Those who know me well enough can vouch for me when I say I’m probably one of the most indecisive people you’ll ever meet. You can’t rely on me to choose the restaurant, the color polish for my monthly pedicure, or an outfit to wear for whatever is on the agenda for that particular day. Most of the time I am okay with my indecisive behavior because I know that whomever I am with will usually help with whatever life-changing decision I may face. However, my decision-making skills have undergone the ultimate test throughout the past year.
Once receiving the news that Augie would never be able to father a biological child, we felt as though we couldn’t dwell on said news for too long. We allowed ourselves to grieve the loss of those children that we longed to conceive together, but realized soon after that if we desired children so badly we needed to choose a path that would lead us to parenthood. Choosing sperm donation was not a decision that was made over night, or even over the course of a week. Augie actually cursed the idea before learning of his diagnosis of Azoospermia with maturation arrest. It wasn’t until we were given the firm answer that it was impossible for us to have biological children together that he opened his mind and heart to the idea of donor sperm. Augie may be a lot of things, but selfish isn’t one of them. His decision was based upon the two of us together as a couple.
Once we knew the path we wanted to take, I searched for reassurance in our decision everywhere. I reached out to the group leader of Sarah’s Laughter to see if she knew any couples that chose sperm donation, as well. She was able to give me the name of a wonderful woman who agreed to meet with me over coffee one Sunday afternoon. We sat outside for a few hours and I was drawn to her story. The journey she and her husband began as a young couple was very similar to Augie’s and mine. She shared the process they went through, and I found the reassurance I had been searching for. She made me feel at ease, She made me feel my dream of pregnancy wasn’t completely out of reach, but most of all, she made me feel normal. Like I’ve said in post before, nothing feels better than having someone who truly understands you and the emotions you feel as you struggle through infertility.
Since then, reassurance has been flooding in. Augie and I began searching for our perfect donor. We chose a sperm bank recommended by our new doctor, Dr. Storment. I must admit, the process of choosing a sperm donor was the most fascinating experience. Augie and I decided to come up with a system that allowed us both to be involved in choosing the right donor for our family. I wanted Augie to feel as involved in everything as possible. I felt like he should have the ultimate decision in the donor we chose (with my consent, obviously).
The website was very easy to navigate, and we even had an ongoing joke how it resembled Amazon by allowing you to add donors to your favorites and even add vials of sperm to your cart. At first, the site was intimidating being that there were over 400 donors to choose from, but we were able to narrow it down based off of the physical traits of our choice. I wanted to find a donor that shared similar physical traits to Augie. However, Augie wasn’t in agreement with that idea in the beginning. With Augie’s complex about his height, he wanted an “alpha male” donor. He figured since we were spending a large amount of money on this sperm, he wanted to take advantage of choosing a donor with an above average height and athletic ability. After days of negotiating, we finally decided that we wanted the child to resemble the best mixture of Augie and myself. During the selection process we even compromised on a donor that was just a few inches taller than him, but nothing that could later qualify our child for the NBA.
This agreement helped us to narrow our search to 53 donors. From there, I sat down at the computer and read the profiles of every single one. I narrowed those profiles down to 22 and then Augie took over. We thought it would be better for me to sit down and read through the profiles first, choose the ones I liked, and then have Augie narrow it down from there. We actually enjoyed this part. Augie was actually able to narrow it down to a top four from those 22 donors. Surprisingly out of the four, I was really interested in two of them.
Those two profiles sat in our favorites for a couple of weeks. We’d revisit the website sometimes before bed reading over their profiles again and again. It was so hard to choose from the two donors because each possessed a unique quality that was comparable to Augie. We wanted to make sure sperm donation was even possible, so we decided to wait until after our consultation with Dr. Storment to purchase anything. After getting the okay from Dr. Storment at our appointment, we went home determined to choose a donor that evening. To help us decide from these two donors, we chose to purchase a toddler picture of each donor that the website provides. Another interesting fact about sperm donation websites is even though the donors are anonymous, the site provides attributes such as toddler pictures, family medical history, and recorded interviews with the donors, but each come at a price. We knew we didn’t want to purchase the complete profiles for each donor because of how expensive they are, so we decided to just purchase the toddler picture for each. That’s when it happened—another sign that this is where we are supposed to be. One of the donor’s pictures looked remarkably like Augie’s toddler pictures. I immediately started crying, but these tears were happy tears. We had found our donor.
The weeks leading up to today have been filled with wonderful news. I got blood work done and received results that reassure the use of our chosen donor. For the first time in a very long time I feel as though we are on the right path. Each day that passes, we are filled with more hope that one day soon we will finally be able to call ourselves parents. We are humbled by the continuous support we have been receiving from everyone and appreciate the kind words, the donations to our GoFundMe page, and the continuous prayers. This experience has really opened my eyes to all of the wonderful people in our lives. We are overjoyed to start this new chapter and cannot wait to share our IUI experience soon. Stay turned!
