This post is sponsored by Melbourne IVF
As a ‘woman of certain age’ (I’m seriously going to punch the next person who says that to me) I spend quite a bit of time thinking about fertility and having babies. Not actively, more as a bystander because, as I have discussed quite freely, I have no freaking idea if I want to have kids. Everyone my age though either has kids, wants kids or is trying really, really hard to make a baby happen. My friendship market is baby saturated so the whole procreation game is often in my thoughts.
Melbourne IVF got such a fantastic response from the post How Do You Know If You Want To Have Kids? we decided to team up again to have a chat about sperm donation and how people feel about it.
I have a few single girlfriends in their mid-to-late 30s who desperately want children and are hanging around waiting for the perfect guy. It breaks my heart because I know that if children weren’t negotiable for me and if I wasn’t with Mr Smaggle, I would have marched my single and fabulous butt straight into a sperm bank and gone turkey baster on that situation, but many people (men and women) feel a bit funny about donor sperm, both using donor sperm and actually donating it.
Even though I’m undecided about having children, I think it’s just tragic when loving couples (same and opposite sex) or amazing singles want to have children and aren’t able to, particularly if it’s a problem that could be solved with a little cup of viable sperm.
There are understandably concerns surrounding sperm donation in Australia. If a sperm donor child was conceived after 1988 they are currently legally allowed to access information about their donor once they turn 18,– this is considered to be in the best interests of the child. Whilst donors have no legal or financial responsibility to the children that result from their donations, they can’t guarantee that said children won’t want to meet them as they grow up, which can be a scary thought for some donors. However, the clinic have told me that men that donate today are fully aware of this and are happy for the possibility of contact with any donor conceived offspring down the track. Through past experience, when contact is established, the good news is it’s generally positive for both parties, which is awesome.
I was talking about this the other day with a male friend of mine. We were actually talking about organ donation primarily; I’m a fully registered organ donor because why the hell not? If I die I won’t be using any of my body parts so I just think, once I die, go nuts, my body parts are free for the picking. My mate is also a fully registered organ donor, which is obviously fantastic. We then got talking about egg and sperm donation and that’s where the conversation got interesting. It turned out that I was far more comfortable with donating my eggs (even though it’s a far more invasive procedure) than he was with donating his sperm and this fascinated me because it’s essentially the same thing. If I donated an egg to a fertility clinic to help someone have a child who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to and then 18 years later was contacted by the child conceived from my egg, I can’t help but think that would be kind of cool. I’m not naive enough to think that it would be a totally flawless experience but how rad to be able to help a couple have a child and then later get to meet them? Such a special and totally unique experience.
The choice to donate shouldn’t be taken lightly but if it’s something you’ve considered it’s definitely worth looking in to. Mr Smaggle and I discussed it and we both think we’d be pretty comfortable with donating our baby making potions, especially if friends or family were in need.
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How would you feel if your partner wanted to donate his sperm? If you had fertility issues would you consider using donor sperm? Any readers out there who have children conceived through donor sperm?
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