This will be the thread wherein I bang on about donor insemination, gory details included where relevant

I'm keeping this in TMI, as I'm not sure people-making has the same audience, even though people-making is pretty much the point.

A bit of background: following the breakup of my marriage, in which my husband's reluctance to have kids played a complicated but definite role, I attempted to reinvent myself. I shacked up with a beautiful young man, dizzy with freedom and unsure whether growing up and settling down was quite what I wanted after all, and was surprised to find myself quietly delighted when he said he wanted a family.

So for a few years that was the plan, but the beautiful young man slowly turned into a curmudgeonly hat-hating goblin, and eventually the goblin decided it probably didn't want a family after all. I was sure he would recover, and make a wonderful dad, but he couldn't see it. A childless future with a goblin did not appeal much.

For six months, while he thought it over, I researched the possibility of going it alone. In March, that became the only path open to me, and, well, here I am shopping for spunk on the internet. There've been twists and turns along the way, but too much to tell right now.

as in, shopping for a cryobank, or shopping for a donor/donation?

can ILX come up with a suitable ILXor donor in <5000 posts???

Hat hating! My word.

Shopping for a donor/ donation.

Relationship having deteriorated for several reasons, not just the baby issue (his casual attitude to the truth, disinterest in sex, etc), I wanted to make sure goblin boy wasn't going to cost me my last chance at motherhood.

I started out by talking to my GP, who said that there were various things they could do to help me along if I had fertility issues, but at 38 and with no chap in tow, they boiled down essentially to testing for STDs. He even wrote to the local NHS fertility clinic, and they wrote back saying no way dude, we don't fund single chicks to get up the duff.

Goblin boy offered to pretend to be involved, until the GP told us that the first thing they'd want to do was a sperm count, which apparently was a bridge too far.

It felt like a real kick in the teeth to've been let down by two men AND the NHS, but on the other hand I've always thought spending public money on adding more people to our overcrowded world was bonkers, so I had to take that one on the chin.

After 35, the downward curve of average fertility rates goes rapidly from a gentle slope to the kind of thing you wouldn't ski down unless you're the sort of nutter who likes getting dropped onto the mountain out of a helicopter. I had to do something; I googled.

a friend of mine recently got herself a donor...on craigslist

Wow, I hadn't thought of that! Is it working out for her?

Googling was a bit depressing. There aren't many clinics in the UK that acknowledge the possibility that people looking for help might not be heterosexual couples.

One exception is the London Women's Clinic, who have offices in Cardiff as well as London, which seemed like a good idea for me as I was living 50/50 between London & Bristol. More importantly, their website shouts loud about single women and lesbian couples, and they run regular events called Inseminars (see what they did there) where you can find out more. There was one coming up at the Alternative Families show - this was last November - so I pootled along to see what was what.

Can ILX come up with a donor in less than 6 hours?! I'm determined to order some spermatozoa today, but a pi-reciting baby would be aces.

Up until very recently I seem to remember the NHS had some kind of guideline regarding IVF treatment that a "father figure" had to be involved or something.. ?!

(Which may be why many clinics have been slow to "acknowledge the possibility that people looking for help might not be heterosexual couples.")

i got a vasectomy a week ago so unfortunately i cannot help from a donor standpoint

christov vasjekotmi

... but seriously, I wish you best of luck with this zora :) x

Wikipedia entry on donor insemination (pretty thorough)

Conceivable Ideas - The Guardian

BBC article

Also a long article from the BBC Health web site, with links -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/fertility/fertility_treatments.shtml

This ought to be only slightly more logistically complex than compiling results of a top-20 ballot poll. OK, maybe it's a bit more complicated, but still readily possible. Here's what I would do:

1. Post a description of your predicament on the "Sex Droughts" thread. If you're comfortable doing so, include your general vacinity.
2. Request that any male UK ILXers interested in helping you try to conceive, and in doing so end said drought, contact you via webmail link, including their location, availability, and any other info you deem relevent.
3. Sort through your responses and determine which are within a half-hour drive or tube ride from you.
4. If there are several suitable candidates within range, do a search on their recent ILM posts. Choose the one with the best musical tastes.
5. Using an ovulation predictor kit if needed, determine which night in your cycle you are at peak fertility. This £50 conception kit will also increase your success rate.
6. Arrange to meet prospective donor for tea. If he seems reasonable and trustworthy, invite him over for the night and have at it. (if he doesn't, contact runner-up)
7. Repeat as necessary each <> 28 days.

But first, be very careful about the legal situation concerning liability of biological fathers in your jurisdiction. (In the US, it varies tremendously by state; I know little of UK law in this area). Also would test for STDs/STIs.

And BTW I'm glad you dumped Goblin Boy - anyone with a "casual attitude toward the truth" isn't someone you want to raise a child with.

Oh. This thread is interesting.

I'm a regular ILXor posting, I hope, anonymously. If it turns out that I've messed this up, could a mod edit it?

About a year ago I signed up for sperm donation. It was something I'd wanted to do for most of my life - it felt strange to be sitting in Harley Street, reading about the shortage of donors, and marveling how something so unlikely and wonderful could possibly be short of volunteers. I talked about it with my wife, a lot. I went through blood tests and sperm assessments.

I wrote a letter that the kid would see at eighteen. It made me sound like a minor villain in a novel of swashbuckling romance. I wrote another one.

I remember the feeling that the thing was done.

One week later, I got a call saying that a mistake had been made, that I wasn't eligible after all. They hadn't thought to look for it, as it's extremely rare in people of my ethnic background, but I have sickle cell trait - it's benign, but if I were to be matched with someone else with the same trait, a child could have sickle cell disease, so that was essentially that. I asked if they could screen, and they said they couldn't.

It changed the way I saw things, a little bit. I went from seeing myself as having some sort of wonder-DNA into seeing myself as just another person. That was probably a good thing, all in all, but it was a hard pill to swallow.

Anyway. Temporary address pi✧✧✧@mailina✧✧✧.c✧✧, if you'd like to talk about this sort of thing.

I considered it too - thought it would be an easy way to make $1,000 or so. I drove out to the place - an utterly anonymous little place that looked like a doctor or dentist office. This was in about 1995. They told me only about 5% of applicants prove eligible - the costs of assisted reproduction treatments are too high to chance using anything but near-perfect specimens.

I decided against it because I had serious ethical qualms with the clinic - they only allowed married women to receive their AI services, and I wasn't going to do business with anyone who discriminated against single women (or lesbians, who weren't allowed to marry each other in any US state at the time). Years later, I learned that they hated that restriction too but had to do it for legal reasons - if a single woman in that state had a child and I was the biological father, I could be found liable for child support payments and such, whereas a married woman's husband was the default legal parent no matter who the biological father was. That law was ancient, predating DNA tests to establish paternity or modern assisted reproduction technologies. The law has since been changed, and the clinic now offers their services to singles.

