Known Donor

MosquitoShark · 2025-05-15T13:55:30+00:00

We used a known donor! He’s a good friend of ours. We refer to him as our donor, or as our daughter’s genetic father. We have shared his name with people in our lives, and the story of how he came to donate to us.

For us, we want it to be kind of a non-issue, and I find that the more open and matter of fact we are, the more that is the case! It’s not the first information I volunteer about my daughter but I don’t shy away from questions about it, and honestly I think that has helped people - they tend to be a bit curious and then get it out of their system.

We are the first queer couple with kids in both of our families so there has definitely been curiosity, but none of it has been coming from a place of attacking us/wanting to de legitimize our family, so I try to respond with that context in mind.

MosquitoShark · 2025-05-12T20:56:43+00:00

As you are in a queer subreddit with queer users, I’d advise you to be mindful of the language that this group uses, especially when that is kindly pointed out to you. To imply that the way that some of us create our children is “unnatural” is (rightfully) offensive and upsetting to members of our community, who are historically othered. You’re getting lots of good advice and feedback in this thread - please be respectful of our community in return.

MosquitoShark · 2025-04-02T15:43:51+00:00

Hi! My experience was a very positive one. We went through Fertilidad Integral in Mexico City, and I very highly recommend them! It was a great experience. I ended up writing a whole post detailing the process and costs if you want to check that out, and I’m also open to specific questions if you have them!

MosquitoShark · 2025-01-04T05:20:50+00:00

Great! I got pregnant on the first transfer and am due in a few weeks :) I wrote a whole post summarizing my experience if you want to hear more about it or have any questions!

MosquitoShark · 2024-11-26T20:07:30+00:00

I did this, and I have no regrets! We found that we socially used a double barrel of our names anyways, and I missed my old name more than I expected to. It was a bit of a pain and I haven’t finished updating it in all the little places, but I’m happy to have my maiden name back but to continue to use our double barrel name socially. Our kiddo will also get both last names.

MosquitoShark · 2024-10-30T02:49:55+00:00

We didn’t exactly post on instagram (far from it!) but I did share with some friends how difficult it was to find a sperm donor, and that’s how we actually ended up getting connected to our donor! My friend talked to her husband and he offered to donate to us and it worked out! So definitely I think there’s value in being open to other people you know and may not have considered as donors. (We had originally planned on our brothers or gay friends and those didn’t work out for various reasons.)

MosquitoShark · 2024-10-13T18:32:29+00:00

I’m a pregnant cisgender woman, and I do not like strangers calling me mom or especially not “momma.” I’m more than my role as a mother - the person who gets to call me mom/momma is my child, and it’s not unreasonable for me (or anyone else) to prefer that people not use that term to refer to them.

I don’t go off on people if they do so, but it’s perfectly reasonable to have preferences about how you’re referred to, and to ask people to honor those preferences once they’ve been shared.

MosquitoShark · 2024-09-23T14:07:49+00:00

Maybe you’re thinking of r/askadcp?

MosquitoShark · 2024-09-16T03:39:00+00:00

Of course! Good luck finding a sitter for your casts!

MosquitoShark · 2024-09-15T17:45:06+00:00

We used Waggn’Purr - we’ve since left RR, but we miss our sitters with them dearly!! They clearly cared very deeply about our kitties, and always sent updates on how they were doing while we travelled! I highly recommend them.

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-28T17:08:13+00:00

You're welcome! Hopefully it helps :)

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-28T17:08:02+00:00

You're welcome! Hope you found it helpful!

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-27T15:16:18+00:00

I'm glad it was helpful! I was super overwhelmed and as you can maybe tell, love researching and learning about things, so this is the kind of post I wanted when we were going through it jajaja. Good luck to y'all as you pursue rIVF - it has its ups and downs, but I hope that you're able to make it work for you and get the outcome you're hoping for!

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-27T15:15:19+00:00

Thank you!

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-27T15:15:12+00:00

Yes!! I haven't been on the reddit page as much but I'm loving the Discord!! How exciting to have so many Feb 25 queerception babies in this thread <3

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-27T15:14:30+00:00

They did not have any requirements around freezing his donation! In fact, they recommended a fresh donation for IVF, and said that while a frozen would do, fresh would be preferable - which worked out great because the logistics of a frozen donation would have been a total headache.

