A question on DI - and sp. banks

caz · Post by **caz** » Thu Jan 02, 2003 6:55 pm

Does anyone know about sperm banks in teh UK - are there some that give more info about teh donors than others. Have looked on US sperm banks' sites where you seem to get much better levels of info. I think I'd want as much info as I could get. Do you think that its right to want alot of info - or is the whole point that you shouldn't be even acknowledging that the donor is an important part of teh process.... Very mixed up! Help?!

neroli · Post by **neroli** » Fri Jan 03, 2003 1:38 am

Hey! As far as I'm aware, in the States people actually get paid for their sperm and maybe due to this they are profiled with information such as job, hobbies, favourtie colour etc. I don't know whether in the UK men actually get paid for their produce shall I call it! That maybe a reason why there isn't any info on these people. I do know that a lot of doctors/student doctors etc donate their sperm. I think it would be better to find out as much as you possibly can about the donar as half his DNA will make up your baby. Good luck

heather · Post by **heather** » Fri Jan 03, 2003 2:55 pm

Caz, 'lo again hun!!!! Just to let you know, pat and i havent really thought much about sperm banks and donors, to be honest our thoughts are more that we dont really care where the sperm comes from, just as long as we get it and it works. Does that sound harsh? i dunno, as far as pat is concerened the baby is his full stop, and thats it. The only weird thing was decideding what kind of donor we should have, we had to decided on hair colour, height and build, and i found that part really surreal. I would rather they had chosen for me to be honest, and not told me anything at all about it. But that's just me and hubbs. You hafta do whatever feels right for you and your hubbs. I'm sure whatever decision you come to, will be the right one. Take care love, Heather xxx

fiona_lk · Post by **fiona_lk** » Fri Jan 03, 2003 3:09 pm

Hi Caz, Following on from Heather's post, when we went through donor IUI last year our clinic did chose the donor for us based on as close to my my dh's hair colour, height and build as they could get - and we had different donors over the 7 attempts we had. Apart from this, we had no other information although all sorts of questions went through my mind (like could they sing - I can, but my dh is tone deaf! silly I know) but at the end of the day what we wanted was a healthy baby regardless of genetic origin. We were lucky in that dh has enough normal sperm to be used in ICSI so it hasn't been an issue for us since. Good Luck with everything, especially your dh for the TESA on monday so that you may not need to even consider this. Love Fiona xxx

caz · Post by **caz** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 7:22 pm

thanks guys - thats really interesting to hear what you did. If you read my mail of today - it looks like DIs our realistic option now...long story!