(Oh, that address posted blocked - try piato at gmx dot com)

Hat-hating!

does that describe actual behavior or is it just an epithet?

Uh, ok not hats per se, but me in hats. I've related this story elsewhere on ILX, but essentially at a certain emotionally charged and critical moment I asked him if he still found
me attractive and he said he thought I looked ugly in hats. And he wasn't joking. Bless his tactless little heart.

I don't know if this is considered inappropriate to ask and if I'm gonna get ripped apart for bringing it up, but.... have you considered adoption?

no harm intended obviously

Not inappropriate or harmful IMO, but for the next year or two I'd think it would be far less expensive and troublesome to conceive herself (given that only advancing age seems to be an issue as opposed to reproductive system issues) wouldn't it. Adoption can get troublesome and expensive, unless (kind of the same thing) you have someone you know who has a baby they can't raise themselves that you can adopt.

There's something really wrong with the world that adoption is an expensive exercise :(

Hi guys,

Yes I've given it some thought. For now I'm gunning for donor insemination partly because I (selfishly) want to experience pregnancy for myself and partly because the barriers to adoption are high. As a single woman, no permanent job, not a homeowner... I can't see it being easy.

As for ILX donor polling, that's cute. But I wouldn't dare! What if nobody volunteered?

Also, in the UK the natural father always has parental responsibility unless the insemination is AI and is performed in a registered clinic, and even then, a case can be made. I have considered asking friends, and shied away from it for this reason. More on that when I'm not confined to iPhone.

To present another outside option, it's totally possible to just have sex with someone and get pregnant and just not tell him. I personally know one great little kid who came into the world this way. : )

Obviously that could put you into a tricky predicament if your mom and dad want to meet the father or whatever, but if you don't feel stigmatized about it, then great!

There's a bunch of reasons why I didn't want to do that! Though I may yet have to try it; first IUI today and deal is getting expensive.

> As for ILX donor polling, that's cute. But I wouldn't dare! What if nobody volunteered?

Then you still wouldn't be any worse off than if you didn't try it at all.... it's the legal issues you mentioned that are more bothersome for me.

These things are highly subjective but I feel like I would be worse off, emotionally! And in terms of elapsed time, which is u&k.

Anyways, this cycle is done, it was uncomfortable and weird but it's done. Now I wait 14 days to find out if it worked. The stats on success rates are frustratingly vague, putting the chance per cycle at somewhere between 6 and 26%. The clinic's own figures are not encouraging for single women, who have a lower hit rate than women in couples, be they gay or straight. Nobody knows why. Still, you never know.

Interesting.

Anyway - good luck! I hope it . . . sticks!

:D

Here's hoping you'll be posting in the Knocked Up Roll-Call sometime soon-ish.

^^ indeed! Hope it works out Zora!

(giggling still over ENBB's pun hehe)

woah wait am i not following this thread correctly? youve already got a donor?

good luck!

gl zora

good luck for real

Thank you, all! Gr80, I ordered sperms from a bank in Denmark on Thursday. I do want to go back and mull over the experience (everything from the beginning) but I'm stupidly busy so I don't know when.

woah so they just mail it to you and you're on your own?

can i order this danish to go pls

> woah so they just mail it to you and you're on your own?

Evidently not, as in the UK the biological father would be liable as the legal father if a woman do DIY inseminations, and apparently this can not be overruled by the donor and recipient signing a legal document. And as previously mentioned, the NHS discriminates against singles and lesbian couples. There was a case a few years back where the Child Support Agency ruled that a donor had to pay child support maintenance when a a lesbian civil partnership who was raising his biological child subsequently broke down. No, they want every hopeful mother-to-be (well, at least those with male partners willing to assume legal fatherhood) to visit a registered clinic for every donor recipient, and wants the medical establishment to make money off of infertile women - despite a severe shortage of donors with all the new recent restrictions. Mind you, there are some advantages that go along with the costs - screening for genetic disorders and such, but it shouldn't be the only option. It stinks. I thought it was bad enough in the US, but the UK regulations are ridiculous and cruel. Does the UK gov't plan to start subjecting ordinary blokes looking to conceive a child with their wife, make them go through a battery of tests to make sure their DNA is worthy, motility checks, etc., etc., first or something, before they're allowed to start a family, the way they do with private donors?

I have a friend who had a baby after years of trying using this conception cap, a low-cost, low-tech DIY kit that succeeded after several rounds of expensive treatments failed. This one is geared toward AI, whereas the one I linked to in my earlier 17 aug post is for NI. Also, I'm not sure about UK availability of this cap kit, but they do ship internationally. I have another friend, the one I referred to in another thread, currently using the conception cap along with about 3 quick-frozen, quick-thawed specimens from her donor (who's also a close friend and my main source for this information). They actually started with NI once a month during predicted ovulation, but are now trying to boost their chances by using AI as well via the conception cap (note: men need about 5 days to produce a high-sperm-count sample, thus thawing 3 or 4 samples collected every 5 days in the prior month for her to use over 2 days). They're going on 4 months with no pregnancy yet - she's a few years younger than you, her husband is nearly infertile though so they turned to a donor after years of trying expensive treatments themselves - but are hopeful.

Do you know anything about your donor, or have assurance it's from who you think it is, if it is shipped to you? (from what I've heard/read, this is sometimes not the case, occasionally even with registered.

Ah, nothing I can do really. Except wish you luck along with everyone else here. Don't worry about the statistics you cited earlier, about lower pregnancy rates in coupled vs. single women. Common sense dictates it shouldn't matter much in and of itself; it's important to understand that a statistical correlation between A and B doesn't mean A causes B. Couplehood correlates with so many other things, and one or more of those is probably the real factor increasing their fertility, not that they are coupled. One thing is for sure - your chances will be higher afterward than before. Here's hoping for the best!

(p.s. please excuse my ineloquence and inept writing it's 4:30am EDT...)

No worries.

As Lee surmises, they UPS the sperm to the UK fertility clinic, who then defrost it, wash or re-wash it and perform the IUI. At great expense, natch.

how much do you know about your donor?

pretty sure the UPS driver is the biological father in most of these cases

hey frogbs is on this thread now

http://www.jonco48.com/blog/Froggy.jpg

> pretty sure the UPS driver is the biological father in most of these cases

There was a much-publicized case in the US about 10 years ago where a highly-credentialed guy at a fertility clinic secretly decided to use his own sperm rather than the donor sperm patients thought they were receiving. He wound up having about 75 biological kids. Don't remember his name, but do remember a Saturday Night Live skit about the incident.

