Hi Everyone,

Shades, I agree legally and health wise going through a clinic is the safest option, however some people can't afford it (it cost me $13,000 out of pocket to go through a clinic and the only way I could afford this was that I was fortunate enough to have my parents loan me the money interest free). I spent $2000 on 3 private donor insemination attempts (flights, accommodation, car-hire etc as my chosen donor lived interstate). And my $13,000 through the clinic covered 4 clinic attempts.

Also some people want to know the person who provides half of their child's DNA. I originally wanted a donor who would have some contact with the child (my ideal situation was contact around 4 times a year) however after nearly 2 years of searching for the right donor I changed my mind and decided to go with a donor who wanted email contact and exchange of photos but no face to face contact. He proved to be a great guy and even when I ended up having to go through the clinic and use clinic anon donor sperm he has kept in touch with the occassional email to see how I'm doing.
I have found it quite hard to get my head around knowing so little about my successful donor (I recieved half an A4 page of info on him).
I recently wrote a letter to him asking for more information and left it with the clinic for them to forward to him. They explained that they would first need to contact him to see if he was willing to recieve the letter, if he says yes they would send the letter to him and if he decided he wanted to reply he would then need to attend another counselling session before replying. I hadn't realise how complicated it would all be.

I haven't heard anythign so I'm wondering if he said no or if the clinic couldn't locate him (perhaps he has moved from the address they had for him).

I feel a bit sad that I won't be able to provide much information to my daughter about her biological father if she wants to know in the future (she's only a week old now).

My other daughter is 14 and I have photos and letters from her father that I have shown her when she has asked. It means she has not been curious enough to want to meet him yet because these little things have satisfied her curiousity.

Lori
DD1 -14, DD2 - 1 week old

I looked into this a lot before going ahead and the safest option by far both legally and health-wise is to go the sperm through the clinic route - even using US import if you're not satisfied with your clinic's available selection (which is what I did). I was safe from STIs, covered legally and have no concerns about any custody issues or claims.