Baby Daddy

You know how when you got married (or not) and ended up preggars? Did you give much thought to all of the background details of your partner? Did you research his medical history before you procreated? How about his family's medical history? Did you think about how active he would be in your child's life? No, these were all things you would find out naturally and in the normal course of your relationship. Well, when you are trying to buy your baby's daddy, these are all questions that now become important. You don't get the opportunity to learn these things during the natural progression of your relationship. And most likely, you've actually met the person you made a baby with. Not us. It's like a weird one-night stand...only without the alcohol and sex.

When we started this process, we were pretty convinced we wanted an open donor. We wanted to give the option to our child to have the opportunity to know who their donor was. Oh, for all of you straights whose donor is a flesh and blood partner, when you are looking to have a sperm donor from a company, you get to do lots of fun stuff. You search through the profiles of donors, known only by their number. You read about their medical history. You get their ethnic background, their hair color, eye color, height and weight. You can get staff feedback on what they think of the donor. You get a short essay written by the donor. You get to find out what their favorite pet is. And you get a baby picture of the donor...all for free. The rest of it, if available, you have to pay for. For example, if you want to buy a silouetted picture of your donor as an adult, you can. Sometimes, you can buy a picture of your donor as an adult. And you get to choose between an anonymous donor and one who is theoretically willing to have your child make contact with him when he or she turns 18. It's almost like blind on-line dating only this person will never meet you, just donate sperm to help your cause. It's a little weird. And a lot expensive.

Back to picking a donor...so we are wrestling with whether or not we want an anonymous donor. There are so many pros and cons to either choice. We are braving new territory here, people. We don't have any friends who have had sperm donors with children who are old enough to verbalize how important it is or isn't to know their donor. At first, we were 99% sure we wanted a donor who would be willing to make contact. Then, we thought about it some more and started thinking about worse case scenarios of our child making contact with a stranger. What would that person be like? Would they be a criminal now? They aren't, in theory, when they donate, but we're talking about eighteen years here...lots of stuff can change! Maybe they are donating because they are trying to help a great cause, maybe they are donating because they are in college and it's a quick way to make a buck. What kind of person will they be in eighteen years? And do we want our child to bring that person into their life, if the donor is willing? The flip side of that is what if in eighteen years, the donor becomes "unlocateable" (I made that word up). The sperm bank makes every effort to keep track of where the donor is, but that's not 100%.

Then we went to see the movie "The Kids Are All Right". Yea, almost immediately, we decided we didn't want to know the donor. Go see the movie if you want to understand, but in short, the donor became a part of the kids lives and usurped all that the moms had tried to teach. Oh, and he slept with one of the lesbian moms. Way to make the movie mainstream. Erg...I digress.

We went to dinner after the movie and discussed our options some more. Yes, people, we spend a lot of time talking and thinking about sperm. More than any self-respecting lesbian should. LOL

We've talked to friends on their choices. We have a couple of sets of friends who have or are going through the process.

Then today, Heidi was surfing the world wide web looking for anything on known vs. unknown. She found a blog written by girl titled "My father was an anonymous sperm donor" and her perspective was what we feared our child might face if we didn't leave that option open. So, we are literally back at square one.

Not only are we trying to find a baby daddy, but we are also trying to make a decision based on how our child may or not may feel in eighteen years and hope that a donor will stick to his intention by meeting the expectation placed on him now. You should know that, as a couple, we have a hard enough time making a decision on what to have for dinner so this is certainly one heck of a quandry.

For now, enjoy some pictures of potential baby daddies in the form of their baby pictures. Yes, the ones you see here are willing to be known...at least for now. Tomorrow is another day to work this through and hopefully, our first parenting decision for a new baby will be the right one. (I'm partial to the cutie in the cowboy hat).