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My winter of love: Scrolling through sperm banks wasn’t sexy – but it was surprisingly intimate
Donor profiles sparked long conversations about the values we wanted for our child. The guys who wanted to ‘spread their genes’? Definitely out
"Surrounded by glittering Christmas lights, in between sips of red wine, my friend made me a very decent proposal. “My sperm,” he said. “You can have it if you like.” We’d been catching up over festive drinks and the topic of kids came up, as it does when you are in your 30s. My partner – now wife – and I had started thinking about having a family, I’d told my friend. We had two wombs and a bunch of eggs; we just needed to figure out the rest of the baby-making equation. So he offered to sort that bit out for us, no strings (or body appendages) attached.
My wife and I thought about that offer a lot over the next few months. No offence to heterosexuals (some of my best friends are straight), but I don’t envy you most of the time. However, I am jealous of the fertile straight couples who don’t have to do anything more complicated than jump into bed when they decide they want kids. Instead of getting undressed, my wife and I went online. We researched, researched, researched. Should we go for a known donor such as my friend? Or would it be better to go to a sperm bank?
There’s no right answer when it comes to this decision – it all depends on your individual circumstances. But in the end we decided that a sperm bank was less complicated. “Your sperm is off the hook,” I texted my friend, after we’d made our decision. Unfortunately, he was at work at the time and the message popped up on the computer screen he was showing his colleagues. “It’s not what you think,” he told them.
Having decided to go via the sperm bank route, my wife and I spent much of that winter in New York curled up in front of the glow of the computer, trawling through donor profiles. While cosy nights scrolling through cryobanks may not be as sexy as old-fashioned conception, it was intimate in its own way. Donor profiles are incredibly detailed: you can access personal essays, childhood photos, medical histories, voice samples, personality tests, etc. Reading through all these profiles sparked long conversations about the things we found important, the sort of values we wanted our child to have. . ."
[...] Read more details https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/dec/23/my-winter-of-love-scrolling-through-sperm-banks-wasnt-sexy-but-it-was-surprisingly-intimate
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