The Quest for the right Donor - Open Identity?

One of the factors that played into choosing the right donor for my future child was the open identity factor. When donating sperm, donors can decide if they are willing to get contacted by their children once the children turn 18 or if they would rather not get in contact with their offspring. If they agree to that contact, they are called open identity donors. Their sperm usually costs a little more than the sperm from donors who are not open identity donors.

For the donors it is a tough decision because most of them are not much older than 18 themselves and a lot can change for them over the years. They might get married and have a family of their own. I also doubt that they can foresee how many children they might get contacted by in 18 years. Depending on how many kids they fathered, there might 40 or more "kids" later. That can be quite overwhelming.

So, this was a really tough decision for me, too. I have been going back and forth. At first I thought, that I wanted an open donor. I wanted to give my future child the opportunity to meet their biological father when he or she turns 18. I read about some people online, who were conceived via donor sperm and never got a chance to find out who their donor was. I think, a lot of these people really struggle with the fact that they were never even given the chance or a choice. It breaks my heart thinking that my future child might have to go through something like that, too. It does not have to be that way, but I thought it might be fair for my child to give him or her the chance to find out about his or her biological father.

However, this possibility of contact is only like a door that is kept ajar. There is no guarantee that anybody will ever step through this door. My child might not even be interested in the donor or the donor might be dead by the time my child turns 18. There is also no guarantee that my child will get a lot of answers, a long response or a lot of information from or about the donor. A lot of things can happen in 18+ years, so, who knows what this contact will look like.

It is also important to look at how banks will try to establish the contact with the donor. I read in some online forums that some banks will not tell the donors "Hey, there is a kid who would like to meet you." They contact the donors every x number of years and ask them to update their medical profiles etc. If the donor changed his phone number and/or address he might not even get this request for an update. If the donor reacts and updates his profile, the bank might (or might not) tell him that there is a child that wants to contact him. If he does not react to this request to update the profile, he might never find out that someone would like to get in contact with him. At that point, establishing contact with the donor is a courtesy service of the sperm bank. They will not make more money whether the contact is established or not. There is nothing left for them to gain out of this. So, they may or may not put real effort into this. As far as I know, donors will also not get more money for updating their profiles, so there is no more gain for them in that either - except for helping their offspring, of course... 

There are also some sperm banks out there that promise to try to establish contact with the donor before the child turns 18. There are some mothers and children that feel the need to get in contact with the donor while the children are still little. They might need information for medical reasons or the children just want to know who their biological father is. However, from what I read in different online forums, you cannot really trust that promise some sperm banks give you. They will not give out information of the donor, unless the child`s life is at risk and/or the risk is due to some genetic issue. Often this genetic connection is hard to prove, especially without any information about or additional testing of the donor.

When I found that I had a hard time finding an open donor that also matched my other criteria (such as Rh factor and CMV status) as well, I moved away from choosing an open donor. It is extra money, there is no guarantee if and what kind of contact there will be in the future and I might have to compromise on other important criteria. The question is if having an Open ID donor would be worth the compromises and effort.
 
In addition, some sperm banks give you a lot of information about the donors anyway. For example, one bank gives you the full birth date and adult pictures. 15 years ago, nobody would have thought how easy it would be to find old classmates via the internet. Who knows? In 18+ years, you might be able to find out who this person is just based on his birth date, some adult pictures, and a college major.  It is hard to tell what will happen in the future, but I see that as a possibility. Then again, the question remains if it is a good idea to hunt someone down who never wanted any contact with your child in the first place. If the donor wants to be found in 18 years, he will be found. He can register with the donor sibling website or several yahoo groups no matter if he is an open donor now or not.

So, I came to the conclusion that taken inconsideration all the factors that are not guaranteed, all the things that can go wrong, and all the compromises I would have to make, choosing an open donor might not be one of the highest criteria on my list. It might be unfair to ask a 20 year old donor, who has no idea where his life may take him, to make a life decision like this. But taking away my child`s chance to meet his or her father in the future, is also quite unfair. So, I have been going back and forth trying to make the right decision.

I am currently leaning towards an open donor after I found another reason on the donor sibling registry website. There is a section in which the reviews of sperm banks  from different online discussion groups are compiled. Parents report about their positive and negative experiences with sperm banks. There is one case where some parents suspected that the sperm bank they had used, was falsifying information in the donor profile. These parents had found each other (and maybe even the donor- I cannot recall) on the DSR website. They suspected that the sperm bank thought it could get away with tempering with the donor information, because the donor was not an open donor and the parents, children and the donor would never meet. I don't know in how far this is true or what exactly went on there, but I think this might be a point to keep in mind. With an open donor, a sperm bank has more reason to be really honest and might be less tempted to change or hide some information, because it will come out sooner or later.

So, in summary, this is a really tough decision. Right now, I have a donor I really like and he is an open donor. However, if he should not be available anymore when I try to conceive, I don`t know if I will be able to find another donor that is an open donor and matches my other criteria. And I don`t know if I want to compromise any of the other criteria for this one. If anybody who is reading this has made a decision regarding this issue, I would really welcome any comments in the comment section below.