> they UPS the sperm to the UK fertility clinic, who then defrost it, wash or re-wash it and perform the IUI. At great expense, natch.

That's what annoys me, the "great expense" bit, when there are inexpensive/free ways to accomplish the same thing. The washing and careful selection etc. are worthwhile services. But they should be optional.

It's like the UK gov't (and some states in the US) believe fertile women have the right to become pregnant for free, but those who have trouble conceiving should have to pay thousands for same (or to adopt as well). Insane.

http://www.timescolonist.com/health/fresh+semen+online+warns+Health+Canada/5324386/story.html

> After 35, the downward curve of average fertility rates goes rapidly from a gentle slope to the kind of thing you wouldn't ski down unless you're the sort of nutter who likes getting dropped onto the mountain out of a helicopter.
For whatever it's worth, I came across some fairly accurate stats about this:

age group / chances of becoming pregnant within a year:

20-24 ... 93%
25-29 ... 91%
30-34 ... 85%
35-39 ... 78%
40-44 ... 71%

Clearly becomes lower with age, but I don't see an alarmingly steep slope after 35. Also, these figures use the oft-used definition of infertility, inability to conceive after one year of unprotected sex. Which I've always thought leads to inherently inaccurate figures, since it doesn't take into account how often these couples have sex during that year. I'd be surprised if some of the dropoff isn't simply a result of the 40 to 45 year old group hooking up less often than the 20-somethings. Anyway, odds still very much in your favor at 38-39.

Much more alarming were these statistics from the same source:

percent of pregnancies ending in miscarriage by age:

15-19 ... 10%
20-24 ... 10%
25-29 ... 10%
30-34 ... 12%
35-39 ... 18%
40-44 ... 34%
45&over .. 53%

Scary, I had no idea it was over half once you're past 45.

Anyway, it's coming on two weeks now, and with some good fortune none of this will matter...

Interesting... what's the source? The figures I've seen are generally for pregnancies resulting in a live birth, so they would equate to your second set, but they have been much worse. I'll try to dig some up so we can compare reliability.

so they would equate to your second set

> Interesting... what's the source?

This guide published by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which cites several studies whose results have been restated in many subsequent documents. But a closer look I took at the first study (originally published in the medical journal Science) shows it to be a mess - it dates from over 25 years ago, it studied only married couples, only in the US, and isn't indicative of all ethnic groups. Even the two people who originally did the research have since redacted it as potentially unrepresentative. The later study about miscarriage is from a different source and looks to be more accurate, although it too is from a quarter century ago.

Even with newer, more accurate stats, realize that studies based on couples trying to conceive naturally typically involve older men as the partners of older women, and thus part of the reduction in fertility is a result of the male partner of a 40-year-old partner averaging 42 or 43 years old. By using donor sperm, you can potentially sidestep that issue if your donor is only 25 and more fertile.

Good luck Zora. I'm waiting for my friend to report back on her pregnancy test, due right around the same time as yours. She's had serious gyno issues that mean her chances are heavily impacted, but decided to give it a go anyway - chances are still chances. Her home internet crashed right as she was getting to the point of choosing a donor and she had to make a quick decision while, well, surfing at work.

Thanks for the support! I'm not pregnant. Not surprising, but I'm gutted anyway.

aw sorry z

Sorry Zora.

Very sorry Zora

Oh Zora, I'm so sorry. It was just a first try, though. Think how many people don't get pregnant easily even from regular sex. Can you try again without additional expense? Or much additional expense?

This time around it didn't work out for my friend either.

Thanks everyone, and I'm sorry to hear it didn't stick this time for your friend, ljubljana.

Laurel, I can and will try 2 more times, at something like £1600 a go.

Really sorry it didn't work first go but pleased you'll keep going. Better luck next time.

(ps I misread the thread title as 'orgy details included...' yesterday, and now I can't see it as anything else)

Ah, if only they did it via orgy, that would be great. Instead what you get is a more or less grouchy doctor with a speculum, a little vial and a long tube. It's neither sexy nor romantic. And in my case (not having been sexually active for a long time) pretty painful. Which was embarrassing, which made me tense up, which was more painful and more embarrassing. Lols!

I didn't even get a dirty mag to look at.

Only tenuously related but I lolled:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/whats-your-problem/8648/

Well, it's D-day #2, where D stands for Discovery. I'd call it PS-day for Peeing on a Stick, but there's a lot of stick-peeing on sticks in the middle of the month, too.

I'm putting off doing the test. I have a long cycle, so it's been 16 days since the last IUI. What's another few hours? And finding out last time was - well, the pregancy test felt like a waste, given that my period arrived an hour later. I'd rather wait for my body to tell me what's going on.

As long as I don't know, I can go on imagining there's something happening in there. Schroedinger's embryo, both conceived and not-conceived, until the stick is peed on and one future collapses.

best of luck

Yes, good luck Zora

good luck

^^^

Fingers crossed.

No-go. Now I have to pick out another bloody donor cause my Dane doesn't have any more samples available. :(

Thanks for the good wishes anyway guys.

How's your friend getting on ljublana?

:(

Bother, bother, and triple bother. I'm sorry.

Sorry Zora. Really hope this works out.

I'm sorry Zora.

Seeing my friend tonight, I think she has a week or so to go before her next test. And then she moves back to the UK to a frantic new job and it gets harder to visit a clinic.

Has she been trying long?

I'm scared now that if the next one fails too, 3 won't feel like enough tries and I'll want to carry on, but it's such an awful thing just to go on and on open-ended, and if my 40th birthday & £6000 spent isn't a sensible cut-off point I don't know what is.

This is her second try, and it's a longer shot for her than average as she's had some serious medical problems. She's got longer to go on the second try than I thought, hasn't started the injections yet.

If 3 doesn't work out you might genuinely yourself feel 'enough' but if you only feel 'enough' because everyone else will perceive 3 as a sensible cut-off and think you're crazy if you go on, perhaps you should ignore that. Obviously the cash is a serious factor as well. 40th birthday? pssh.

Zo, it does seem like this is a time to listen to yourself very, very carefully and spend some contemplative time being open to possibilities and thinking and feeling them through. Three times is not "too much" or possibly not even "enough" if you can continue in a feasible way (financially and emotionally). But if this pursuit gets consuming and makes you unhappy in larger degree than the potential happiness of pregnancy...you will know what to do.

So hard, I am not envying you at all, but however this turns out, you'll have learned something about yourself after trying. Grieve if the answer is no, and start prepping yourself to see the upsides of the next step with this question answered and the sorrows of it behind you. I may be in your shoes in 3-4 years so thank you for walking this walk.

