Swift Victory for My Cheapskate Side

I learned something about myself today.  In a battle between my penny-pinching, cheapskate side and my obsessive researching, information overload side, cheapskate wins decisively.

We picked a donor this morning and we did it without considering every choice!  We decided to go with Pacif!c for two reasons: 1. open ID selection – they have so many more open ID donors than any other bank we found, and 2. they’re lesbian owned.  We’re not too worried about encountering homophobia at other banks, but we’re especially interested in the kinds of donors who would choose to donate at a lesbian-owned bank.  It feels like less of a gamble if/when our child tries to meet him.  An extra bonus is the donor we picked says specifically that he wants to help alternative couples.

We got to our selection by opening the whole donor catalog and marking off every open ID donor who fit our broadest ethnicity requirements (about 70 donors) and starring anyone who fit them more narrowly (I did this, Fern isn’t nearly as uptight as me).  I then made a spreadsheet of basic characteristics of all the starred donors and then Fern and I crossed off the ones we liked least.  We only nixed 3 out of 22, leaving us with 19 great choices.  In some ways it feels like Pacif!c gives us too much choice and I started to worry about my tendency to PANIC when I feel I haven’t researched something properly (in this case, my natural instinct is to read each and every profile to make sure I haven’t overlooked a gem).

But things happened very organically when we sat down with the list.  We reviewed the list and bought long profiles and pictures for our two favorites.  We instantly loved the first one we bought – not only does his baby picture look just like me, but he has a great family medical history, has sweet things to say in his profile, had a 4.0 gpa in college and is a musician like Fern.  Since it’s $35/photo and $17/long profile, we decided to wait until this morning before we bought anymore in order to check with the bank about availability and pregnancies (my biggest complaint about Pacif!c is that they don’t list past pregnancies on their website – you have to call and ask).

Even though our main requirement in this search was past pregnancies, we got predictably drawn into some of the other details.  We’re both completely enamored with his baby photo – I hadn’t expected to react that way.  We also really like some of the things he wrote even though that doesn’t really affect what kind of kid we would have with his sperm.  In general, though, I think we stayed pretty level-headed.

Anyway, this story is getting long, I’ll try to be more concise.  When I found out this morning that the guy we liked had reported pregnancies (in addition to the one non-donated-sperm related pregnancy he was responsible for, listed in his profile) and was in stock, we both felt totally fine about just ordering him and not reading other profiles as we had originally planned.  I commented to Fern that it is really strange that I don’t feel anxious about all the profiles we aren’t bothering to read.  Then it hit me, my desire to not pay $52/donor package far outweighs my desire to do obsessively thorough research.  And it feels liberating to let my cheapskate side prevail!

So, we have a donor that shares ethnicity traits with me and Fern (we would ideally use the same donor when I want to get pregnant, so it’s good the donor has both) and who the nurse called one of “her personal favorites.”  She said he’s kind and sweet and good looking – icing on the cake!  The only thing I’m slightly disappointed about is that he doesn’t have any Jewish heritage.  I’m half Eastern European (Poland, Romania and some other countries) Jewish and half Norwegian; Fern is Scottish, Irish, English, French and French Canadian.  This donor is about 1/4 Scandinavian, 1/8 French and 1/2 Scottish.  He covers all our bases except one.  Ironically, the baby photo of the other donor we downloaded who has a lot of Jewish heritage but shares almost no traits with Fern looks like it could have been a photo of Fern when she was little – it is uncanny.  Since we like so much about the donor, I’m only mildly disappointed, not too broken up about his lack of Jewishness.  We’ll aim for a part Jewish donor if we have to switch.

I’m sure this is more detail than any of you want, but I’ll leave it in and trust your ability to skim.

*********************

One last thing I want to mention before I post this is about financing this endeavor.  Because open ID is important to us, we have to spend a hefty amount per vial on sperm – $550 plus $200 shipping (plus registration fee, profile fees, possible storage fees etc.).  It’s no secret that a non-profit employee (me) and a student/part time employee (Fern) have a small income and there’s really no way we could afford this sperm and the doctor every month without help or major, major credit card debt.  Fern talked to her mom two days ago about our financial situation and we’re extremely lucky that she is in a position to help us and is very willing to do so.  I wanted to say this because I know many of you have struggled with TTC costs but I think that a lot of people feel inadequate when they can’t afford it.  I wanted to out myself and Fern as people who can’t make this work on our own.  I won’t lie, I feel a little like I’m cheating by taking this money knowing that so many aren’t as lucky and have to take on a lot of debt, but it’s such a massive relief.

I panic sometimes worrying how we’ll care for our children if we can’t even afford TTC.  But (if all goes according to plan), we should be back to two full salaries in a couple of years and be in a better place financially.  In two years, though, we’ll be in a much worse place in terms of our fertility, so it’s really worth it for us to be trying for the babies now.  We are incredibly lucky to have family that can help shoulder the costs.