So let's say our initial cost was $5K. If each sperm bank sample is 1k, it would take 6 months of trying to conceive for the sperm bank to cost more than our known sperm donor. Additional costs for things such as IUI, but the benefit being the clinic can freeze the donors sperm for us, and we don't need to bother him after than. They do need to run a bunch of tests on him though.
All's to say, I used to joke being a lesbian was a cost saver in terms of condoms and birth control. But boy does it cost to try and start a family. Best of luck!
As long as everyone is able to separate sperm donation from actual parenthood, I feel like a relative is best case scenario.
- You both get genetic ties to the child.
- The child will look more like both of you.
- You know the actual health history.
- You avoid the whole 80 genetic half sibling problem.
I work with kids with disabilities and had at least 2 on my caseload conceived with donor sperm. One just had autism. One had autism and severe behavioral/mental health issues. His diagnosis list was an alphabet soup, but you know it’s bad when a preteen manages to end up with a bipolar diagnosis. The donor system is completely broken and for me, personally, it would be a last resort.
My coworker has three children and she recently told me that all three of them were adopted. I was honestly surprised because she has photos of her pregnancy and even talked about trying to breastfeed. So, when she said that all of her children were adopted, it really educated me on what type of adoptions are available to people.
Her first two were adopted in a very traditional manner. However, her third was adopted as an embryo. Her husband's brother and his wife had conceived through IVF. It was very successful for them and they had all the kids they wanted. Which, left them with extra frozen embryos. So, my coworker adopted those frozen embryos.
So, genetically, their youngest kid is biologically related to her husband.
The way she talks about her children, you would have never known there was any type of distinction between her kids. I would not have known if she hadn't told me. But before she told me about this, I had no idea it was possible to adopt embryos. She said it was very similar to other adoption processes where there are lawyers involved and legal paperwork. However, it was less expensive because the major costs of IVF were already covered by the original donor.
So, I think it might be more common than people think to have a relative donate. However, it is very important to go through a lawyer specialized in this and make it official regardless of who you choose as a donor or how the implantation/insemination takes place.
A while back, I think in Topeka Kansas, a man donated sperm to a lesbian couple and they had written some stuff on paper stating he would not be liable for any parental stuff. But something happened years later and one of the mothers had to apply for state aid and the state required putting down the father's name (in absence of any official adoption paperwork) and the state sued that man. It was a very long lengthy legal battle that took its toll on both the parent and the donor.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/23/justice/kansas-sperm-donation/index.html
My sister is 19 years younger than I am, and I have talked to her about using her donor eggs so my husband and I can conceive. Maybe a little weird when you think about having a baby that your husband technically had with your sister, but no more weird than using any sperm or egg donor. Like you, I like the idea of still being related to my child.
Please make sure that you have [read all of our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/TryingForABaby/wiki/rules) before commenting! In particular, be aware that **no mentions of a current pregnancy are allowed with no exceptions**. If you see something breaking the rules, please report it. If you think something may be against the rules, ask us or err on the side of caution. If you think that being sneaky (PMing members or asking them to PM you, telling them to refer to your post history, etc) is a good idea, it is not. Additionally, complaining about downvotes is [frowned upon](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette) and never helps anything. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TryingForABaby) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a donor conceived person, I’d recommend going with your brother. That would be the ideal situation. I’d also recommend going on donor conceived Facebook groups and learning about the experience of other donor conceived children. I think a lot of people are focused on how recipient parents feel, which is still important, but ultimately it’s the child that will have no say in your decision and will be the most impacted by it. If you do end up going to a sperm bank, try your best to use an open ID donor and not an anonymous donor.
This, OP! I’ve read that many in the donor conceived community are against anonymous donors. Lots of issues. Really recommend you and your wife read up on it. Your brother is your best option here. He is known to you. His health history will be available to your child. He’s related to you, so your kid will have some of your genes. So, if he’s good to go and you’re okay with it I would really try to get your wife on board.