Thank you both for such thoughtful posts. I've been feeling very low about this since Thursday.

I set myself the 40th birthday deadline around 2 years ago, initially at least in part to try to wake Goblin Boy up to the fact that there was some urgency to all this. But I have been comfortable with it up to now. I do think that the idea of pushing against nature and pushing and pushing while the chances of success get smaller and smaller is a recipe for heartbreak. After 40 the chances really are very small.

Also, I have other reasons for not going on indefinitely - I have HPV, and I'm one of those people who get genetically cancer off the back of it. I've been under medical supervision for it for the last ten years, treatments haven't gotten rid of it, they are not happy about me suspending care to try and have a baby. I've had to keep it a secret from the fertility clinic, who would refuse me treatment if they knew it was still an issue. They refused me treatment during the run up to my last LLETZ, which is one reason this-all has taken so long to get going.

Oh well - a friend suggested on Saturday that maybe I need to wait until after this contract I'm on finishes, and I can look after myself better. So perhaps, if I can overcome the fear that strikes through me at the thought of more delays, I should hold the next attempt over until after Christmas and let them have another crack at the dyskaryosis.

The fear is immense though. :/

So sorry to read this, i can just sense in your words how torn up you must feel now.

Just a thought - have you investigated whether the costs or legal barriers are lower in another European country?

The cover story of this past week's print edition of the US news mag Newsweek is about donor insemination, and the increasing trend towards free DIY setups here. That's what got me thinking there may be something similar on the Continent and if so, hopping on a ferry and renting a car must cost less than £2000.

No luck yet with my friend either after 4 months of trying, about to become 5, and she's relatively healthy but about your age too. The difference of course being that it costs almost nothing for them to try. That's what made me curious if there may be a less draconion legal environment across the channel or something for you.

If it helps to know (and I know it probably doesn't), my mother was 42 when I was born, so 40 isn't a brick wall. But it's a personal decision for everyone how long to continue trying.

Can the treatments for your HPV/at-risk-for-cancer condition be given during the pregnancy? Or would you be going untreated for the entire 9 mos?

6000! Just call up markers, he'll sort you out for a slurpy.

Has adoption been discussed instead? Is that in anyway cheaper/more realistic?

iirc it can be very difficult for single people to adopt.

lame

Lame but true. It's hard enough for couples (UK).

I haven't looked up what it would cost to go abroad, or if they'd be more chilled about home insemination. Idk if I could take the disruption but I will have a look - I think the Danish clinic might have been happy to mail me the spoonfuls direct, which would save £800 straight up. I couldn't do an IUI at home, mind, so it would be a tad less effective. You need to give the poor little devils a headstart when they've been frozed and defrosted again.

@Laurel - full 9mos and / or however long I try for. They can't do anything except observe. I don't think the risk is dire, I've been living with it so long already, but they're being pretty twitchy at the moment.

A question (by which I mean no harm to A Hoy Hoy btw) but does it bother you if people bring up the adoption option? Is your wish to carry a child, give birth to it, and raise the child; or is it 'merely' that you want a child? Are both routes to having a child equal to you?

Your post has been on my mind all day, for whatever reason. I have to say your story made me sad, in that you seem like the last person that deserves to live with this fear. Facing HPV and having the desire to have a child, and putting those two on a balancing scale... Pursuing your wish to become a mother meaning you are delaying your own treatment, that is heart-breaking. With such dedication, and such a strong desire and determination to have a child, I would just wish you could find someone to help you out in a way that doesn't cost thousands of pounds. Wanted to ignorantly ask if you don't have any male friends that could or would want to help you out, but I'm sure you already went through the 'list'.

I'm sorry if I can't offer a more constructive reply, Zora, but I really do hope this will work out for you. Setting a strict deadline (turning 40) is a good one to mark how far you are willing to go for this, and the money going into it is obviously a huge factor. On the other hand, 'cutting short' such a desire at such a definitive date could be too brash. I (as a 32 year old male, non-father) don't have any golden tip for you, but I do think you will feel when your body or mind or heart tells you: "It's enough". And if that moment comes when you are 43, that is fine too. But my wish is that you will become pregnant before that and will raise a wonderful child.

Same here except that I do have a kid, but still sheepish about offering any suggestions because you've thought it all through already. I did wonder about

a friend of mine recently got herself a donor...on craigslist

― hardcore oatmeal (Jordan), Tuesday, August 16, 2011 10:17 PM (1 month ago)

though, because with there being so many options for dating on the internet with all sorts of filters, I've kind of assumed that there must be a service for meeting people purely for this.

Of course it doesn't bother me if people bring up the adoption option. I do very, very much want to carry, give birth to and raise a child, but I can see that it is in many ways a selfish desire, and I can also see that a few years down the line there probably wouldn't be any difference in how I or my family felt towards the child.

Sadly there's no way I'd be allowed to adopt. It's telling that the 'Can I Adopt?' page on adoption.org.uk doesn't even list 'I am single' as a potential status you might be worried about (though they tell you not to apply if you haven't been with your partner very long).

Ismael, yes there are several such services, they are dead scary.

With such dedication, and such a strong desire and determination to have a child, I would just wish you could find someone to help you out in a way that doesn't cost thousands of pounds. Wanted to ignorantly ask if you don't have any male friends that could or would want to help you out, but I'm sure you already went through the 'list'.

Can't imagine there'd be many willing to help, since UK law would hold them liable for child support. I'm in the US and wouldn't help out a friend unless I could rule out legal responsibility for her child, which can be done in some situations, in some states, which is how my aforementioned friend was able to work this out - legal responsibility for raising the child defaults to her husband, not the donor (who i'm also close friends with).

I couldn't do an IUI at home, mind, so it would be a tad less effective. You need to give the poor little devils a headstart when they've been frozed and defrosted again.

You could do an ICI at home though (as you're probably aware), which is almost as effective if done right. (Done right = using a cervical cap that holds everything in the right place for a day or two.) As I mentioned upthread I have a friend whose child (now about 3yo) was conceived this way, and this IIRC was with very low-tech freezing in a home freezer and letting it thaw out when ready placing vial in warm water.

Sadly there's no way I'd be allowed to adopt. It's telling that the 'Can I Adopt?' page on adoption.org.uk doesn't even list 'I am single' as a potential status you might be worried about (though they tell you not to apply if you haven't been with your partner very long).

Don't know what to say, except UK laws regarding both donor insemination and adoption totally suck.... Why won't they allow women who want to be good parents become parents?

6000! Just call up markers, he'll sort you out for a slurpy.

...

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Monday, October 10, 2011 5:46 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

did you really make this joke?

