Any difficulty choosing?

smiles01

I am simply overwhelmed by the chooses. Anyone have tips on how to narrow the search?

hoppingpenguin

You might want to start with making a list of traits that are "must haves" for you donor. These could be physical, medical or whatever. Perhaps you want the donor to look like your partner (if you have one) or like yourself. Maybe creativity is a must. Whatever is important to you.
The list will help you narrow down your choices. Then, a list of "nice to have" items can help you narrow down further. You may also want to think about "no way!" items.
Actually writing the list(s) can just help you really think about what is important to you and may help you focus a little.

I hope that helps you. Good luck!

pequele

I agree, though I went with a combo of must haves and no ways the 1st time around. That narrowed it down for me well, but I have to say I used a specific height range, specific ethnicities (that probably is a BIG one to help narrow your list a lot), and CMV status. I was pretty open other than that as far as eye and hair color, blood type, sample category (I didn't care if I had Id options really, but for others that can really help narrow down the search as well!).

Once I got my smaller list, I basically went to baby pics. Sounds completely odd to narrow down more based on what some guy looked like over 20 yrs ago, but for me it worked!

Good luck!!!

STLsss

After we narrowed it by ethnicity, hair & eye color, height & weight, we relied heavily on the donor essay. We rated each of them on if their essay sounded like their personality matched ours. Also, I cut & pasted them into a Word document so we could sort them in the order of preference. It seemed to help to have a different donor on each page and compare side to side.

pequele

yup, I had a friend who even though she didn't use a donor, is HUGE on making spreadsheets. I would think if you put the info on your donors you have on your list into a spread sheet it may help you look at them side by side a bit easier. I've never tried it...I can probably use that technique myself while looking for my 2nd donor since my son's donor is sold out and I used his last vial a couple of months ago but had a miscarraige this month...I feel your pain looking for a donor!

Good luck!

justanotherday16

I am overwhelmed too with the search. I also want to make sure we make a good choice since this is our last chance to have a baby. Any advice would be helpful.

Heidi

The first time we chose a donor, 5 years ago, we started with requirements in this order: ancestry, eye color, height, and available IUI units. Then we went through all the hits and downloaded all available free information. (This is why we use Cryogenic Laboratories. I can't believe you have to pay for baby photos and family histories at other banks!) We took into account family histories and education, and creative tendencies... but what sealed the deal for us that first time was as soon as we set eyes on our donor's baby photo our hearts melted.

This time we had to start over again as our first donor was no longer available. We went through the same process (ancestry, eye color, height, available IUI units - download all info and look through) and had it narrowed down to three donors. A history of bad eyesight at an early age knocked one donor down the totem pole, and we finally chose our number 1 because we preferred that he was in law school, his family was well-educated, he had artistic talent, his 'shadow profile' had perfect average features (in our eyes) and his baby photo, although unfortunately fuzzy, was adorable. He was the only one of our top three that did not have available adult photos, which we would have preferred, but everything else won out.

I honestly can't imagine having to pick a donor from another sperm bank. How do you narrow down your choices without spending a small fortune paying for what seems to me to be pretty basic information???

cottonlily

We knew finding a donor look alike wasn't possible (or important) to us so we simply chose the traits we felt natural to us. We chose our own race and two traits of my husband that sort of make him, him. The baby photo sealed the deal. But were it not for these 2 traits we looked for it would have been a tremendous task to find a donor.

kwald64

I am also finding the donor search overwhelming. maybe i should be printing the free info and creating side by side comparisons. I am puting in my search hair color eye color race etc. then when i get the list of matches i am looking at baby pics first. and then the profile. i have not paid for any lifetime pics yet because i dont feel like im far enough to spend that kind of money on a pic yet. has anyone else purchased those pics? has that changed your mind about anyone that you were considering? are there several pics?