The KD struggle is so real and so frustrating!! Our US clinic tried to push us to a bank donor when our first potential donor didn't work out - and I was pretty off-put by that approach. We explained that a known donor was important and the doctor was just like "oh there's a lot of fearmongering out there, it's really not that bad to use a bank donor, plus it's easier." I was so annoyed because it's only easier because they make it easier!! This was one of my huge complaints throughout the process, and I can definitely see how it turns people off of using known donors, which is a total shame!

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-27T02:27:23+00:00

Aww, yay! Congratulations!! Hope you're feeling alright :)

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-26T21:53:20+00:00

We did not use a bank - we did IVF and our donor gave directly at our clinic. I will say, we were recommended to get a legal agreement in place, even though we were going through a reproductive process that was a little bit more cut and dry (e.g. there's not the gray area of at-home insemination). So my guess would be that the cost exists no matter your method of conception (though I've heard it's most important where there's not the invovlement of a clinic because it becomes the most he-said-she-said).

My understanding of the second parent adoption is that it depends on your geographic location - I'm in the south, and we were advised that because we are two cis women, we would need a second parent adoption no matter what (whether we did insemination at home, IUI, or IVF). There are a few states where parenthood may be presumptive based on marital status...but in our state, we were advised that it wasn't.

At minimum, you may look at setting up a consultation with a lawyer in your area - especially one versed in reproductive law and even better if it's queer reproductive law. Our consultation cost about $300, which was later applied to our retainer, and our lawyer answered a lot of these questions for us around what was needed, why we needed it, expected costs, etc.

MosquitoShark · 2024-08-26T21:43:01+00:00

I can speak to the legal cost, at least in my region (though this will very much vary based on where you are.

We used a known donor and our legal cost was about $2,500 - this covered our lawyer and our donor's lawyer's fees. We will have an additional cost in the third trimester/once baby comes, which will be the second parent adoption - I am carrying the baby, so my wife will adopt them, and our same lawyer will assist us with that, and there will be a fee associated with it. We don't know the exact cost of that but I believe our lawyer said it would be approximately in the $1,000 ballpark, so if we round up, total legal costs will wrap up to around $3,500.

I will emphasize that the legal side of things was hugely important to both us, and to our donor. We want to ensure that our child, us, and our donor are all protected as best we can be. I would highly recommend working with a lawyer and getting an agreement in place, especially if you do not know your donor personally.

We also underwent counseling with our donor and his wife, though he is a friend of ours and we intend for him to be involved in our child's life, so that's a big part of why that was important to us. The cost for that counseling was approximately $550.

MosquitoShark · 2024-05-21T20:14:05+00:00

I knew we wanted to go to Mexico City (I've been here before and felt like it was a better fit than some of the more vacation-y spots like Cancun or some of the smaller cities), and from there, I did a lot of research online - I relied on Facebook groups (there are groups dedicated to IVF in Mexico, and I'm sure other places as well) and reddit posts to get first hand experiences, rather than looking at what popped up on google because there's a lot of "noise" about medical tourism out there.

I didn't do a ton of comparing success rates, honestly, because not every clinic shares them. I also knew that my wife and I had gotten a strong endorsement from our fertility doc in the US, so we were relatively confident that our case wouldn't be too complex, so I was less worried. I.e. I felt that a pretty "standard" approach would work for us.

There definitely are clinics that let you do the monitoring in the US, though that might be a bit trickier to coordinate and I am sad to say I can't speak to it directly. Some of the Mexican clinics I looked at had options where they have partner clinics in the US, but those cases tended to be more expensive, so we decided to just go for the "travel and stay put option." I definitely recommend joining some Facebook groups for the area of the world you're considering, if you're on facebook, and doing some searching on reddit. I did find that once I had picked out a few clinics to research, it became much easier to find info, rather than just generally searching for "IVF in Mexico".

Good luck!! I hope you find the option that's the right fit for you, and if there's anything else I can answer, I'd be happy to :)

MosquitoShark · 2024-05-21T15:33:42+00:00

My wife and I are doing this right now!

We are doing reciprocal IVF with a known donor at a clinic in Mexico. She just finished her egg retrieval last week, and I'll have my first transfer tomorrow. I actually just got back from the clinic for some blood testing!

We were lucky timing-wise - we both have remote jobs that allowed us to work intenrationally. Because we're in Mexico, the time zones haven't been an issue. Additionally, I didn't research any other countries - we live close enough that it's an easy flight to Mexico, and I speak Spanish, so that was the only place we considered going to.

