Choosing a Donor
One of the hardest parts about IUI, home insemination, or IVF is choosing a donor if your partner is unable to supply the specimen. There are so many important factors to consider when searching for the right donor for your family and navigating a cryobank’s website can seem overwhelming if you have not considered what exactly it is that you and your spouse are looking for.
One of my lovely personality traits includes impatience so I made the mistake of just going right onto a cryobank’s website to see what it was all about. I had no idea what I was getting into and was shocked to learn about all the different options there were. After about ten minutes of scrolling and choosing different characteristics, I closed the tab and stared off into space. It was clear that my wife and I needed a plan. What characteristics were important to us in a donor and what wasn’t? Hopefully this blog post today will give you some insight into what you and your partner’s preference are in a donor and help you narrow your search.
The Possible Search Options
Most cryobanks have similar search options. The following are the most common search options found on cryobank’s websites in the United States.
Specimen Type:
Intracervical Insemination (ICI)
Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)
In vitro fertilization (IVF)
Intrauterine Insemination Assisted Reproductive Technologies (IUI ART)
Intracervical Insemination Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICI ART)
It is important to get the right specimen type for your procedure. ICI ART and IUI ART specimens can be used for IVF and other procedures that require Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) as well as ICI and IUI. It is also important to note that the specimen types vary in price.
Donor Category
ID
Non-ID
ID and Non-ID refer to whether or not you want to have information and future contact with your donor. If you decide to choose an ID donor, the identity of your donor will be revealed when your child turns 18 and the cryobank will provide you with some sort of contact information given by the donor (email, phone number etc.) All the information for a Non-ID donor is on the donor’s profile on the cryobank’s website and the identity of the donor is never released. In addition, for Non-ID donors, you must sign a contract that states you will never contact or attempt to contact them.
My wife and I both agreed on choosing an ID donor. In a later post I will discuss in more detail why my wife and I chose this option but we both knew that someday our daughter would have questions about her donor and we wanted her to be able to find those answers. Overall we believe it is her choice to seek him out someday if she wants to.
Genetic Testing:
Routine Genetic testing
Most cryobank sites provide an advanced search for donor screening. It looks different on many of the sites so make sure to research what their options are and what they mean before proceeding. The expanded or extended genetic testing looks for over 100 different genetic diseases or conditions. My wife and I personally chose a donor who had expanded genetic testing because I carry a rare GLB1 mutation which causes severe impairments or even death in some cases. Our first donor specimen did not have the expanded genetic testing which did not include screening for this mutation so we switched to one that did. It is important to review your own and your donor’s genetic testing with your physician. We went so far as to discuss the results with a genetic counselor before moving forward with our second donor.
Appearance
Height
Ancestry
Hair Color
Eye Color
It was important to me to find a donor that resembled my wife in these categories, but my wife really did not have a preference. Some cryobank websites also include a Look-alike or FaceMatch tool that allows you to upload an image and they find donors that look similar to you or your spouse (so cool!). However, after including other more advanced search options, we really did not have a lot of choices so appearance turned into one of our least important factors.
Advanced Options
CMV Positive or Negative*
Blood Type
Donor level of education
Age range of when donor made specimen
Ethnic background
Skin tone
Previous pregnancies
These options vary from cryobank to cryobank. The one option on this list that was extremely important in our case was the CMV status. CMV also known as Cytomegalovirus is a common virus that has affected many individuals. If one has ever been exposed to this virus, they will test positive thus his or her CMV status would be CMV positive. I, however, have never been infected with the virus so my status is CMV negative. If you come back CMV positive then you are able to choose donor samples who are both positive and negative, but if you are CMV negative you can only choose samples who are also CMV negative. This factor greatly reduced our options. We went from having 200 donors to approximately 10 or less to choose from (Yikes!).
Other Factors to Consider
Donor medical history
Donor family medical history
Donor essay
Access to donor adult photos and recordings
Our donor’s and his family’s medical history was another important factor we strongly considered when choosing him. We wanted to be aware of any hereditary diseases or conditions that he or his family had or any young deaths in the family. My side of the family comes with a lot of issues so I was hoping to try and limit that to just my side. I know many people do not have the luxury of knowing or controlling these factors when trying to conceive, but this unique experience provided us with that opportunity and we did not want to waste it.
The donor essay was one factor that my wife and I absolutely had to agree on. When we read his essay, we both knew that he was the one. We wanted someone who was kind and compassionate. His profile stated that, “he always greets staff with a warm smile on his face” and that he is a “positive man with a laugh that fills the room.” We knew this was someone that was kind-hearted and that was as, if not more, important than all of the physical attributes we had discussed. In the end, we wanted a happy and healthy donor who could pass those wonderful characteristics onto our child.
Cryobanks in the United States
There are many cryobanks in the United States to choose from. My wife and I personally looked at the California Cryobank and Fairfax Cryobank because they were the only cryobanks compatible with our fertility clinic. If you are not limited in choices, check out the Sperm Bank Directory. This directory allows you to search cryobanks by state. The website also shows if cryobanks accept sperm donations, have sperm storage, and allow the purchase of sperm.
We also found these articles on Parents.com and Verywell.com helpful. They include the best ranked cryobanks in the United States for 2023. They have overviews, pros and cons, and average costs for the top cryobanks.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, June 24). Genetic counseling. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/gtesting/genetic_counseling.htm
Expanded Carrier Testing. Sutter Health. (n.d.). Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://www.sutterhealth.org/services/pregnancy-childbirth/expanded-carrier-screening
Fairfax Cryobank: Find your ideal sperm donor. Fairfax Cryobank - Find a Sperm Donor. (2021, March 11). Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://fairfaxcryobank.com/
Mid-wife, J. (2022, October 31). CMV (cytomegalovirus): Everything you need to know. Cryos International . Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://www.cryosinternational.com/en-gb/dk-shop/private/blog/cmv-status/
Regier DS, Tifft CJ, Rothermel CE. GLB1-Related Disorders. 2013 Oct 17 [Updated 2021 Apr 22]. In: Adam MP, Mirzaa GM, Pagon RA, et al., editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993-2023. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK164500/
A National Directory of Sperm Cryobanks. (2021, July 6). Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://www.spermbankdirectory.com/
Understanding non-ID release vs ID release donor profiles. Cryos International . (2017, December 17). Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://www.cryosinternational.com/en-us/us-shop/client/blog/non-id-release-id-release-donor-profiles/
Σχόλια