At the clinic, waiting for IUI #3. I hope they don't hurt me so much this time.

Good luck, Z. There is a blogger I read who announced yesterday she's pregnant. They'd done 3 rounds that didn't take and she'd all but given up before giving the OK to a 4th which she really really didn't expect to work. Guess what? It did! Fingers crossed that you have similar good fortune.

yes, i really hope it works out for you, zora.

Thinking of you, Zora, and hope they treated you right!

Ah, thanks everyone!

They hurt me fckn loads, and I'm still cramping now. Hardly the moment of loving ecstasy one imagines conceiving in.

In case anyone's thinking of doing IUI and is worried though, it's been painful for me because my cervix is in a super-awkward position. They have to pretty much grab it with the speculum and haul it into view. If yours is in a conventional place I can't see why it would hurt at all.

Oh god that sounds like my experience with IUD inserts, I am so sorry it's been like that for you.

Is your new doner another Dane?

Pain relievers available from doctor maybe helpful (i.e.hydrocodone works well for this sort of pain)

hope the pain eases

My new donor is an English farmer; they've improved the catalogue slightly so you get a little bit of blurb about the guy, which is (kind of) enough to give you an idea of their personality. And it's a few hundred quid cheaper to use the London bank's sperm.

The pain stopped after a couple of days.

Due tomorrow - it's gone quicker this time - but once again I feel pretty definitely pre-menstrual.

good luck, z.

All the best Zora, fingers crossed!

Thanks guys.

I hate this - I don't know how to play it! I want to wait and see if my period comes but it's not like it's reliable to the hour or anything. Some people have said the pre-menstrual feelings are the same as the signs of early pregnancy, so I no longer have any confidence in my ability to interpret.

I hate the way it's changing the nature of the conversation between me and my body. We've always carped at each other, not always good-naturedly, but it was familiar - now it's like all the rules have changed.

best wishes that babby is formed, zora

Negative.

Damn. Big hug, Zora.

Nnnngggggg. This process has to top the stress and frustration charts. I'm sorry.

Thanks. I'm tearful, and I should be working. I'm going to read the 7 billion thread again to remind myself that breeding isn't necessarily brilliant. Hiss, boo.

<3 sorry, Z.

Boo hiss down with that sort of thing!

So, here's a mindfuck; although the test was negative, still no period. A few days late means nothing, I know, and the tests are meant to be 99% accurate, but argh, can't stop the little voice in the back of my head going "what if....?"

Is it just a standard pregnancy test from a chemist that you're using? (shit, I've gone American, nearly wrote 'drugstore'). No harm taking another one.

Yup, a standard test. They are meant to be sensitive enough to be accurate on day 1 (unlike most US ones which I understand are less sensitive), but I will do another at sone point if nothing's happened. The test instructions say to wait a week to give hcg levels time to increase significantly.

A week!

Sone = some

Well, TMIers, looks like I might be knocked up after all.

oh shiiii

congrats!

Shit indeed! And thanks! Though at this stage it's hardly a done deal, I've been reading and I now properly understand why people keep this shit secret for 12 weeks.

Still, wow.

btw mookie is a lovely name for a boy child

You're right!

And I am incredibly hungry and it's nearly morning, so I guess I should get back up and eat breakfast.

!!!!

this is v. exciting and happy-making

:-)

If it's a girl, call her Heather. I've always liked that name for some reason.

aw, I've got everything crossed for you

sincerest best hopes and wishes xx

Thank you! I'm all of a fuzzle! I wish I had some special someone to share this with, and it's very scary, but on the other hand I'm appallingly proud of myself for getting even this far on my own!

Woooooooo Zora! :-D

All smiles here, so happy for you!

You should be damn proud, yes!

I'm so pleased for you Z. It's best to stay cautious this early but still, thrilled.

Zora, this is great to hear! well done for getting this far, and I hope things continue to go well for you.

Zora! That's wonderful - everything, except fallopian tubes, crossed for you!

Best of luck, surfing! This sounds like a great start.

!

great news! much luck to you!

Yay, what exciting news!!

When a friend of mine was v newly pregnant she told me that women on a msbrd she frequented would wish each other sticky babies during the early days when everything is so v tenuous. So congratulations and here's to a sticky babby for you! :)

Maybe uncertain would be better than tenuous. Anyway - you know what I mean. Yay !!! :)

Zo Zo Zo!!!! Okay, holding breath until all is more certain.

Zora! That's wonderful - everything, except fallopian tubes, crossed for you!

― ljubljana, Thursday, 10 November 2011 10:48 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

1. This is such a wonderful post.

2. This is such wonderful news! Z! ~hugz~

I know a woman with two young boys who is standing in as an aunt, and her boys as cousins, to another friend who decided to have a baby on her own. You can recruit "family" from whatever supportive circles you've got! Then you'll have people to tell things to irl!

Awww Zora, I am crossing so many fingers for you. (Makes it kind of hard to type.) Best of luck!

Thank you everyone! I'm really touched by your enthusiasm; it's great to know I'm getting so many good vibes.

I've told my dad and my sister, and I'll tell my best-friend-potential-co-parent tonight. Oh gawd, I suppose I will have to tell Goblin Boy soon too, as he is pining a bit and has been looking at houses again. And then I think that will do for IRL tellings, except maybe my midwife aunt who is a mine of useful (often disgusting) information. I feel a bit guilty, because my wider circle of friends have also been taking an interest and requested updates, but oh - tenuous *does* feel like the right word!

Miscarriage rates are so much higher than I realised before I started looking into this. People just don't talk about it. Unfortunately the destiny of the pregnancy seems to be largely determined in the few days around implantation, i.e. before you're aware of it. And there'd be nothing you could do anyway - early miscarriages are largely down to chromosomal abnormalities.

I might post factoids on this later but I don't want to bum everyone out when we're still celebrating! And on that thought, I am off to get some decaf tea, some more vitamins and a very large stock of ginger biscuits, as recommended by my sister. A biscuit tin by the bed - how delightful to have an excuse for that!

Wow, I almost didn't look at this forum today, figuring there probably wouldn't be anything new since last night. Wow!!!! Awesome news! I'm wearing a hat today in your honour....

goblin boy?

my ex.

I'm still not sure why you ever communicate with that guy! If you do, I hope you refer to him as goblin boy.

(I meant wearing a hat because she couldn't do that before w/o drawing a complaint abt her appearance from her ex. Solidarity, you know...)

bang on, zora

Much appreciated, everyone. Hat details please, Lee! What kind is it?

I thought he told her she looked cute in the one hat and that was the prob. I'm prob just confused.

