One of the interesting parts of using a sperm donor is the Open vs Anonymous option. I struggled back and forth on this – the Big Reason I wanted to use a sperm donor instead of just finding someone I knew was to avoid strings attached. 

Knowing that I wanted to be a mom didn’t mean I knew who I wanted to be the dad. Having seen all the disjointed families of divorces I knew if I could head it off at the pass, at least initially, I’d be happier. It seemed simpler. Sure, the story would be complicated, but would it be less or more complicated than “that’s your dad but kinda not really and also he makes me crazy and also I’m the boss and he isn’t.” 

Originally, I thought, let’s just go Anonymous so that’s the end of the story. After some thought and urging from my friend John, I realized that giving her an option at 18 to be in touch with her donor was a better path for her, and isn’t that what parents are supposed to do? Think about what’s best for their child, not what’s simplest for themselves?

But there was an interesting added bonus to having an Open Donor – the Sibling Registry. The sperm bank itself has a Sibling Registry and there is also a Facebook group for the bank that has a listing as well. The option is there for anyone who has had a child (or is pregnant) from each Open Donor to list their contact information so other parents of the same donor can get in touch. 

I had a lot of apprehension about it for some reason – although the bank limits the donor to 25 families, that could still be a LOT of siblings (diblings is the term I’ve seen thrown around). As an only child from a small family, it seemed intriguing and also terrifying. I’ve heard stories of moms who had tons of diblings for their donor kids and who meet up often or talk on Facebook regularly. It sounded like knowing could only be helpful. I pictured myself asking “have you run into any issues I should keep an eye out for? My child is doing this, is that something you guys ran into as well?” I thought about sharing photos – how much of my child would look like theirs? It would be like a strange look into her possible future.

When my donor originally filled out his paperwork in 2014, he listed not having had any pregnancies yet. But by the time I selected him in 2016, there was a note saying he had. So when I finally realized I could look into the registry before she arrived, I found myself nervous. How many would there be?

Surprisingly, both on the Bank Registry and the Facebook group, there were no names or contact info for moms using my donor until I added my own. So now I suppose I wait to see if anyone gets in touch. It’s entirely possible that the other moms decided the registry wasn’t for them, or maybe they’re waiting til their kiddo is older. Who knows.

Another interesting thing to come out of this process is that my chosen sperm bank has offered to cover 90% of the cost to collect Kiddo’s cord blood – the normal problem people run into is the upfront cost of collection ($2K to start) as well as added banking costs to keep the stem cells preserved. My bank has offered to foot the majority of the bill and banking costs are less than $13/month. For the most part, stem cell research and cord blood banking still have a lot of question marks associated with them, but the possibility of being helpful down the road is definitely worth $13/month for me. My doctor and I discussed it and she urged me to do it if I could – especially since their offer to cover costs was so large. 

So on both of those, I guess we’ll see what happens. But I feel lucky to have both opportunities either way.