Candidate # 1 - Sarah's brother Jamie
Aside from the film "El Favor", I've never heard of a lesbian being inseminated by her partner's brother and have to admit, I find the idea a tad disturbing. Nevertheless, a frightening majority of the people we've spoken to about this suggested Sarah's brother Jamie as a donor so we didn't want to be too quick to dismiss the idea.
Having known I prefer women for many years I've more or less resigned to the notion that I will never have biological children with the person I'm in love with, yet when I considered a donor who shares Sarah's DNA, I felt surprisingly excited. Being related to Sarah, Jamie is funny, smart and incredibly good-looking. If we chose him as a donor then the baby may well have looked a little like both of us.
However, whilst Jamie fulfils the criteria that our child would be able to get to know his/her genetic father if he or she so wished, having the donor so close to us could cause the parental roles to blur. We want to establish that our child has exactly two nurturing parents, Sarah and myself. The donor may play a minor role later in life if the child wishes it once he or she is old enough to understand the facts of life. Having an uncle as a parent could well confuse our offspring.
The other obstacle here is Jamie's wife - a conservative, Christian fundamentalist. Whilst Jamie is reasonably open-minded, his partner is not. She has many reservations about Sarah and myself raising a family and would certainly not consent to Jamie helping us out as a donor. Jamie and Anna already have one child (a three year old girl) who they are raising according to Anna's religious principles. I'm not sure that I want our child to have a sister who's brought up to believe in things that we stand against, for example that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality and that abortion is wrong under any circumstances. We believe in freedom of choice and expression.
We have not discussed this with Jamie because we felt it would create an awkward atmosphere. Perhaps if we felt more positive about the idea we would have done.
Pros: shares 50% of Sarah's DNA; can be trusted.
Cons: uptight wife; too close to us for us to define distinct parental roles.
Verdict: Not suitable.
Having known I prefer women for many years I've more or less resigned to the notion that I will never have biological children with the person I'm in love with, yet when I considered a donor who shares Sarah's DNA, I felt surprisingly excited. Being related to Sarah, Jamie is funny, smart and incredibly good-looking. If we chose him as a donor then the baby may well have looked a little like both of us.
However, whilst Jamie fulfils the criteria that our child would be able to get to know his/her genetic father if he or she so wished, having the donor so close to us could cause the parental roles to blur. We want to establish that our child has exactly two nurturing parents, Sarah and myself. The donor may play a minor role later in life if the child wishes it once he or she is old enough to understand the facts of life. Having an uncle as a parent could well confuse our offspring.
The other obstacle here is Jamie's wife - a conservative, Christian fundamentalist. Whilst Jamie is reasonably open-minded, his partner is not. She has many reservations about Sarah and myself raising a family and would certainly not consent to Jamie helping us out as a donor. Jamie and Anna already have one child (a three year old girl) who they are raising according to Anna's religious principles. I'm not sure that I want our child to have a sister who's brought up to believe in things that we stand against, for example that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality and that abortion is wrong under any circumstances. We believe in freedom of choice and expression.
We have not discussed this with Jamie because we felt it would create an awkward atmosphere. Perhaps if we felt more positive about the idea we would have done.
Pros: shares 50% of Sarah's DNA; can be trusted.
Cons: uptight wife; too close to us for us to define distinct parental roles.
Verdict: Not suitable.
3 comments:
A girl's father also shares 50% of her DNA...
Bear in mind that were you to meet the clinic donor you choose, you might find him worse than most of the other nine "candidates".
I believe that mannotincluded are now out of business. They were seriously dodgy anyway.
When you say "anonymous donor", I'm presuming you mean an id-release donor (if it's a UK clinic, then anonymous donation is no longer possible). If you're really considering going out of the country to use an anonymous donor, I would strongly recommend against it.
I don't know which other sites you've tried, but if you still want to find a known donor, this site might help:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreeSpermDonors
Oops, I meant to post that against this entry: "Candidate # 13 - The Anonymous Donor"
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