Sunday, April 22, 2012

Anonymous vs. Willing to be Known vs. Known

Another tough decision along the way has been whether to go with a donor who is completely anonymous vs. one who is willing to be contacted by the child once they are 18.  Originally, my preference was to go with one of these "willing to be known" donors in case my future offspring does have some curiosity.  The main problem that I'm running into with this, is that I haven't been able to find a donor through TSBC who is "willing to be known" and also meets my other criteria.  When I expanded my search to include anonymous donors, I did find a few who I am interested in.  In fact, there is one who I am just in love with, who is anonymous.  So, my dilemma is this: do I prioritize my other criteria (physical characteristics, education, etc.) and hope that my future offspring doesn't have a burning desire to contact their donor or compromise on my other criteria in case they do?  If I go with an anonymous donor, will my child hate me?  Of course, it is possible that a new donor will pop up before I'm ready to order.  It is also possible that an anonymous donor could eventually change their status from anonymous to "willing to be known" at some point.  I will also say that the vials for anonymous donors are $100 less.  In a way, it feels selfish on my part to be willing to give up the "willing to known" status, but I am not exaggerating when I say that I could not find a donor in that bunch.

So, I just don't know.  I need to do some real soul searching on this one.

A quick note on known donors:

I have actually never seriously considered using a known donor for a variety of reasons, but I will say that I have had a couple of offers.  While these offers have been serious, I don't think that the other people involved really considered all of the potential complications.  Naturally, I declined.  Let me tell you though, nothing will compromise a friendship with a man like rejecting his sperm.  To get to my actual point though- I was surprised to learn recently that there could be some real legal issues when using known donor sperm.  I had just assumed that you could put together a contract and be all set.  Since I never seriously considered using a known donor, I never did much research about it.  Apparently, you can write up one of these "known donor contracts," but it may not hold up in court if the donor decides to sue for custody.  After the baby is born, you can go through a process to have the donor's parental rights terminated, assuming that he doesn't change his mind along the way.  So, one would have to really trust their known donor going into this.  I know that there are women out there who are able to pull this off, but I do not have this level of trust in anyone at this point, at least no one with a penis.

So, anonymous vs. willing to be known.  I'll let you all know what I decide.

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