darker donors

brownbearandjay

I'm looking between donors 1574, 0752, and 2751 trying to find one that looks similar to me - I'm black / african american (not sure which is more PC to use). It looks like the only black donors available say I should call for availability, which leads me to believe that there will be none for us to be able to use, so now we're looking at latino / hispanic donors with a darker skin tone. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get through to anyone at Fairfax at the moment, so I figured I'd ask on this forum.

Why aren't there may darker-skinned donors? I'm sure I'm not the only black guy who doesn't produce sperm...
Has anyone used any of the above donors (or someone similar that I'm not seeing)?

AlexandriaVADark

I am finding the same thing. I want a donor who is at least half Black and there are few. I was hoping to use this site but may need to consider others. There is one that seems okay though. Please keep posted on your success.

moewhit

Not sure where the heck the men of color are. There are absolutely none that are 6ft and above and CMV negative. It's forced me to look at other qualities aside from skin tone. I couldn't even find a Latino that fit the bill. The result has uaually been a tall German with a pretty good health history. African American/German heritage??.....hummm Boris Kodjoe such a cutie. But who knows how genetics can turn out. Good luck in your search. Please let me know if you find some 'brothers" out there

Mikko77

We have noticed that there are few donors that have darker skin tone as well. We were looking for words like "sun-kissed, tan, olive, mocha, and cinnamon. Then we finally just started to look for med, med-dk, and dark.. but there are very few.. it depends if you want ID options or not.. but there are a lot of med tones. The best thing to do is to look for dark features as well .. like brown eyes or hazel eyes, brown hair.. or black hair.... Asian donors seem to be plentiful .. most of them will have black hair and brown eyes..

We have looked at other banks.. but honestly fairfax just seems to be the best for our needs.. with extra testing, specials, forums.. and being local.. we are saving more with this bank then any other..

Good luck in your donor search :-)

mommytobe

hello, I am just begining my journey and came across this topic. I too am African American and would like to find a donor that "looks" like me. Just woundering if anyone was successful in your attempts at finding donors from Fairfax? If so which ones? Thanks

sibemom

What about Fairfax's sister site - Cryogenic Laboratories?

moewhit25

mommytobe wrote:

hello, I am just begining my journey and came across this topic. I too am African American and would like to find a donor that "looks" like me. Just woundering if anyone was successful in your attempts at finding donors from Fairfax? If so which ones? Thanks

It's so funny how over the past several months I keep getting updates on new donors that have entered the Fairfax Cryobank program. I've been eagerly been waiting for a man of color that is CMV negative, over 6 feet, and with a decent medical history. So far no luck :? Why aren't the brother's donating? Over the past 18+ months there have been perhaps 2 donors and they are in high demand and with very long waitlists. I did several IUI's with different donors ranging from German to Latino mix all without success.

I switched to another cryobank which had mostly ID donors at no extra cost PLUS I found several Latino and African American donors. My donor is a caramel cutie, his heritage is Black, Philipino, and Irish. I finally got my BFP with his awesome sample. It was my first IVF cycle so it could have been the fact that it's certainly more aggressive than IUI's. Sadly it ended in a chemical pregnancy but I have 4 frozen embryos that are wonderful quality.

There are other cyrobanks you just need to shop around. Some may offer different benefits, for example I was fine with not having a video interview and hearing the donors voice. The screening tests are typically the same and my sample was cheaper than Fairfax with the ID option.

Good luck with your journey ladies!
Moe

Mikko77

moewhit25 wrote:

mommytobe wrote:

hello, I am just begining my journey and came across this topic. I too am African American and would like to find a donor that "looks" like me. Just woundering if anyone was successful in your attempts at finding donors from Fairfax? If so which ones? Thanks

It's so funny how over the past several months I keep getting updates on new donors that have entered the Fairfax Cryobank program. I've been eagerly been waiting for a man of color that is CMV negative, over 6 feet, and with a decent medical history. So far no luck :? Why aren't the brother's donating? Over the past 18+ months there have been perhaps 2 donors and they are in high demand and with very long waitlists. I did several IUI's with different donors ranging from German to Latino mix all without success.

I switched to another cryobank which had mostly ID donors at no extra cost PLUS I found several Latino and African American donors. My donor is a caramel cutie, his heritage is Black, Philipino, and Irish. I finally got my BFP with his awesome sample. It was my first IVF cycle so it could have been the fact that it's certainly more aggressive than IUI's. Sadly it ended in a chemical pregnancy but I have 4 frozen embryos that are wonderful quality.

There are other cyrobanks you just need to shop around. Some may offer different benefits, for example I was fine with not having a video interview and hearing the donors voice. The screening tests are typically the same and my sample was cheaper than Fairfax with the ID option.

Good luck with your journey ladies!
Moe

Moe sorry to hear about your last experience.. I will be praying for you .. I know it will happen.. I like your donor's profile and with the other embryos you are well on your way.. What cryobank did you switch to ?

Keep me posted

:geek:




Much much much baby dust your way..

moewhit25

Hi Mikko,
Thanks so much for the well wishes and prayer Mikko! I changed to Pacific Reproductive Services and have had a really positive experience with them. There is another person on this forum that has also used them as well as the same donor. We have similar cycles and hopefully will have success stories to share real soon

Where are you with this whole process? Are you doing IUI's or IVF? What donor did you end up selecting? Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions.

