Anonymous vs open donor

StephieKof

Hi everyone!

What are your thoughts on anonymous versus open donors? My husband and I are torn on which to choose. We would love to hear your experiences! Thank you!

thatellechick

We were kind of torn on this one too. Ultimately we decided that an open one would be nice but it wasn't going to be a deciding factor for us and either was was ok. In the end we picked a donor that is anonymous, but he's everything we were looking for so we weren't giving him up.

What did you guys decide??

-L

StephieKof

We actually did decide open donor. I had done some searching online and found 3 different blogs/articles that recommended if given the option, to choose open. One was even written by a woman who was born via donor sperm and spoke about how she wished it was an option when her mother chose.

We were equally torn between two donors, one anonymous and one open. I know neither was the wrong choice. So we shall see what the future holds!

csummo

StephieKof wrote: »

Hi everyone!

What are your thoughts on anonymous versus open donors? My husband and I are torn on which to choose. We would love to hear your experiences! Thank you!

I wasn't given the option when I conceived my daughter. she's now 19 with many unanswered questions. If there was an option I would definitely have chosen open

maria_cc79

My husband and I originally chose an anonymous donor through a different sperm bank that my clinic recommended and we did our first 2 IUIs using an anonymous donor throught that bank. Neither of them worked. After our attempted 3rd IUI was cancelled due to early ovulation/or anovulation I needed a break from trying. For various reasons, that break ended up being around 3 years. During that time we researched a lot about the subject of using donor sperm and children born from donor sperm and ended reading many posts/blogs from adult donor conceived children that just wish they could know who their donor is and a little bit about him. After reading many of these posts, I started thinking about how I myself had always been curious about my heritage/biology. My husband and I talked about it and even though it meant spending a good deal amount more per vial we both decided it would be best to use an ID options(open) donor once we were ready to try again especially since we had always planned to be honest with our child(ren) about how they were conceived. We waited a little longer and saved up and we found a donor that we were both really comfortable with and got on the wait list. When they called offering vials to us it just felt right even though we were dropping a good deal of money for multilple vials(we wanted more than one child from the same donor so we purchased more than one vial up front just incase). Anyways, our first IUI with the new donor worked and we now have a beautiful daughter! We're both glad that she will have the choice, if she desires, to contact her donor once she's an adult. We are fine with whatever she chooses. We just didn't want to take that choice away from her.

I know that others will have different opinions. I think that it's different for every family. For us though, we just felt better about using an ID options donor. Even though I was so bummed that my first 2 IUIs didn't work, I'm now glad that they didn't because I think I would have been one of the parents regretting not using an ID options donor. I'm very thankful that it worked out the way it did. Of course also because we are just so happy with our precious daughter. Again, I'm just giving you one perspective. Good luck in your decision! I hope that you and your husband can come to a decision in which type of donor to use and I hope that you conceive quickly!