help, I'm having a hard time picking between two donors. 14288 and 14426

dolphin84041

I am single and doing all this on my own. I will be 41 a week from sunday. I have been debating about doing this for almost 6 years now. I figured i would have had kids by now. I was hoping to have one with my now ex boyfriend, but it never happened. Now i know i can't putting off and waiting for mister right to come along. I'm scared in some ways to do this on kids own.

I had the photo comparison done. What helped you decide between which donor to go with?

tffo

Hi! Congrats on starting your journey! I'm also single, and after a year of trying I got pregnant a month before I turned 41. I'm now 34 weeks pregnant and I'm scared, but I'm excited too.

Anyway, for me, one of the first things I used to narrow things down was that I knew I wanted an open donor. I just liked the idea that he'd already decided he would make contact at least once and because I'm single, I wanted to give my child that chance, and for them to know that I thought about the future and tried my best. I know some people feel the opposite about their child ever meeting the donor and I get that so I'm just throwing in my two cents.

After that, the most important thing to me was health history. I wanted someone who didn't have a lot of chronic illness, mental illness (including addiction) or cancer in their family. I felt a slightly older donor gave a better indication of future health too, since a lot of things, like mental illness don't start until the mid twenties.

Finally after looking at all the rest of the info, it was the audio interviews that I found the most helpful. If you haven't listened to them, I highly recommend them. It made all the difference with some donors I thought I liked. I feel like it gives the best sense of who they are. And personality was important to me since I do think some of it is inherited.

I just want to add, I agonized about my choice, really worried about who to pick, but now that my baby is here, I don't really think about it much at all. This baby is mine, and whatever traits he does or doesn't get from the donor don't really matter. So whoever you pick, I think you'll be happy with the outcome. Go with your gut!

dolphin84041

Thank you so much tffo,

You gave me some info i didn't even think about.
I understand the open part, because i have sister that was put up for adoption when she was a baby. We found her almost 14 years. It would be nice to know, at least once my kid could meet their dad once.

I go on Tuesday to discuss things further with my dr and hope to give it a try around the 10th of Jan.

tffo

Glad I could help! My mom was adopted and I found some of her family just two years ago, so that was a consideration for me too. Just to be clear though, the one contact they agree to could be only by email, but I still felt like it was better than not knowing if the donor would even say yes to that. I've also heard that anonymous donors have been known to change their mind when reached out to once the child turns 18, and agree to contact, so you never know.

tffo

Oh and good luck!