An Anonymous or a Known Sperm Donor? Two Couples Weigh In

When a lesbian couple decides to have a child, there are so many decisions to be made, from how to get pregnant to who will carry. But perhaps the most daunting question of all is whether the sperm donor will be anonymous or someone the couple knows.

Due to lack of reporting, it’s unknown if there is a predominant donor choice among lesbians. Anecdotally, there seems to be a relatively even split. What is universal is how hard this intensely personal decision can be to make, and there’s a valid case for either option. In the end, it’s about trusting your gut and being happy with your decision.

Whether you decide to go with an anonymous donor or with someone you know, there are a number of factors to consider.

If you’re going with an anonymous donor, among many other things, you’ll want to think about whether you want your child to be able to seek out the donor one day; what qualities are impossible to know simply from medical records and family profiles; and whether you will want your child to have siblings with the same donor.

If you’re going with a known donor, there are just as many things to think about like whether or not this man will be part of your child’s life and, if so, what your child will call him; do you completely trust the information this person has given you; and does he even know his complete pertinent medical and familial history.

Cost should be considered, too. Donated sperm typically costs between $500 to $1000 which may or may not include sperm bank registration fees and storage fees when multiple batches are ordered to be used in case fertilization does not occur on the first try. There are also shipping fees and profile fees, depending on how much information about the donor you request.

Two lesbian couples who faced all of these decisions in the pursuit of growing their families are Carrie Welch and her wife Jannie Huang of Portland, Oregon, and Stephanie Berman and her wife Emily (real name withheld for privacy) of Boston, Massachusetts. Welch and Huang opted for the anonymous route and Berman and her wife chose a donor they knew instead.

Keeping It Anonymous

Carrie Welch says that when she and her wife were younger, they talked to a close friend who offered to donate his sperm. He was unmarried at the time. “It seemed like a great idea as we love him, he’s a part of our life, and our child wouldn’t wonder.”

But by the time Welch and Huang were ready to start a family, their friend had gotten married and they didn’t feel comfortable asking him both for sperm and to relinquish his parental rights. “We didn’t want to go through a legal process with our friend, and we didn’t want our child to know the donor was nearby but not an active part of his or her life.” That’s when they knew that an anonymous donor was the only route for them.

How Sperm Banks Work

Searching for sperm online can be daunting. Welch explains:

“The benefits of the sperm bank are that you order online and they ship directly to your hospital; it’s very convenient. You search profiles and the service we used (California Cryobank) gives more info than you would think – medical histories for the donor, his immediate family, his grandparents, aunts, uncles. This was more info than Jannie and I had on each other! They also give nurses impressions, writing samples, celebrity lookalike photos, and baby photos. It gives you a fair pictureof what the person is like, though you do have to pay for a subscription to see the majority of this info.

Our child would not know the donor…you want it to be: we’re your parents and that’s it, that’s enough, but it’s his or her life and you have to remain open to what he or she will want. 

“California Cryobank has great search tools where you can search by race, height, schooling, and more. It feels a little like the movie Gattaca because you are selecting based on traits you’d like to see in your child. It’s nice to be able to choose but also weird. Our main criteria was that he sound like a good person, which is why the audio recordings were the most important piece for us. You can listen to what the donors’ voices sound like as they answer questions from the nurse. We were surprised by how quickly you get a sense of whether you like someone or not, just by his tone of voice. Our donor for Taylor sounded so sweet and normal and said he was donating so that everyone could have children.

“The audio plus the baby photos became our go-tos. We did a lot of searches with all of the IUIs, ten in fact. We used three different donors throughout those ten times. We would buy sperm in three-to-four vial packs because shipping is so darn expensive.

The baby photos show you what your child might look like and it helped us envision it more. We originally looked for tall donors but I’d say that was less significant as time went on. Basics like a high school and college degree were always present. I can’t emphasize enough that it becomes so clear what is important to you and that is different, beautiful, and wondrous for everyone.

“The burden here is our child would not know the donor, unless he or she chose to find him. It’s a heartbreaking thought but also a reality. You want it to be: We’re your parents and that’s it, that’s enough, but it’s his or her life and you have to remain open to what he or she will want. We have a nice folder with a DVD of all of the info we received about the donor that we’re ready to talk about with him when he asks.”

A Family Friend: Going with Someone You Know

For Stephanie Berman and wife Emily, choosing the donor was the most daunting part the conception process and they opted to go with someone they knew. “This is the person that will make up half of your offspring’s DNA, so of course, we were feeling the pressure.” The two agreed that they wanted to have two children using that same donor’s sperm and they wanted their children to be able to access information about the source of half of their DNA. “So using a known donor was ideal.”

Berman says:

“We thought for a very long time about sperm donor ‘candidates’ and then once we narrowed our list down, we had a clear front runner. Then the issue became – how the hell do you ask someone to be your baby daddy? The idea of having that conversation was awkward, uncomfortable, and mostly scary, even if it was someone we knew. We started our dialogue with an email that mentioned wanting to talk about something important regarding family planning. We figured that would be a dead giveaway as to what we were looking for and if he was not interested, it would give him an easy out to say no.

How the hell do you ask someone to be your baby daddy?

“Luckily for us, we were blessed to find the most amazing donor [with that very first email]. He was 100% on board with everything we were looking for – signing legal contracts giving up his legal rights to the children, being a part of their lives but on our terms, and being the donor for the two kids we wanted so that they could be biologically related. So, for us, choosing someone we knew as opposed to a stranger was crucial as it allowed for very open dialogue and working together with ease as opposed to us trying to work with a stranger.

“This process is so deeply personal that I don’t think you can say which way is right or wrong. It’s all about what works best for you and your partner. For us, choosing him was the best decision we made. He regularly sees both of our children and his family is also very much a part of their lives. It’s like having another extension of family and love in our lives which you can never have enough of.”

Deciding to start a family is a huge decision, made even more challenging when you have to outsource sperm. The good news is that a lot of couples have had success with both anonymous donors and known donors. So it truly is all about what works for you and your family when it comes to making the ever-important donor decision.