After the negative result at the end of this, our final IVF cycle, we moped around for a couple of days as we mourned our loss. Not only was it the failed IVF we were mourning, but for me it also was accepting that I had failed—not even advanced science could help me be a dad.
In the end, the decision to use donor sperm was a no-brainer. No, I would not be a biological father. But I would be a dad and that was all I ever wanted anyway. Also, Jay-Jay would be the biological mother—that would help reduce some of the massive weight of guilt I was lugging around with me as the cause of the infertility treadmill we’d been stuck on for so many years now.
Selecting a donor
We had a lot to think about as we picked our way through the process of selecting a sperm donor. I made it clear to Dom, right from the start, that I would be completely happy with donor sperm as long as he was. And I thought he should make the final decision about where it came from.
It was important for Dom to be 100 per cent happy with the choice of sperm donor. After all, the child would be half mine biologically speaking and I would be carrying it inside me for nine months.
As it had become increasingly likely IVF would not work out for us, some friends had offered us their sperm. This is a remarkably awkward conversation to have with someone and it’s the most amazingly generous and unselfish offer a friend could make. We suspect there were other friends who would have liked to offer but couldn’t think of a way to talk about it.
The four offers we had all came from married men with their own children. Two of the guys had had vasectomies—one of them had some frozen sperm he told us we were welcome to use and one of them offered to get his vasectomy reversed.
Dom’s younger brother Daniel, who lives in Perth with his wife and three children, also offered us his sperm. Going with Dan would have made the most sense in many ways. He and Dom look quite similar and share some genes, so there would be a chance any children would resemble Dom a little bit, which seems important to society. The first thing most people say when they see a newborn baby is usually a comment on which parent the baby looks like.
In the end, Dom felt having kids that looked like him was not part of his motivation to become a parent. He said it was more likely, if we were able to have our own biological children, he’d breathe a sigh of relief if they looked like me rather than him!
After talking about the offers we’d received and considering sperm from the bank at the clinic, we talked about other friends and whether we could ask someone to help us by becoming a donor. Eventually, Dom emailed an old friend of his—someone we both love and respect, who already had a great family of his own. Dom told him about our five failed attempts at IVF and the reasons for our infertility, before he talked about our last avenue possible—donor sperm.
Here is the end of the email Dom sent to his great mate.
This is a bit of a big deal because I suppose it means your kids will have a 1/2 brother or sister. And you would be a father . . . but in a biological sense only.
It’s pretty crazy stuff. But stuff that we have had years to get our heads around so to us it’s just science and the process we need to go through in order to (hopefully) have a family. I can understand this will be a huge call for you, though, especially getting an email like this from out of the blue.
Your answer may be an outright no. Or you might have a shitload of questions. Either way, please do take this email as a huge compliment!
Dom.
After Dom clicked on Send, we both felt an instant relief followed by a wave of anxiety. When would he read the email? Would he respond? What would he think? It was incredibly nerve-racking. To relieve some of the tension, Dom sent him a text to tell him to check his inbox. An hour later we got a reply.
Hey guys
Not an awkward email at all. I’ve been wanting to give Jay-Jay one for a long time. Lol.
On a serious note, I would be honoured to be able to help you guys out. Let me know when you’re free and we can have a chat over the phone.
You’d think we had just won Lotto with all the squealing and hugging that was going on in our house and as soon as we’d calmed down a bit Dom picked up the phone and called his friend ‘Johnny’ (not his real name). It was a weird conversation for two mates to have—men seldom share intimate details with each other about serious issues other than beer and sport. I felt privileged to hear it.
I contacted the clinic immediately to let them know we had decided on a sperm donor. None of us realised how much of a process the donor would be put through until then. Johnny and his wife had to go to counselling and he had to have all the screening blood tests we’d had in the beginning.
Then he had to make four separate trips to his nearest clinic to donate sperm. He had to have two–three days without sex—but no more than five days—before each donation so the sperm would be suitable to freeze. The sperm had to be quarantined, usually for six months—we managed to get it down to three months because we know and trust our donor. Then there were more blood tests and, finally, one more counselling session. Dom and I had to have two lots of counselling, too, and we were not allowed to use the sperm until after our second counselling session.
We worried that all these demands would scare Johnny off, but he happily attended every appointment and did what was needed. And we were all surprised when his sperm results came back. Usually a donor gives four deposits to allow for about ten inseminations—in case you want a sibling down the track. Most men have about twenty million sperm per sample, but Johnny had 106 million! After just two deposits, we had enough for sixteen inseminations! He not only had a lot of sperm but his sperm was also extremely fertile, so he was able to stop after just two visits to the specimen room.
People at the clinic were very impressed and affectionately called him ‘Super Sperm’. We felt very hopeful this would work. If I couldn’t get pregnant from Super Sperm, something was seriously wrong! Johnny kept us up to date on all of his visits to the clinic, usually by texting Dom. Meanwhile, I was getting regular updates from his wife.
He has done his blood tests and we are booked in for the interview.
