Finding Our Sperm Donor: Jesse and Maddy's Story
“One thing that we've learned is that there are just so many options and so many different paths you can go down, and there isn't one right path."
Jesse and Maddy, a female couple, talked to us about their journey and finding a sperm donor.
When did you decide you wanted to have a family?
Jesse and I met back in 2018. We were doing yoga teacher training together and we became good friends. I moved out to LA to be with Jesse and we've been together since then. We got married in April, but we knew before we got married that we wanted to get this process going.
We decided very early on that we wanted to have a family. Being a same sex couple, it's one of those things where it can come up even earlier in dating because, okay, do we wanna go through this process together or not? We've talked about having as many as four children which is exciting. Then the decisions came down to, how are we going to make that family? How are we going to find a sperm donor?
How did you find Donor Concierge?
We started looking at some sperm banks ourselves but quickly became frustrated. It was incredibly frustrating that you’d see someone who looked great but weren’t available, or if they were available, you have to buy immediately. We thought there has to be another way to have an exclusive sperm donor or someone who can help you through this process. Then we found Donor Concierge and we realized this was exactly what we were looking for.
And how was your experience?
Our experience was phenomenal from the start. Donor Concierge is a company that just is really consistent with their word. Anything that you all told us, for example, you're going to get an email by Friday at this time. We got an email on Friday at that time. From the beginning when we were connected with our case manager Cynthia, it felt way less daunting. Cynthia talked us through what all the stages would look like. We both always felt this care and compassion from Donor Concierge. There's so many emotions that go into this process and not just seeing us as like a number, felt really great. Even when candidates were coming in, Cynthia or someone else on the team would email us and give us synopsis and say, this looks like a great candidate. That was really helpful, because we thought they're actually paying attention and they really care.
Why did you choose the donor that you did choose?
We had a lot of great candidates. There was a point where we were like, how are we going to pick all of these guys who are so great? And then our donor came through. We were like, oh my gosh, he's gorgeous, but is he going to think he's too cool for school? The level of detail in the profile and all the questions that Donor Concierge asked, it was really clear from the beginning that he was such a kind and caring person as well. Of course the physical aspects were important, but we agreed, if there was a gorgeous person who didn't seem like a nice guy, we wouldn't go with that donor. He had some personal experience with members of the LGBTQ+ community within his family. It was really heartwarming to hear that he was interested in specifically helping us because he resonated with our story as well.
When we talk about our sperm donor to our future kids, I think we're both extremely proud that we picked him. He has this thoughtfulness, compassion, insight and understanding of the world that would be amazing to pass on to anyone. If we had gone to sperm banks, the amount of information given would be his picture seemed okay and he didn't have health issues. It makes us just feel really good about the decision we made because it was such an informed decision.
I wish we just knew about Donor Concierge sooner. There were a few months when we were really frustrated as we were looking at sperm banks and thinking about our options and didn't really know what the path forward would look like. It was important that we went through that because then we were so grateful to Donor Concierge and then how we ended up going through the process.
Do you have any adivce for others going through this process?
One thing that we've learned is that there are just so many options and so many different paths you can go down and there isn't one right path. Someone gave us the advice, “There isn't a perfect way to do this, but you just have to jump on a train and you're staying on that train and commit to it”.
When you're in a same sex relationship people almost feel like they're privy to all this information. And so people often will ask us, “What are you going to do for a sperm donor?” Being able to navigate those questions in a way that feels good to you and not oversharing just because you feel like other people need to know because frankly, everyone has their opinion. We had to be proactive and had to learn a lot about this just because we are a same sex couple, but I wish, and I hope that there's a culture where everybody is proactive about their fertility.
What are you most excited about as you look toward the future?
We are looking forward to our family and having children running around. I am very interested to see some of the characteristics that are passed down from the sperm donor. I don't want to say the hard part is over, and we don't know what our journey will bring as we try to get pregnant, but I'm really happy that we have this part behind us and we don't have to worry about the sperm aspect, and now we can just navigate, what our path will look like.
