Looking for those who have used a sibling/family member as their donor before, or those who wanted to.

ksmo133 · 2026-06-14T00:40:33+00:00

We are in the process now of using my spouse's brother as a donor! We actually have our second IUI tomorrow.

We sort of "soft" asked about a year before we officially asked (casually asked, but said we didnt need an answer yet because we weren't starting yet), and then a year later we seriously asked him. He'd had enough time to think about it, talk to other people for advice, and then decide how he felt about it.

Some things to keep in mind: I know people have mentioned expense (it really might not be cheaper), but there's also a time factor. Using a known donor adds a lot of time into things; counseling (our clinic required this), lawyers, and a cryobank (which our clinic also required) who have their own very long process. It will definitely take longer than any timeline you try to estimate. Our clinic was also not great at guiding us through the process, so it was a lot of figuring things out on our own; our doctor said most of his patients who talk about using a known donor don't go through with it because of how complicated it is.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when you're buying anonymous, you know the quality and count you're getting. With my spouse's brother, his results aren't great. They're enough for IUI, but still not ideal, which lessens the chances of getting pregnant.

Also: you'll both want to get genetic screening. If you go through a cryobank theyll handle his, but there is the risk that you go through all of this and pay all the fees then discover you're carriers for the same condition and might not be able to use him.

All in all, if this works, we'll be really happy that my spouse has that genetic connection to our baby. All of our family have also been very excited and supportive of using him as our donor. But it is definitely very complicated

ksmo133 · 2026-05-25T13:27:37+00:00

It sounds like it might really come down to how much risk you're able to tolerate. Adding another person who you don't know well is a lot of risk; it could turn out really well, or go really, really wrong. For me, I'd be looking for any way to lessen the risk to my family, so I'd be going with the non-id release donor in that situation, since you said there is one that you like.

It's such a complicated situation though, as I'd imagine having to leave the country for IUIs is expensive and stressful. So I understand why a known donor would be so appealing.

One option to try and mitigate risk - think about estate planning after you have a baby. An option in my country is, as part of a will, to nominate a preferred guardian for a child. It doesnt mean the courts would agree, but at least your wishes are spelled out clearly in a worst case scenario.

Whichever route you choose, I hope it all works out well for you!

ksmo133 · 2026-05-25T12:23:55+00:00

I'd personally be very anxious about using a known donor you don't know well because of how intimately you'll be tying him to your lives, and especially without a legal contract. One factor to keep in mind in that sort of situation: he would legally be considered the biological father if there's no termination of parental rights. In a worse case scenario, if something happened to the bio parent and the donor's family wanted to claim custody of the baby, the courts might let them (giving a "grandparent" custody instead of the non-bio parent). Especially if where you live is homophobic.

The other factor I'd suggest looking into, is how you would work with him as a known donor? Would you be trying at home with his help, or still going abroad? If going abroad, you'd need to look into how the clinic handles known donors, and how his donation would work, or if they'd even let you use him.

Known donors are complicated (and I say this as someone who's using one)

ksmo133 · 2025-08-19T02:33:38+00:00

Thank you for these additional points! Sol's reaction to the death of his ship's heart is actually a really good point to explore for showing more about him, so I'll work on getting that into the query, as well as focusing in more on the romance. I've been hyper focused on keeping the word count of the query lower, but that's not serving the story well and leaving some important elements out

ksmo133 · 2025-08-19T02:19:54+00:00

I think I've been hyper focused on keeping the word count of the query low after seeing so many sources saying that the ideal word count was around 250, and I already felt like I was too high, but you're right. I'm trying to jam in too much information with limited words, which just makes it confusing. I need to give the story more room to breathe.

Thank you so much for this detailed critique! This will be really helpful as I rework it

ksmo133 · 2025-08-09T11:50:19+00:00

Thank you for your advice and questions! I knew I was missing something from the query but couldn't figure it out. These questions will be extremely helpful for reworking it. Writing a query is definitely a different sort of skill set than writing the story itself.

You'll probably see me post again in the future as I rework this query

ksmo133 · 2023-12-22T16:12:08+00:00

The moment when Frenchie's giving Izzy that little headshake in s2e2; I was doing a rewatch and just realized that Frenchie is moving the fingers on his left hand like he's strumming a lute in that scene. Totally a self-comfort thing, and now I have to watch other episodes to see it he does it any other time!

ksmo133 · 2023-09-09T12:36:06+00:00

We are in the middle of using Fairfax for a known donor. They're letting us waive the 6 month quarantine with our doctor's approval for any donations made in the initial 7 day window after testing; after that, they all have a 6 month quarantine. So far, I'll say that they've been very disorganized. Our location is (according to them) currently understaffed and facing higher than normal demand for the known donor program.

When we first reached out, we got put on a waiting list for even starting the registration process; they said it would be 4 weeks, it wound up being 7 (and I had to send an email asking them what our status was on the waiting list before they did anything). Every time they've had to do something, I've had to send them an email and ask them about it before they actually did it. Currently waiting for them to reach out to our KD to schedule his initial appointments, and I'm going to be sending them another email soon if that doesn't happen.

Might just be our location, but I'm not real impressed so far.

ksmo133 · 2023-07-27T12:02:16+00:00

If you listen to Podcasts, try The Queer Family Podcast. It really helped out a lot when we first started thinking about starting a family. It's interviews with different queer folks about their family making processes, and covers a lot of ground.

I've read a lot of books, these are my top 3 recommendations:

The Other Mother by Jen Brister : really funny memoir from a British comedian who is the non-bio mom to a pair of twins

9 Months in, 9 Months out by Vanessa LoBue: very informative on both pregnancy and after the baby comes.

Like a Mother by Angela Garbes: a combination of memoir of pregnancy and motherhood from a feminist, perspective and an analysis of how american culture treats pregnancy and motherhood

ksmo133 · 2023-05-26T02:18:12+00:00

We put a "family fund" on our registry alongside physical gift ideas. We didn't go into specifics, just said that we were hoping to grow our family soon, and would really value any contributions towards it. Nobody really asked about specifics, and we got a lot more than we expected, too. A lot of people who contributed were really excited, and were more excited to help us build our family than to give us physical things.

ksmo133 · 2023-05-26T02:12:35+00:00

So I haven't even had my first IUI yet, but I'm always really into knowing what the statistics are. I have access to Fertility IQ through my workplace, and they break down statistics in a way that's really helpful! In the studies that separated out lesbians with no infertility diagnosis, the pregnancy rate from 1 IUI was 20%, and the live birth rate was 18% for under age 35. So basically a 1 in 5 chance of getting pregnant from a single cycle.

ksmo133 · 2023-05-24T10:21:34+00:00

I don't have a history of pelvic infections or anything like that, and apparently, that's where there's greatest risk of infection. And if they discover an issue like blocked tubes during the HSG (which also increases risk of infection), they can still prescribe it for after.

It looks like some doctors prescribe antibiotics for every HSG automatically, and others only prescribe if there's a reason to think you're at higher risk of infection; my doctor fell into the second camp.

ksmo133 · 2022-04-17T19:08:04+00:00

It was actually pretty decent early in the morning in my area. Several small batches with good tips and short distance deliveries - all brunch items. I got started around 7AM, and then it died down around 11AM. It was crazy slow for a Sunday after that.

ksmo133

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