It’s not really me or my body, but we are glad to be able to help. I really hope this works for you guys, you two are amazing people who will be—and already are—awesome parents.
I did know you were going for the last round of the IVF and had been thinking about you. The sperm donation also crossed my mind and, although Johnny and I never talked about it, I had always thought of him as a donor option. He and Dom are very similar in some ways . . .
Anyway, I think it’s awesome and we feel very honoured and privileged to be able to help.
Much love
I was overwhelmed by her generosity and care.
The first time I talked to Johnny on the phone, it was a bit weird—awkward weird. He was Dom’s friend and I hadn’t had a very personal conversation with him before. We usually just chatted about what friends chat about. But he was cool and it was great to hear it in his voice.
IN HIS OWN WORDS—SELECTING A DONOR
Over the years, friends had offered to help in any way they could, including four offers to become a sperm donor. It is bloody humbling, this stuff. Discovering you have friends that would be as unselfish as that is mind-blowing.
Shortly after, we decided to go with a sperm donor and talked about all the options, including a donor from the bank. Eventually, we talked about an old friend of mine and we agreed he’d be the perfect donor for us.
How do you approach a good mate to ask if he would consider being a sperm donor? I thought it’d be best put in writing so he would have time to digest it, think about it, and talk about it at length with his wife. I have to say it was a bizarre email to write and send.
We’d been mates for about twenty years but we live in different cities, so it is not uncommon for us to go a whole year without seeing each other. For selfish reasons, this was fairly important to me with the donor. If we were lucky eno
ugh to have kids this way, I didn’t like the idea of the child’s biological dad being too much of a presence. I think I would possibly feel a bit jealous. Writing that down I know how stupid it sounds—selfish, even. But until you are in this situation you can honestly not predict how you will feel.
This friend was perfect in so many other ways. He already has kids of his own, so his motivation would be about helping us have a family. Our personalities, beliefs, values and work ethic are incredibly similar. And I have so much respect for this guy that any child who had the characteristics of Jay-Jay and him would be an incredibly lucky human being.
The counselling
We had to have two compulsory counselling sessions at Fertility Associates before we are allowed to use Johnny’s donor sperm. Dom and I feel very confident in ourselves. We were also confident about the decision we’d made. We are also busy people. We didn’t feel we needed counselling and we were not excited about spending an hour in a quiet room talking about our feelings—but we saw it as a means to an end.
Our counsellor, Joi, was an older woman, perhaps in her late fifties or early sixties. She had a quiet, calm, voice. She wanted us to think about the choices we’d made and asked us to think about possible outcomes. First, she wanted to know how we came to choose Johnny and why we had chosen a friend over Dom’s brother.
We told her we considered the relationships after the donation. We felt a family member may have a more emotional connection with the child and feel more entitled to influence our parenting, whereas our friend was happy to donate and run!
She questioned whether our relationship with the donor would change if we had a child with his sperm. We did consider it might be a bit strange the first time we saw him with our baby, but we both felt, after the first initial awkwardness, it’d be fine. We couldn’t see the relationship being much different from now. Perhaps we would make more of an effort to call and visit.
We’ve had so many friends and strangers joke about giving us sperm. To actually go through the process and do it to help create another human being takes a generous spirit—it’s a pretty major gift to give someone and there’s a lot to take on mentally, as well. We told Joi how grateful we were to Johnny, but also to his wife. Joi told us we didn’t have to feel beholden to the donor. Sure, she said, we can be eternally grateful but she emphasised that we did not owe him anything.
And, talking to Dom about having another man father his child, Joi asked if he’d thought about what he’d be giving up—a genetic connection to the child and being able to pass on his family history. Dom was quick to reply, ‘I haven’t given it up, it was stolen from me!’ We all laughed and then he said what he has said all along, ‘I just want to be a parent.’
Joi confirmed what a lot of men in that situation say—they have to pinch themselves to remind themselves of how their child was created because the child becomes their child. We both agreed that we were sure that was what would happen for us.
Joi said, ‘It’s kind of like saying goodbye to the child you hoped to have together, in order to say hello properly and well to the one you can have.’
And then there was the big question about who would know—that’s quite a dilemma given our radio careers and the writing of this book. How might a child feel if everyone knows they were a donor-sperm baby? Then we talked about being in the public eye, and everyone knowing how we had a baby and our story.
But we aren’t ashamed and we aren’t afraid, so we have no problem sharing our story. Quite the opposite—it’s quite hard for us to keep it quiet because our whole life has been on the radio and we are in the habit of sharing some of our selves.
Joi made a really good point, too—children who have been born through donation have never been given away, as an adopted child has. The adopted child always has to accommodate that they had a set of biological parents who, for whatever reason, gave them away.
Joi sure made us think about things. She certainly challenged us and made us sure of our decision. We’d started the counselling sessions a bit reluctantly, but having completed them we understood why the clinic made it a requirement to treatment involving donor sperm.