You're not still seeing him at all, are you? It was sort of unclear from your message what with the "pining" part but then you referred to him as your ex so I got even more confused.

mh, to his face I mostly call him Muppet, Boy-Face if I'm feeling kind. We're still pretty close. He's really fabulous in small doses; I think maybe living with someone wasn't right for him at the time, with his chronic pain issues and all.

ENBB I still see him about once a month when I go back to Bristol. We aren't together, but neither of us is interested in starting a new relationship. He's clearly less conflicted since I moved out, and he would like me to go back if I don't have a baby, if I want to. We're getting on very well, but as I say, it may be that living together just doesn't work. Anyway, it's not top of my list of things to worry about right now!

And he doesn't think I look cute in any hats! All hats = turn off, apparently!

you and your baby can live in your own house and wear fetching hats.

^ otm

haha I remembered it wrong, I think. Anyway - hope you had lots of nice ginger biscuits today and are feeling well. :)

One biscuit about 5 mins ago, it's nearly half one in the morning, I'm hungry again already, constantly feel like I need to pee, my boobs hurt like they haven't since they grew in and I'm far too excited to sleep. I'm amazed at how pregnant women just carry on with their lives like nothing was happening. I must try though, work was a bit of a washout today and I can't afford to be all over the place again tomorrow.

Hugs to you all x

> Hat details please, Lee! What kind is it?

Don't really know my hat styles, but it's a soft 100% wool hat for skiing or cold weather. One of my Canadian relatives and a few friends started a small company that made hats and jackets several years ago, where the frigid winters create a good market for nice warm clothing, and gave me one of the hats they made. I'm wearing it in this typically unflattering cell phone self-portrait:

https://post.craigslist.org/imagepreview/n/5P45R45S33n63m43l5bbb8855450e908f1192.jpg

I almost never wear hats, so everyone was asking why I was wearing one. "Uh, it's a long story, don't worry about it ...."

If a Canadian gave you one, you must call it a TOQUE my good friend!

As in "Oh boy eh, I'm glad this toque can keep my head warm, since I've run out of Timmie's"

No need for the defensive look. It's an elegant wee hat.

I've somehow never heard "toque", though my Montrealer mother exposed me to plenty of other Canadianisms whilst growing up, along with uniquely Quebec/Montrealer expressions that arise as a result of predominantly French speakers using English (you don't turn off the light, you "close the light"). I've sat on a chesterfield, held onto the bannister so I wouldn't fall down the stairs, and washed up the dishes in the sink (using washing-up liquid. Brits do the latter as well, but only Canadians then dump their leftovers down the garburator.

> No need for the defensive look. It's an elegant wee hat.

But do *I* look good wearing it?

I've somehow never heard "toque",

Not even from Bob and Doug McKenzie?

Yes you look good in the hat. Maybe you'd look even better without the hat though? I can't tell.

Nobody take any notice of this please, I'm just going to vent for a minute.

I'm having really bad cramps today, and feeling weak and ill. I'm terrified of miscarrying, and I'm sooo high-risk, and every day that passes feels like a blessing and a curse. A slightly higher chance it will stick. A little bit more emotional investment.

My dad's being solicitous, making sure I eat regularly, but what I really want is someone to go through this with me shoulder to shoulder, someone who'll rub my sore back and stroke my hair when I'm scared. I know lots of women have partners and still don't get that. It doesn't make me feel better. This is LONELY.

It'll pass. Sleep would probably be a sound idea.

I wish I could at least make you endless cups of tea!! (useless substitute, but I would put sugar in and everything)

Aw, thank you! I feel fine about it most of the time. It's worst at night, when I'm tired and emotional and there's nothing to distract me. Today the sun's out and being up the duff is a-ok. Today, I feel like even if I lose this pregnancy, I'll be glad to have ever been pregnant at all.

I'm trying not to race ahead and worry about things like - who will be my birth partner? What will I put under 'father' on the birth certificate? Will anyone stand up and tell me if I pick out a really terrible name? (of course they will).

One day at a time...

Hey, one day at a time!

Your post made me think, and think about how having a bebe w/o a bebe-daddy around is a new way, something that women can choose for themselves, and I had this thought: maybe it would be constructive to think of yourself, not as someone who "lacks" a partner, not as incomplete, but as if you and the baby ARE the partnership? Or something? I don't know if that would work for you but it strikes me that you are being a new creature here, and setting the...standards for the sitch is entirely up to you.

Hi Laurel, yeah you're right in principle; this is something I have chosen to go ahead with on my own, I am striking out into a new future - the SFnal and feminist aspects of this choice really appealed to me when I was making my mind up to do it.

Of course the reminders that I am 'lacking a partner' are absolutely everywhere. Books about conception and pregnancy, for example, have the asumption that there is a man in the picture woven right into them. Even the one book I found for single mothers-to-be assumes that there is a father with an interest out there somewhere, even if you're not together. Considering that this process has been a plotline on The Archers (surely no greater bastion of reassuring respectability exists in this country?) there's a major lack of material out there.

I'm hardly blazing a trail. But I am wondering if I should write a book, just because it's been so hard to find anything that didn't wind me up to read. It might help me set the standards for my sitch, as you put it. :)

Maybe there are other women who can help make a platform of this knowledge for you to rest on?? Talking to people who treat it as normal and don't remind you about being single would help w new perspective, even if you have to do it by phone cos they're not nearby or w/e. Some people to take as examples...???

Are there dedicated online fora?

Even if there are online places to go, if there's no friendly print book out there, and depending how tiring this all gets, writing one seems like a good plan to me - and writing about all this might generally be a cathartic and thought-sorting experience.

Zygote check!

I seem to still be pregnant, best anyone can tell!

I haven't found any online fora. There's the Donor Conception Network, which caters for all circs, not just single mothers, but they charge £35 a year to join and I ain't playing that game unless someone comes along who recommends them highly.

There *is* a book though - I'd forgotten about it because it wasn't in bookshops and it's American, where one of the main things I wanted was help navigating the UK process. It's called Knock Yourself Up - A Tell All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom.

How many weeks are you right now?

Is there a cultural difference working here? There are unwed mothers all over here around me, and no one bats an eye, even if they are underage.

Yeah but I bet most of them didn't intentionally set out to be single mothers via insemination. There's a huge difference somehow, I think.

There are also cultural/class differences at work, yes.

Kind of like how a 25 year old male at the bar was lamenting the fact he was "getting old" and needed to get married and/or have a kid. It'd more more out of the ordinary in my group of friends to have a kid by 25.