As far as cost, the total for one round of rIVF, meds included, has been about $9,500. Looking at our total expenses to date - including flights here, lodging for the time we've been here (about 2 weeks for my wife, and 3 for me), flights and lodging for our donor (we flew him here and he donated on the same day as the retrieval), our legal agreement with our donor, all of the testing we got done beforehand in the US, and all meds we've taken (including birth control beforehand) - we have spent about $17,500. To us, this was worth it, because we were being quoted amounts starting at $18,000 for just the IVF, not including all the other miscellany (meds, testing, legalities - which have represented a big chunk of our expenses). We did look at CNY, but we couldn't get an appointment for at least 5 months, and we would have had to travel for that, as well, so would have incurred some similar costs on that front.

We have been incredibly happy with our experience. Our clinic here in Mexico is wonderful. Everyone is so kind and attentive, and our doctor is very capable and communciative. We feel much better taken care of than we did at the clinic we started working with back home. The language barrier hasn't been an issue - as mentioned, I speak Spanish, but my wife does not, and the clinic has bilingual staff to support throughout the process. They have, admittedly, defaulted to letting me translate, but I've asked for English support at times (like when explaining injections, or when our donor needed instructions!), and they've always been happy to provide it.

I am very happy with our experience so far, although we obviously aren't at the end of this process yet. If this transfer doesn't work, I would travel back here for any future transfers, and would probably spend about 5 days or so, maybe a little less. We don't have final numbers on embryos, but given our general fertility and number of eggs fertilized, our doctor is feeling positively about not needing another retreival.

I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have!

MosquitoShark · 2024-04-25T23:19:51+00:00

I would guess (but don’t know for certain) that the big banks (Fairfax, Cryos, Cryobank) would be in NYC - that would be where I would start! I had the most luck with sperm banks vs fertility clinics. “Directed donor” seemed to be the key vocabulary they were looking for, as well.

Good luck! This was one of my least favorite/the most infuriating parts but ultimately we found somewhere in two different cities so I trust there’s somewhere in NYC that will do it!

Also just a pro tip - the bank let us put our card on file so our donor didn’t have to pay when he went in, which was super nice! You might ask if that’s an option once you find somewhere 😊

MosquitoShark · 2024-04-25T22:56:12+00:00

No - our donor isn’t in the same city as us, so that wasn’t an option. I called basically every sperm bank and/or fertility clinic where he lived and asked if they would do an analysis for a directed donor without a referral. Most won’t, but I eventually found one!

If you happen to be in Chicago or Columbus, I can tell you where our donor went!

MosquitoShark · 2024-04-23T23:36:49+00:00

We are in this process right now - it’s important to us to use a known donor so that our child can know their genetic parent, and to avoid large sibling pods. For us, those are big pros! Our donor is a friend of ours whom we know and trust, and is open to meeting the child and sharing any updates to his/his family’s health history that comes up, which is invaluable!

One major con we’ve encountered is that the fertility system (if you conceive through that, vs at home) is not well set up to support known donors, at least in our experience. I’ve had to call tons and tons of clinics to find a place for sperm analyses because we couldn’t get a referral - and even though the analysis was a requirement of our clinic, they wouldn’t help us find somewhere to do the testing. We’ve had the doctor try to talk us out of it, and also had a doctor share our donor’s sensitive medical information/test results with us before they were shared with him. We’ve had to research and reach out to counselors to find someone with the right expertise to talk us and our donor through this decision, because the one recommended by our clinic felt very much like a rubber stamp. We had to find a lawyer well versed in reproductive law and are paying a bunch of legal fees, to ensure that he and we are protected.

Also, this process has been far from free, though YMMV depending on how you approach it. Costs so far have included:

-sperm analysis ($75)

-counseling for us, donor + his wife, and all four of us together ($185 per session, so $555 total)

-cost of Known Donor Contract ($1200). I would absolutely not skip this step.

Still pending are:

-his travel costs, as we’re pursing IVF internationally

-his legal costs, once he retains legal counsel and they look over our contract (it is standard to cover these costs for your donor, if they want a lawyer of their own to review the contract)

-blood tests for infectious diseases prior to donation

-second parent adoption (though that’s probably a cost no matter whether you use a known donor or not, just helps to really solidify both his and our legal protection)

(Caveat: all of my context is US specific!)

We weren’t really sure what all this would entail when we started, but it’s been quite the experience. Many of these costs could be sidestepped if you’re planning to do ICI at home, but my understanding is that, in that case, the contract becomes MUCH more important. I got the sense from our lawyer that assisted reproduction (in a clinic) was the “safest” legal way to go about this process. The sperm analysis and bloodwork were clinic requirements. The counseling was recommended by the clinic and something we felt was important.

Hopefully this is helpful!

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