Help Help HELP to much info I am overloaded

It is so overwhelming when you first start! I still find myself overwhelmed sometimes but I can tell you that it gets easier. Do you know your CMV status?? For us that narrowed down our options by a lot because I am negative and that makes the list of possibilities a lot smaller. We also wanted someone that looks as close to my husband as possible, we sifted through baby pictures for days but found them to be only moderately helpful and finally decided that we should just bite the bullet and pay for the club membership. We decided we wanted a donor we could see as an adult and that narrowed down our options enough that we felt we had a manageable set of donors to look at.

I think the easiest thing is just to sit down and figure out what's non-negotiable. Things that a donor has to have for him to be right for you. Start there and that should help. Physical traits, blood type, CMV status and type of donor (ID options etc) are probably the easiest place to start if any of those matter to you.

Good luck in your search!
-L

Honestly if it were me, I would still go with the donor you and your husband are comfortable with and tell your doctor that even thought they prefer ICI vials that you can only get IUI vials. I'm sure that if you insist that he/she will be fine with it. My doctor told me that he preferred IUI vials but that if ICI was all that I could get then that they could do the IUI with those vials. I think my clinic just liked the fact that they didn't have to wash the sperm before performing the IUI. However maybe your doctor just said that he/she likes the ICI vials because they can charge the fee to wash the sperm before your IUI. I'm just saying that they will probably be fine with you using IUI vials. I would just call and explain that your top donor choices only have IUI vials available right now and then maybe get on the wait list for the ICI vials in the mean time.

The shipping cost for me was $200. It felt overwhelming at first for me too but once I made a couple of decisions about what I really wanted, it became much more manageable. Good luck you!