> Books about conception and pregnancy, for example, have the asumption that there is a man in the picture woven right into them

A quick search on Amazon turned up these books:

Going It Alone
The Single Woman's Guide to a Happy Pregnancy, 2010 Edition
What Next???: An Honest Handbook for Single, Expecting Mothers
The Single Woman's Guide to a Happy Pregnancy
Choosing You: Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own

Some of these are on the UK site although I don't know if they're UK-specific, must less if the books are any good, but they're clearly many that have written guides or memoirs of the experience.

I'm 5 weeks, which is really 3 weeks because they count it from your last period, for some reason.

The cultural / class thing is different, I mean, nobody bats an eye at actual, individual single mothers here but there is ofc that right wing narrative going on about teenage girls getting pregnant on purpose the better sponge off the welfare state, and young black men growing up thinking they have no responsibility towards their kids or girlfriends, failing to provide a generation with male role models, all that.

I'm 39 and I have a postgraduate degree and a respectable income; I'm not going to be taken for part of the despised feckless underclass. But as ENBB says, deliberately setting out to be a single mother does raise eyebrows, is different. Can't blame it on the babyfather. The ideal of the nuclear family still holds immense sway, if not so much in people's lived experience then certainly in civil life and parts of the media. People are pretty surprised when I tell them what I'm doing.

Luckily people close to me have mostly been supportive. However, Da System has not caught up. Some examples have already come up (I mean, I've already whined about them), but for e.g. the NHS simply has not recognised what I'm trying to do as valid. I was refused assistance with my infertility (never mind donor insemination) on grounds of being single, before I was old enough to also be refused on grounds of age. There are 2 NHS trusts I know of in the UK who will help single women and lesbians, for the rest, it's enshrined in their guidance that the only acceptable parents are heterosexual couples.

To illustrate the difference between the North Bristol NHS Trust and actual folk, I was in the gynae clinic yesterday and the nurses remembered me and all beamed broadly when I told them I was pregnant. One of them cheered.

Anyway, that's what I wanted support on: the practicalities of negotiating with the NHS, what you can and can't expect from them, how to choose a fertility clinic, how to choose a donor, what the blood tests mean, what the law says, how to cope with the anxiety of going through the IUI treatments alone. I'm not *really* concerned about social acceptance.

xpost

Thanks Lee!

A couple of those I have picked up and they are totally "Oh shit, your mang has abandoned you with a bun in the oven, how ever will you decide whether to give his mom access to the baby?"

But the first and last ones look promising.

I just noticed I mentioned the same book twice, but w/e....

This whole notion that some people (a dwindling percentage, fortunately) have that single women shouldn't have kids is beyond absurd, given how many of them wind up in a LTR or married by the time the kid is 5 years old, and conversely, so many that are married when they have their first child get divorced before the children grow up. It's not like having a kid when you're completely single dooms you to forever being alone.

Zora Zora try to get this US book called A Bitch in the House if you can, from amazon.com or something, because it's not only about single women choosing to have kids, but about all kinds of conventional and unconventional partnership and domestic choices. There're some rly interesting essays in which the women chose to raise kids alone, or mostly alone, or from previous partners, or w/e.

Ooh, ok, I'll have a look for it!

And the drama never ends - I'm bleeding, I'm in A&E, I'm hungry and bored and I've run out of energy for worrying. Stick baby stick.

Oh Zora, that's awful :-(

Stay strong, and indeed baby, stick! Fingers crossed for you, hope you'll be ok.

This doesn't sound good. I hope things turn out well.

The Internet sez it's 50/50 for a miscarriage if there's bleeding. Healthcare people seem concerned but not enough to speed me through A&E. I only came coz GP told me to, wish I hadn't, seems like there's nothing they can do anyway?

Don't rely on the Internet for baby health matters, I've read some quite distressing false crap on there while doing same. Hoping for the best for you here zora.

Thanks all. Meantime A&E has gotten quite entertaining and I should be called soon.

