A meeting of the minds

We met with P & his wife today to talk about the possibility of P donating sperm to us. Murray & I were both really nervous leading up to tonight, and I was about 50/50 whether or not we would accept the offer. Once we got there though and we met his wife and little boy, it calmed us down and we were able to have a really good conversation about everything.

My main two concerns were that firstly we could still work together professionally without it interfering. We basically decided that at work things would still be normal, but if someone asked the question, or if either of us wanted to divulge at work, that we were okay with it. But as a general rule it would be our business not anyone elses.

The second thing is that they are comfortable with having an ongoing relationship with us and the child, not formalised as such, but just a general understanding that if our kids want to spend time together, or know more about backgrounds, that is okay. They were happy with that which is good. My main reason for wanting a known donor over an unknown donor, is that if you go the anonymous route, the revealing of the donor details at age 16 or 18 becomes this big event, something that is built up through a child or teenagers formative years, and then it becomes a big deal. Whereas if our child knows its biological background from the beginning (which of course it would anyway), but specifically being able to see a photo of the person or ask questions etc, then it's just part of their life story.

We talked a bit about P's family, their interests, genetic history etc. P has a very musical family apparently, he is also a bookworm and comes from quite a smart family. He is originally from South Africa. His wife and him love water sports, and often go scuba diving and snorkelling. They tried for 12 years to have their little boy, and they used a donor egg to have him along with P's sperm. He does have late-onset diabetes in his family and has eye strain, neither of which worry us.

Before their son was born, P decided to become a donor through their clinic (which also happens to be our clinic), so his sperm has already been tested, quarantined and they have been through counselling, which means the usual three and six month waiting periods aren't required for us. However we will still need to do a counselling session together as it is a different scenario to anonymous donation, and they are very happy to do that.

There is one catch to all of this. They have said that they offered for altruistic reasons initially, but they are also wanting to try again for another baby which means they need to find an egg donor. They would like us to consider that, if and when we should fall pregnant successfully and give birth, that we might like to donate some of the remaining embryos to them to try to conceive. They have said that that would only be after we had a baby, not while we are still trying.

I was a little taken aback at first, but after thinking about it, it honestly sounds like a good idea. I have always said that I wanted to donate my eggs after I completed IVF, and this lets me kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. The only real issue it raises is that if we both fall pregnant, that our children will be full-blood siblings. I probably need to speak to a specialist counsellor or find someone to talk to who has been in this situation, because while I can't see any major issues with it, there may be things that I haven't considered that could be issues there. (PS - if you know of anyone who has done this - please leave their details below - Ta!)

They made it clear that the egg donation was not a condition of them donating sperm, it was just something to consider.

We have talked it over, and we will talk some more over the coming weekend just to make sure we aren't getting swept away with everything, but so far so good.

The plan at this stage is to do set up counselling appointments over the next three weeks, do the ovarian drilling, and then do DIVF in April.

Wow - a new plan in less than a week!