Once receiving the news that Augie would never be able to father a biological child, we felt as though we couldn’t dwell on said news for too long. We allowed ourselves to grieve the loss of those children that we longed to conceive together, but realized soon after that if we desired children so badly we needed to choose a path that would lead us to parenthood. Choosing sperm donation was not a decision that was made over night, or even over the course of a week. Augie actually cursed the idea before learning of his diagnosis of Azoospermia with maturation arrest. It wasn’t until we were given the firm answer that it was impossible for us to have biological children together that he opened his mind and heart to the idea of donor sperm. Augie may be a lot of things, but selfish isn’t one of them. His decision was based upon the two of us together as a couple.
Once we knew the path we wanted to take, I searched for reassurance in our decision everywhere. I reached out to the group leader of Sarah’s Laughter to see if she knew any couples that chose sperm donation, as well. She was able to give me the name of a wonderful woman who agreed to meet with me over coffee one Sunday afternoon. We sat outside for a few hours and I was drawn to her story. The journey she and her husband began as a young couple was very similar to Augie’s and mine. She shared the process they went through, and I found the reassurance I had been searching for. She made me feel at ease, She made me feel my dream of pregnancy wasn’t completely out of reach, but most of all, she made me feel normal. Like I’ve said in post before, nothing feels better than having someone who truly understands you and the emotions you feel as you struggle through infertility.
Since then, reassurance has been flooding in. Augie and I began searching for our perfect donor. We chose a sperm bank recommended by our new doctor, Dr. Storment. I must admit, the process of choosing a sperm donor was the most fascinating experience. Augie and I decided to come up with a system that allowed us both to be involved in choosing the right donor for our family. I wanted Augie to feel as involved in everything as possible. I felt like he should have the ultimate decision in the donor we chose (with my consent, obviously).
The website was very easy to navigate, and we even had an ongoing joke how it resembled Amazon by allowing you to add donors to your favorites and even add vials of sperm to your cart. At first, the site was intimidating being that there were over 400 donors to choose from, but we were able to narrow it down based off of the physical traits of our choice. I wanted to find a donor that shared similar physical traits to Augie. However, Augie wasn’t in agreement with that idea in the beginning. With Augie’s complex about his height, he wanted an “alpha male” donor. He figured since we were spending a large amount of money on this sperm, he wanted to take advantage of choosing a donor with an above average height and athletic ability. After days of negotiating, we finally decided that we wanted the child to resemble the best mixture of Augie and myself. During the selection process we even compromised on a donor that was just a few inches taller than him, but nothing that could later qualify our child for the NBA.
This agreement helped us to narrow our search to 53 donors. From there, I sat down at the computer and read the profiles of every single one. I narrowed those profiles down to 22 and then Augie took over. We thought it would be better for me to sit down and read through the profiles first, choose the ones I liked, and then have Augie narrow it down from there. We actually enjoyed this part. Augie was actually able to narrow it down to a top four from those 22 donors. Surprisingly out of the four, I was really interested in two of them.
Those two profiles sat in our favorites for a couple of weeks. We’d revisit the website sometimes before bed reading over their profiles again and again. It was so hard to choose from the two donors because each possessed a unique quality that was comparable to Augie. We wanted to make sure sperm donation was even possible, so we decided to wait until after our consultation with Dr. Storment to purchase anything. After getting the okay from Dr. Storment at our appointment, we went home determined to choose a donor that evening. To help us decide from these two donors, we chose to purchase a toddler picture of each donor that the website provides. Another interesting fact about sperm donation websites is even though the donors are anonymous, the site provides attributes such as toddler pictures, family medical history, and recorded interviews with the donors, but each come at a price. We knew we didn’t want to purchase the complete profiles for each donor because of how expensive they are, so we decided to just purchase the toddler picture for each. That’s when it happened—another sign that this is where we are supposed to be. One of the donor’s pictures looked remarkably like Augie’s toddler pictures. I immediately started crying, but these tears were happy tears. We had found our donor.
The weeks leading up to today have been filled with wonderful news. I got blood work done and received results that reassure the use of our chosen donor. For the first time in a very long time I feel as though we are on the right path. Each day that passes, we are filled with more hope that one day soon we will finally be able to call ourselves parents. We are humbled by the continuous support we have been receiving from everyone and appreciate the kind words, the donations to our GoFundMe page, and the continuous prayers. This experience has really opened my eyes to all of the wonderful people in our lives. We are overjoyed to start this new chapter and cannot wait to share our IUI experience soon. Stay turned!