All the best!
Moe

bklyngrrl

Hello all, I too am African American & I wanted an African American donor. I ended up going with donor 4000, based on his pic he is fairly/somewhat ) dark complected & although his height was lower than I wanted (5' 11") I went with him. Glad I did, seemed he had a really high sperm count & I got pregnant on one round of IUI using just one vial of sperm. In November I had a healthy, happy, & handsome baby boy. So I am quite happy with my decison.

I know that the number of black donors are few, so I am offering the additional vial of sperm that I have for sale. It's on ice at Shady Grove in Rockville, MD & I am happy to sell it to an interested party.

Let me know, and we can talk more off line.

Thanks!

moewhit25

bklyngrrl wrote:

Hello all, I too am African American & I wanted an African American donor. I ended up going with donor 4000, based on his pic he is fairly/somewhat ) dark complected & although his height was lower than I wanted (5' 11") I went with him. Glad I did, seemed he had a really high sperm count & I got pregnant on one round of IUI using just one vial of sperm. In November I had a healthy, happy, & handsome baby boy. So I am quite happy with my decison.

I know that the number of black donors are few, so I am offering the additional vial of sperm that I have for sale. It's on ice at Shady Grove in Rockville, MD & I am happy to sell it to an interested party.

Let me know, and we can talk more off line.

Thanks!

Hi Bklyngrrl!
Congrats on having success on the first time and having your son!!! Do you mind sharing your details like how old you were and if you just took Clomid? Tell us about your pregnancy! I see that your donor is inactive now but his profile looks great! I think I screened him out of my search because he was 5'11 (which is my height) I wanted someone slightly taller. I noticed that they changed his profile to mixed instead of black because a very small percentage of his heritage is native american. Does your son look mixed? Well genetics are so interesting with us because you never know what recessive gene will pop up :shock: Beautiful none the less
I'm from Bklyn but live in MD now. I also went to Shady Grove Fertility in Towson and in Bmore. It's been a long tiring journey and I'm on my last chance with IVF. Hopefully will be transferring frozen embryos in May.

Again congrats to you!!

Moe

lar818

Bklyngrrl: Do you happen to still have his vial? He fits what I am looking for and I too am using Shady Grove, so it sounds like it should be convenient. If so, would you happen to have a picture of him to share?

agd72

Just an FYI - although Donor 4000 is an ID consent donor, if you purchase the vial from a third party you lose that right. In order to preserve the ID ability, the vial has to be sent back to Fairfax and transfer fees have to be paid.

My son with Donor 4000 is 21 months old and is a wonderful child. He has 15 known half siblings that we hope to meet one day.

bklyngrrl

Yes I do and would love to pass it on. I will look into what agd72 says about the ID consent and see how that will impact the cost.
Let me know if you are still interested.

bklyngrrl

moewhit25 wrote: »

Hi Bklyngrrl!
Congrats on having success on the first time and having your son!!! Do you mind sharing your details like how old you were and if you just took Clomid? Tell us about your pregnancy! I see that your donor is inactive now but his profile looks great! I think I screened him out of my search because he was 5'11 (which is my height) I wanted someone slightly taller. I noticed that they changed his profile to mixed instead of black because a very small percentage of his heritage is native american. Does your son look mixed? Well genetics are so interesting with us because you never know what recessive gene will pop up :shock: Beautiful none the less
I'm from Bklyn but live in MD now. I also went to Shady Grove Fertility in Towson and in Bmore. It's been a long tiring journey and I'm on my last chance with IVF. Hopefully will be transferring frozen embryos in May.

Again congrats to you!!

Moe

moewhit25 wrote: »

Hi Bklyngrrl!
Congrats on having success on the first time and having your son!!! Do you mind sharing your details like how old you were and if you just took Clomid? Tell us about your pregnancy! I see that your donor is inactive now but his profile looks great! I think I screened him out of my search because he was 5'11 (which is my height) I wanted someone slightly taller. I noticed that they changed his profile to mixed instead of black because a very small percentage of his heritage is native american. Does your son look mixed? Well genetics are so interesting with us because you never know what recessive gene will pop up :shock: Beautiful none the less
I'm from Bklyn but live in MD now. I also went to Shady Grove Fertility in Towson and in Bmore. It's been a long tiring journey and I'm on my last chance with IVF. Hopefully will be transferring frozen embryos in May.

Again congrats to you!!

Moe

Apologies for the slow response, I thought they notified us when we received replies.
I'm glad to see that you had success congrats! In answer to your question, I was blessed to get pregnant without fertility drugs. I was 42 @ the time so shadygrove was def pushing for them but I had no indication from family history or personally that I would have fert issues, so I stood my ground and it turned out I was right
In terms of my son like me he is light skinned but some might think he is mixed b/c he has a head full of str8 hair right now, that I am hoping will curl up @ some stage. Look fwd to hearing about your process.. Lots of blessings

Blkrican3

What donor did you use? I used 2751 and have two fairly tanned babies. I am African American and Puerto Rican