Donor Conception Network - Stories
Contacting the donor
How one couple dealt with their need to know more
about the person whose sperm helped them have a child.
I remember when my wife and I first started talking about 'using a donor'.
We had recently received the devastating news that I was infertile but at that stage we did not know the cause. However, we did know that there was a fairly strong possibility that the only way we would be able to experience pregnancy and the birth of our own baby was by using donor sperm.
I also remember that, as we explored the idea, at the only level we could at the time, I felt afraid that an invisible, semi-imaginary person would be entering our home and that this 'other' would be sitting with us at mealtimes, at birthday's and Christmas, and even while we sat watching television. I imagined that I would be forever looking over my shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the cuckoo in our nest, or that I would keep finding myself scanning the male faces of a crowded street, wondering whether one of them bore a greater resemblance to my son or daughter than I did. Disturbing as these feelings were, I knew how much I wanted to see the first scan, feel the first kick, watch the bump grow, feel the kicks getting stronger, choose names, decorate the nursery and prepare for fatherhood. And I so much wanted to share with my wife the moment when our child entered the world and we could see our new baby for the first time. We considered adoption and I did consider the fact that there is more to having a family than pregnancy and birth and lovely-smelling, newborn babies. I believed that I would get immeasurable pleasure and satisfaction from raising an adopted child as my own, but in my heart I felt that taking this route would leave me feeling that I had bypassed some of life's most memorable landmarks. Therefore, I knew what my choice would be if the only other possible option available to us was unsuccessful, this option being conception using surgically retrieved sperm and ICSI.
You'll no doubt guess what the result of the surgical procedure was. However, we were very lucky, and after one attempt became pregnant. The next nine months was a time when the donor did become a fairly intrusive presence in our lives. It was also only after the conception was successful that we were given, at our own request, some basic information about the donor - eye colour, hair colour, height, weight, and a very brief explanation of why the donor had come forward in the first place. We would often speculate on what the donor looked like and what physical traits our baby would inherit from him. Looking back now, I know that as soon as our daughter was born, the donor quickly receded into the background and our baby, with her own needs and her own personality, and with whom we were starting to develop a relationship, took his place. Until the birth our concerns had been much more selfish. How will I feel? Why us?
Now, the focus has moved to our child, and the desire to do what is best for her has become paramount. We had attended our first DCN conference when my wife was about four months pregnant and the best thing about attending was that we left feeling less like 'the only ones', having met and talked with many other people who were, or who had been, in a situation similar to ours. Each conference we have attended since our daughter was born has also been a positive experience in many ways, but each one has also deepened our anxiety regarding what the future will hold and what will be the impact on our daughter when she is older.
The level of concern was heightened last year following the publication in the DCN newsletter of a letter from a woman conceived using donor sperm in which she described her feelings about her genetic origins. Following a conversation with another couple at one of the conferences we realised we needed to write a letter to our donor. We wanted to thank him for making it possible for us to start a family but more importantly we wanted to ask him to provide some more information to add to the small amount we had already received from the clinic.
We spoke to our consultant at the fertility clinic who voiced reservations about the likelihood of receiving any response from the donor, given that he had originally presented as shy and reticent when she met him, and had not responded to other letters she had sent, although she admitted that they were letters of a different nature to the one we were proposing to send. We felt that the impact of a letter such as ours could not be underestimated and we persuaded her to forward a letter to the donor on our behalf. It was not an easy letter to write, but only because we wanted the letter to have the right impact. We took care to strike the right balance, realising that the letter could have serious implications for the donor too. We asked him to consider providing some information about his family background, his interests/beliefs, what he did for a living, and any other information he felt willing to supply. We also offered to answer any questions he might have.
It was a few months later that he replied. We were delighted to discover
that our letter had been well received, if something of a shock
initially, and that the donor had provided us with just the sort of
information we had hoped for.
He admitted to a degree of curiosity and
asked to know the sex, physical characteristics and name of our child.
We wrote back via the clinic and gave him some details about our
daughter. We have not as yet had any response to this letter and we may
never receive any. However, we hope that now that the donor knows a
little, in time he may want to know more, and that may help us and, more
importantly, our daughter, to know more about him too.
To contact the author of this article: ms.dcn@blueyonder.co.uk
