DD Day

Today, December 31, 2011, the last day of an already momentous, blessed year, is DD day.  Donor Decision Day.  Just moments ago, S and I purchased our donor sperm.  The sperm that will be used to help bring our first child into the world.

A year and a half ago, in June 2010, we found this donor at a cryobank and put his profile into our "favorites."  There was something about it that felt pretty good.  We knew the basic stats of the donor (height, weight, eye color, hair color).  And we read his basic medical history and personal essays.  We saw the "celebrity look-alike photos" and thought he seemed like a pretty good match for S.  And then we stopped searching for a while.  I actually forgot that we had even saved any profiles.

I logged in to our cryobank account about a month ago, when we started looking seriously at donors once again.  S and I went through many searches, and still, the donor we had selected not only had IUI vials available, but still felt like a really good option.  We ordered his full medical history and learned about the health of his family, including his siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  All the information checked out.  We were almost ready to make a decision.  The only significant dilemma was that he was an open (identity-release) donor; we had been very clear that we only wanted an anonymous donor.  So I called the cryobank to ask about our options.  There was nothing they or we could do to change the status.

During the past week, we sat with the information, read study after study about the benefits of open versus anonymous donors ("the internet is very biased toward open donors," said S to me in a frustrated text message).  We sat and felt and talked and cried.  We looked at other donors.  S found one other that felt pretty good to him, and it turned out he was an open donor as well.  We fought each other and wrestled with the information and the implications.  We decided we needed more information.  So we purchased a subscription for access to more information about all the donors in the bank - including childhood photos.

When I opened the file containing the single childhood photo of our first-pick donor, my heart jumped.  I grinned at my computer screen.  I couldn't believe how much the baby picture resembled S.  And at the same time, of course I could.  The eyes, the mouth, the forehead - all the major features of this donor look stunningly like S.  Meanwhile at home, S had pulled out his own baby pictures and was staring at them in shock. 

S and I are both people who live our lives and make our decisions by listening to our hearts and our guts.  And both of our guts, time and time again, said this was the one.  S said he was trusting the universe, that there was a reason the donor about which we felt so strongly happened to be open.  He said he wanted to listen to the signs.  So we did it.  We are now the proud owners of five vials of IUI-ready, identity-release donor sperm.

Let the new year begin.