Stay positive and hang in there!

~~~~~~~~~~vibes

What Tracer said. We had a couple of similar scares and trips to A&E in our last pregnancy and everything worked out fine.

Thinking of you, give updates about A&E in case of exciting drama!

Oh, Z! Echoing vibes and finger-crossing.

Oh gods, A&E. Apparently they called me while I was in the loo, and I sat there for another hour like a lemon.

Been seen, no scan, cervix closed but still evidence of bleeding, 24 hours bed rest. Ugh. Is this what happened to you Stevie T?

Sticky baby vibes! xo

I wouldn't bother so much but pregnancy symptoms are fading fast and I'm cramping more and more. Think it's a goner. Hope I'm wrong.

me too! more vibes

We had bleeding, largely pointless trip to A&E, told to return the next day for scan, a terrible night during which we pretty much tried to inure ourselves to the loss, and then a scan the next day when everything proved to be fine. This was several months into pregnancy though... Fingers crossed for you.

I'll get a scan on Monday, if nothing changes before then. My sister has offered to jump on a train and come look after me. <3

Xposts

(fyi: "I'm 5 weeks, which is really 3 weeks because they count it from your last period, for some reason." they actually count it from the date of conception, which, if ladies don't remember exactly, can be estimated from the last period---ovulation being roughly half-way through a 'regular' 28 day cycle, etc)

Oh, so you were out of the real danger zone then. But how terrifying to face that prospect after months of being ok! I've only had 8 days to bond with my apple pip and I'm petrified.

More xpost

Gbx they have all - GP, my aunt the midwife, hospital just now, counted from last period. Don't ask me why!

good luck and hugs, z.

yes, all best wishes to you, zora.

Thank you. The bleeding has stopped but I'm now getting terribly painful cramping, this seems to me like it's backwards for a miscarriage but what do I know, nuffin. Monday seems a dreadful long way off.

Seems like bleeding first and cramping afterwards is usual, ho hum. I've been (mostly) distracting myself with Skyrim and a spot of aspirational house-hunting, it's three in the morning, and I'm feeling more... zen. Thanks again everyone for the support. (hugs)

Damn, just seen this. Everyone has said it all, so I will just think it. <3

Another day, another a&e department. This one has 7 signs up saying Switch off all Mobile Phones, but one saying ok, we understand you need to use your mobile phone. I'm going with that one.

The pain has coalesced on the right hand side, so there's a chance it's ectopic. Even if not the pain is so bad now I'll be gobsmacked if I'm not miscarrying.

My dad, who is trying to stand in for my late mother as well as my lacking partner, has come with me, seems more scared than I am. That's cool; it gives me someone to be strong for.

Are they seeing you soon?

Stay strong Zora, sending a shedload of good vibes over to you

Keeping my fnigres corssed for (wtf? had no idea this even existed)

I've been taken to a room of my own, they've relieved me of some bodily fluids and palpated my tummy, and gone away leaving me to snooze and pa to read and eat grapes. So far the only feedback I've had is that my blood sugar's low, so I've had some grapes too. Waiting...

I had a pear in solidarity. :( <3 <3

Mmm, pear.

Finally got seen by a gynae, cervix still closed, no sign of blood now, mucho tenderness. They want me to stay overnight so they can scan me ASAP. Boring but it's also quite a relief just to be in their hands with no decisions to make. Sad my sister won't be with me for the scan like we planned.

I've sent pa off to his pop concert, wish I'd brought a decent book to read! The one I've got could provide 1000 posts worth of fodder for the Grammar Fiends.

Whatcha reading?

It's space opera, I picked it up at a con after chatting to the author, so I won't embarrass him by naming the book! Writers are terrible vanity surfers.

So. Consultant decided to send me home and have me back in 1st thing Monday for the scan. My blood hcg is only 347 where it should be at least 1100, which is consistent with miscarriage OR an ectopic pregnancy. She said there is a slim chance it could be viable but we just have to corss our fnigres.

Hopefully just a dramatic baby looking for attention! I'm rooting for ya, lady. xoxo

Have the most relaxing Sunday you can possibly muster. People are to bring you all manner of fruits and your reading matter is to be grammatically impeccable.

Also, wear a hat at all times because everyone on ILX thinks you look great wearing them. (take that, hat hating man!)

Most folks know from sandbox, but just in case anyone stumbles across this thread and is of a disposition that can't tolerate cliffhangers-

The scan showed zip, nada, nothing at all. As if I'd never been pregnant. I had already lost almost all hope of there being a viable fetus so it was actually a relief because it meant no ectopic (5 women a year still die from ectopic pregnancies o.O) and also no D&C. D&C, as I said on sandbox, stands for Dilation and Curettage and is basically a good old scrape to make sure there's no fetal material left in the uterus, as this can cause serious infections.

The day of the scan was wierdly great. I felt the best I'd felt in ages and I had the whole day to hang out in London with my sister and no kids, which never happens. We shopped, met my dad at the V&A and had tea, and had supper at the Queen's Arms (great little pub in South Ken, check it out if you haven't been).

Tuesday the kid sister had to go back to her brood and ofc that's when the REAL pain started, and I spent another 4 days in bed, bleeding and sulking. Sometimes, when there was nobody around, I bellowed in pain like a dying animal. Whitman had his barbaric yawp, I my direful, barbaric moo.

Now it's like it was a night terror or something. It happened, but not quite in *this* world. Occasionally I cry, but I cry at Christmas anyway (it's not that long since my mum turned up her toes.)

I'm not sure whether I'll go back to the clinic or not. I'm over that birthday hurdle now and it feels like it would be very reasonable to stop. I've been told to let 2 periods happen before trying again anyhow, and it took 8 weeks for the first to come so I've got a while yet before there's a decision to make.

oh zora, i'm so sorry this isn't going the way you had hoped. keep yr chin up and all that <3

Some time to not-think sounds a good idea. I can imagine your possible states of mind during those four days, and massive kudos for getting through them.

Hiya, Zo! Grief is a thing that can eat you. I'm glad you survived it! I'm sorry the fertility treatments didn't turn out the way you wanted so much and that the struggle has been long.

Thank you, all. I'm doing OK, keeping busy, trying to come up with positive plans for the future and so on. The not-thinking is lovely, cause I haven't got to say 'never' just yet, I can just have a rest.

*revive*

I'm shopping for spermz again. Feels 90% like flogging a dead horse, but if it stops me from randomly bursting into tears, I'm doing it.

Wishing you all the luck Zora

Thank you!

This time I'm only telling ILX. I can't face putting my family and friends through any more angst on my behalf when the chances of success are - what was that maths word - epsilon?

Of course success would screw up my creative retreat plans royally, and I'm genuinely distressed at that, so as a silver lining it seems to be working.

(In my head I'm picturing a kind of silvery safety net, with images of daisy-studded lawns and book-lined rooms with high ceilings.)

All the best Zora. I admire your persistence in this, I really do.

It's not persistence
it's the path of least resistance

Good luck, Z. I understand what you mean about not telling anyone. Friends of mine recently adopted a baby and after two adoptions that fell through last minute they didn't tell anyone this time until they got the call that the mom was in labor and they were on their way to the airport.

Well, I won't pretend to know better, but imho it takes a lot of strength to go and try it again.

If anyone is super-bored or feeling curious about donor catalogues these are on my shortlist:

http://www.londonspermbankdonors.com/product_p/db14.htm
http://www.londonspermbankdonors.com/product_p/lsb%2049.htm
http://www.londonspermbankdonors.com/product_p/lsb-87.htm
http://www.londonspermbankdonors.com/product_p/lsb%2040.htm

The Nigerian man the staff were raving about is sold out again. /sigh

...this is so wierd.

i like donor 14!

I like them all! But that's why they're on my shortlist.

It must be obvious I've never seen a website like that, but I o_O and chuckled at the quantity field being exactly like, say, amazon.

xp I like the first and second one. If you would express your interest, will they send you photographs? Or is that a big no-no?

They won't. It's odd - the Danish one has baby pictures you can see online, the American ones charge you an outrageous sum to see pictures, these guys will show you a pencil sketch but only - I think, this is a new thing - after you buy.

Wait, a pencil sketch of... himself? You would be in for a pretty bad shock if I was the donor because you'd be getting a stick figure or possibly a smiley face

This is due to my artistic skills, btw, not any need for anonymity :)

Lies, it is because you are a stick man with a smiley face! Confess it!

I've been found out!

Mwaahahhaha.

I think they have a professional artist; they make a fuss about how donor 70 is doing his own.

Yikes I'd be afraid to donate to this place, lest they write mean stuff about me in the "staff impressions"

I like 70. - anyone whose interests and hobbies are "people" wins me over. Plus he's a musician!

Best of luck this time, Z

Oh, they never say anything mean, they are sales professionals! Don't forget this fizz comes in at £850 a straw.

!

Good luck, Zora!

Blimey! Pencil sketches? Good luck, Zora, I hope this works out, and wish you the strength to deal with the bumpy emotional ride again.

emphasis on "bump"

Very best of luck Zora. When I was in the UK in January I kept seeing the cheery and upfront logo of the LSB on the tube and though of you!

Thanks gang.

Those cheery adverts really get up my nose. They make it look so safe! So easy! As if you are just popping in and buying a smily new baby. Grrr.

I like this guy!

http://www.londonspermbankdonors.com/product_p/lsb%2029.htm

xp - the ads I saw were targeting donors. Yeah, I can imagine that the ads for the service itself to women might smooth over an awful lot.