IN HIS OWN WORDS—THE COUNSELLING
I found the counselling a little awkward, actually. Probably because it all seemed a bit unnecessary for Jay-Jay and me, and my mate who had agreed to help us out. After years and tears of IVF disappointment, this was the next logical step for us to take. So, after agreeing this is what we would try, there was no turning back. Nothing a soft-spoken counsellor whose voice was drowned out by the ticking clock behind her could say that was going to sow a seed of doubt.
My mate is pretty similar, too. He is a man of his word so I thought it would be highly unlikely his position would change after two counselling sessions, but you never can be sure.
Also, he was in a very different position to me. He hadn’t had long to think about this. I asked and he said yes that same day. There was potentially a lot of stuff he hadn’t considered that could be raised. For us, this day had been in the back of our minds for years, so it seemed like just another one of the many formalities couples must go through when you deal with the fertility stuff.
Having done it, I would imagine it would be extremely beneficial for some couples. You do walk away with a few things to ponder that would probably not cross most people’s minds, like how would we feel towards the donor if the baby had any disabilities? Pretty heavy stuff. Not something you really want to think about or consider. More a ‘cross that bridge when we get to it’ sort of situation.
Of course, we would love that child regardless and definitely not hold any blame towards my mate who has done this tremendous favour. I’m pretty sure most wannabe parents would be on the same page with that one. Surely nobody thinks babies are like consumer goods that can be taken back to the manufacturer if the product fails to live up to expectations!
The counsellor also wanted to know if my relationship with my mate would change after the baby was born. Again, you can only speculate this stuff, but I cannot imagine this would ever be an issue for either one of us. Especially him. Me? I could perhaps feel a little jealous, but hopefully not. Who knows. Time will tell. Touch wood!
With the counselling done and dusted, we had the green light to get going, or ‘proceed with the seed’ as the fertility doctors probably don’t say ever.
Inspermination
Once we’d got through all the hoops and tests and were good to go, I called the nurses on the first day of my next period, 29 November. Eight days later, I had to have daily blood tests to monitor the rise in my oestrogen levels. Three days later, the clinic called to say I needed to go in at 2 p.m. that afternoon for insemination—in an hour and a half ’s time.
‘Today?’ I was stunned, excited and scared shitless. It was real! After a few minutes of mixed emotions, I settled on ‘excited beyond words’ and couldn’t wait to get in there. We got to the clinic at 2 p.m. exactly—I hate to be late. I thought I’d be more nervous, but we’d had about seven years to get used to the idea. Dom was his usual low-key self. ‘Let’s not get too excited. You know the odds are against us . . . It’ll probably end in disappointment.’ I knew what he was trying to say but I couldn’t help feeling excited, even optimistic—it’s a good feeling and I’d rather feel like that than down in the dumps.
After parking the car, Dom said, ‘There’s no backing out now . . . It’s our first chance at our last chance.’ He was smiling. He had a point. It was our last option—we were now, officially, too old to adopt. If this didn’t work, we would have to accept that our future was going to look very different to what we’d originally imagined.
All class, as usual, Dom joked, ‘We got a park close to the entrance so the jizz won’t slip out on the way back to the car.’ Inside, we found out I was about to be impregnated by a woman. Tanya greeted us and showed us into the treatment room. She explained everything that was going to happen during the insemination. It’s basically like an uncomf
ortable smear test with a plastic catheter that would be inserted up my vagina, through my cervix and into my uterus. After that, I would have to lie on my back with my legs up for fifteen minutes.
A friend had asked me if I had to be aroused when getting inseminated. I almost spat out my cup of tea—I had never thought of that. I was too embarrassed to ask Tanya if it was true and hoped it wasn’t. However, Tanya told me to avoid overheating my body for the next two weeks—no hot baths, no hot pools, no exercise that was likely to make me hot. We’d just had a pool put in—a heated pool—and we were planning a pool party for the upcoming weekend. It was going to seem odd if I don’t jump in, but I was pretty good at making excuses, after all the practice I’d had.
Tanya pulled out a vial with about a centimetre of cloudy liquid in it. ‘There’s 7.5 million sperm in there!’ she told us. ‘Laura in our lab says it’s the best donor sperm she’s ever seen.’ Right then, we thought that had to be the biggest compliment you could pay a man, so Dom took a pxt and sent it to Johnny.
It was now time to get down to business, so I stripped from the waist down and lay on the bed with my feet in the stirrups. Luckily, I know Tanya had seen it all before. By the time the catheter went in, I was cramping up and squeezing Dom’s hand. Quite quickly, Tanya told us the sperm had been placed in my uterus and was on its way to the egg.
It’s so hard to believe—I imagined millions of tiny tadpoles swimming up my fallopian tubes searching for the golden egg. After fifteen minutes, I was PUPO and it was time to clean up and head home to begin another two-week wait for a pregnancy test.
That meant the test would be on Christmas Eve, so it was either going to be a very happy Christmas or a sad one.
The next week I was on high alert for any signs of pregnancy. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, sometimes I forgot and had to stop myself from jumping in the pool or reaching for a wine.
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