Newbies so many Questions!

alivinalivin Posts: 143
in LGBTQ+ Couples
Hi everybody,
I feel blessed to have found this forum filled with other lesbian moms to be. My partner and i are planning IUI at the end of June and have been searching for a donor with the "wow" factor as my partner calls it.
There are so many emotions that go along with this. I am just wondering how everyone is deciding on a donor, it is so overwhelming!!

Also how did you all come to choose this particular sperm bank and not others, that seems to be the toughest part, besides choosing an actual donor.

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone on here and going through this amazing journey together!

Alicia
San Diego

Comments

  • gretagreta Posts: 57
    Hi Alicia,

    I'm pretty much in the same place you are -- we're hoping to do our first IUI in July and we're searching for the perfect donor...actually, I think I've found him but he's sold out at the moment :( so we're looking for a backup in case we can't get him in time.

    Anyway, we are searching for a donor that has qualities that are important to us (a certain look that goes with our look, intelligence, athleticism) along with a cute baby picture that grabs us and makes us say "Awe." It takes a long time to find someone with all of these things!

    As for why we're probably going with this bank, it seems to be very well established, has that sibling registry (and will provide lifelong updates of medical changes that might be important to your child's health), and from what I can tell seems to have the biggest selection of quality donors. I've looked at other sites where there were no baby pictures, and at some where all of the staff impressions seemed to overstate the donor's quality so that they were hard to rely on. So far, it seems easiest to find reliable info on quality donors from CCB (though of course, it charges a little more for some of the info than some other sites). But that is why we are probably going with CCB.

    Hope that helps and good luck in June!
  • alivinalivin Posts: 143
    Hi Greta
    thanks for that response, its so reassuring to know that others are in the same boat!! I'm torn between this bank and fairfax. I think I'm hung up on fairfax having so many higher educated donors. Education is very important to both my partner and I. But I really love CCB's website, I have found a lot of great donors that I like on here as well.

    Fairfax states that they test for several additional genetic abnormalities and overall do more extensive testing than CCB, what do you guys think of that??

    Thanks again
  • gretagreta Posts: 57
    That's interesting, because I had the impression that CCB had more highly educated donors than Fairfax! :) CCB recruits from some of the top universities in the country (they're listed somewhere on the site).

    I had found a couple of potential donors at Fairfax that looked promising (like a pre-med student and a law student), but when I purchased the longer profile info I found their SAT/GPA was not as high as some of the undergrads I was considering at CCB. So I found it hard to really compare, without downloading the longer reports. I'm sure Fairfax does have some good donors though. I might look there again if my top pick doesn't work out.

    I don't know about the addtional testing, and will be interested if others respond to that.
  • alivinalivin Posts: 143
    Yeah Fairfax only has 4year degree holders and has alot of post graduate donors, MD'S, Ph.D's, JD's and Masters degree holders. Thats one of the reasons why I was interested in them in addition to the additional genetic testing.
    Just wondering if anyone else has had any experience with them
  • azyoginiazyogini Posts: 13
    I find Fairfax's adult photos very interesting. I wish CCB had that. We are hoping to do our first IUI in June.
  • momx2momx2 Posts: 134
    Just wanted to say good luck.
    We have been using CCB donors for three years...we just got our bfp ( today!!!!) with our third CCB donor. We have been very pleased with the staff at CCB and all of our donors had great numbers according to our docs. Our doc will only work with CCB and Faifax.
    This last time since dp was going to carry I got to pick our pool of donors and got final word . We have certain medical criteria that is improtant to us since dp has cancer in her fam and I have diab in mine and we hope to both carry from the same donor. Allergies played a big part too, that is how we often narrowed our search. This last time we did not look at the pics until I narowed it to to two.
    Good luck, it is hard to chose, but exciting too.

    Melanie
  • azyoginiazyogini Posts: 13
    Momx2 CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • slcoyleslcoyle Posts: 34
    I used Fairfax for the first 4 inseminations and had low sperm counts and didn't get pregnant. I switched to CCB for the 5th insemination and got pregnant on my first try with CCB. Probably a fluke, but I just felt better when I switched to CCB from the beginning.

    Good luck!
  • alivinalivin Posts: 143
    Thanks for letting us know!! It's helpful to hear about other people's experience with CCB. We just chose our donor so we are very excited and feel like we made the right decision!
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