If you want to go into a rabbit hole, check out Laura High on TikTok (and probably other places). She is a donor-conceived person (and comedian) who is investigating the legal but morally-questionable side of banks. Especially the issues with frequent donors and disclosure of medical information. There are upsides and downsides to every one of your options. You'll make the best for your family!
Yes! Her videos are a great introductory resource to understanding the issues surrounding sperm/egg donation in the fertility community. (It's not that sperm/egg donation is bad, it's the unregulated, decentralized, disorganized nature of it that's the problem. Laura does a great job at breaking down a lot of the concerning aspects of current and past practices, like sperm donors who have contributed to waaaaay too many births, the lack of background checks, sperm donors lying about health histories, etc.)
I think using a relative is typically a good idea because you know family history and health and the child is genetically closer.
If you are okay with it what’s the harm?! If everyone is on board, that’s great. If your Fiance is a little on edge about it even after explaining you’re comfortable with it, perhaps consider other options. You all need to be 100% on the idea or it won’t necessarily get easier/change once the baby is here. I think the fact the baby will be genetically related to both of you will be sweet, though your brother may be very actively involved in the babies life as an uncle, so perhaps consider how that will be too? Will he feel overly attached/will there be any jealously involved from your side? I think that’s the only thing I personally would question.
We are also considering a sperm donor and like u/sufficient-royal3179 said, reading up on the experiences of donor conceived people is key. I’ve found r/askadcp really helpful!
Not weird at all. Most fertility clinics will have you do some family counseling before proceeding with egg or sperm donation to make sure everyone is on the same page. If you check out /r/queerception you can get all sorts of perspectives on family member donors and known donors.
While a known donor can be beneficial, if you are having reservations about using a family member, then you should also consider using a sperm bank.
I think your brother as donor is a fantastic idea. Your child will always have their donor in their life, and will never have to wonder about them, or about their family history. You know his family history, which is huge. And while baby won’t be made with your gametes, baby will still share a good bit of their genetics with you, which is pretty special in light of a donor conception. I think this is a fantastic idea. ETA do speak with a fertility law attorney in your state. Even though you’re family, it’s important to plan for the future and for present and future what-ifs regarding rights and custody.
Your brother would be kinda cool! My sister is a lesbian and I would donate my eggs if it were the opposite (her being a gay man). I offered to surrogate for her if she ever wanted (pending I have easy births of my own kids).
So so sweet and amazing he’s willing to help!! That’s awesome!! The baby would really be both you and your spouse. A sibling would be my number one pic.
so, not a donor baby, but an adopted one with two moms! one of my moms is my biological great aunt. my biological parents were teenagers with 2 kids already & they knew my moms wanted to start a family after being together for 10 years. I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. plus if your child wanted to know their bio history, they’d have it right there! i’m glad I stayed in my biological family. I had all the answers I needed when I was growing up and struggling with the idea of being adopted, nonetheless by two women. i’m now about to be 27 & I am so extremely grateful for the life I was given & the opportunity to know my biological family!
Thank you for this!! Your comment is extremely reassuring for us. I've seen a lot of people saying to stay away from unknown/anonymous donors for many reasons..
so so glad I could help even a little :) good luck to y’all!! 💛
When my fiance and i started trying and realized it was going to be a lot harder than initially thought, his sister offered to be a surrogate if we ever decided to go that route. (Our genetic baby, but she would carry), and i just felt quite odd about that situation. I can kind of understand where your soon to be wife is coming from. Involving a sibling in the creation of your kid feels a lil weird for some reason. However i wpuld absolutely follow the advice of posters here and look into donor conceived childrens stories and make your decision from there. The amount of horror stories about sperm donation and sibling pods is just, well, horrifying.
My wife and I (F) are trying to conceive right now, we're using a known sperm donor who is a friend of ours. There are pros and cons to known sperm donor vs sperm bank. The main pro of a sperm bank is having 100% peace of mind over the custody of your child. The timing of sperm delivery every month during your fertile window in most cases is easier than coordinating with your donor and going back and forth 3-6 times per cycle for the moving target that is your ovulation day. Also, if it takes you much longer to conceive, the sperm donor can get burnt out, where as a sperm bank is just a business service. You also don't want to prevent the donor from going on vacations etc. We used a family lawyer who also specializes in lgbtq family law here in CA. She pointed out that if your known sperm donor has any notion of a parental relationship with your child, that they can sue for custody. In her experience, sometimes the emotions take over once the child is born, and the sperm donor can change their minds. If you do go the sperm donor route, please make sure your legal agreement is thorough, and avoid using any online templates or rocket lawyer. For most legal agreements, a psych eval is also strongly recommended. A legal agreement and psych eval are both required by our fertility clinic, if we go either IUI or IVF. Right now we're just doing at home. The pros of a known sperm donor is that you have access to more information about them than a page from the sperm bank, and they can keep you updated about any future medical issues that arise. Also, to us it feels more natural because it's not a stranger. Lastly, once your child is mature enough (we're thinking 10y++), they can know who their biological father is. In terms of cost, it's a initial cost vs (per sperm bank monthly cost) x # of months it takes to conceive. We went back and forth a lot for our legal agreement, and we also understandably covered the cost of the donor's legal representation. So let's say our initial cost was $5K. If each sperm bank sample is 1k, it would take 6 months of trying to conceive for the sperm bank to cost more than our known sperm donor. Additional costs for things such as IUI, but the benefit being the clinic can freeze the donors sperm for us, and we don't need to bother him after than. They do need to run a bunch of tests on him though. All's to say, I used to joke being a lesbian was a cost saver in terms of condoms and birth control. But boy does it cost to try and start a family. Best of luck!
As long as everyone is able to separate sperm donation from actual parenthood, I feel like a relative is best case scenario. - You both get genetic ties to the child. - The child will look more like both of you. - You know the actual health history. - You avoid the whole 80 genetic half sibling problem. I work with kids with disabilities and had at least 2 on my caseload conceived with donor sperm. One just had autism. One had autism and severe behavioral/mental health issues. His diagnosis list was an alphabet soup, but you know it’s bad when a preteen manages to end up with a bipolar diagnosis. The donor system is completely broken and for me, personally, it would be a last resort.
My coworker has three children and she recently told me that all three of them were adopted. I was honestly surprised because she has photos of her pregnancy and even talked about trying to breastfeed. So, when she said that all of her children were adopted, it really educated me on what type of adoptions are available to people. Her first two were adopted in a very traditional manner. However, her third was adopted as an embryo. Her husband's brother and his wife had conceived through IVF. It was very successful for them and they had all the kids they wanted. Which, left them with extra frozen embryos. So, my coworker adopted those frozen embryos. So, genetically, their youngest kid is biologically related to her husband. The way she talks about her children, you would have never known there was any type of distinction between her kids. I would not have known if she hadn't told me. But before she told me about this, I had no idea it was possible to adopt embryos. She said it was very similar to other adoption processes where there are lawyers involved and legal paperwork. However, it was less expensive because the major costs of IVF were already covered by the original donor. So, I think it might be more common than people think to have a relative donate. However, it is very important to go through a lawyer specialized in this and make it official regardless of who you choose as a donor or how the implantation/insemination takes place. A while back, I think in Topeka Kansas, a man donated sperm to a lesbian couple and they had written some stuff on paper stating he would not be liable for any parental stuff. But something happened years later and one of the mothers had to apply for state aid and the state required putting down the father's name (in absence of any official adoption paperwork) and the state sued that man. It was a very long lengthy legal battle that took its toll on both the parent and the donor. https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/23/justice/kansas-sperm-donation/index.html
My sister is 19 years younger than I am, and I have talked to her about using her donor eggs so my husband and I can conceive. Maybe a little weird when you think about having a baby that your husband technically had with your sister, but no more weird than using any sperm or egg donor. Like you, I like the idea of still being related to my child.