Single Mom By Choice: Claudia's story
“I always thought I would have a child but didn’t envision doing this on my own. When I got to my early 40s. I was still single and realized it was now or never, so I decided to take the huge step to become a single mom."
Claudia, a single mom via egg donation and sperm donation talked to us about her journey.
During my 20s and 30s, I always thought having children was a plan for my future and thought the time would come when I’d have it all. I forged ahead with my career in business development. I was living in Asia and had everything I wanted and needed.
Then I hit 40 and had some health issues and realized that having a child, a family, was something that I knew I wanted to do. My mom and dad were getting older and as I’m from a big family, children are ever present at our family’s home.
Because I didn’t have a partner, I knew that I’d be doing this on my own and while being a single mom by choice wasn’t what I had planned for myself, I knew it was the only way. “I always thought I would have a child but didn’t envision doing this on my own. When I got to my early 40s. I was still single and realized it was now or never, so I decided to take the huge step to become a single mom.
Finding a sperm donor wasn’t as daunting a project as I’d thought. My fertility doctor gave me a list of the best sperm banks and I found someone fairly easily. I wanted to know more about him and liked the idea that an open donation - or at least the option of that - was ok with the sperm donor so I ordered the vials and had them sent to my Los Angeles fertility clinic.
I assumed I’d be using my own eggs and tried one cycle of IUI using the donated sperm. It didn’t work and I was more devastated than I thought I would be. My fertility doctor was great - she gently introduced the idea of donor eggs to me but it was too early on for me to consider that. At 43, I decided to try again but this time I did IVF. After 2 rounds, I realized that this was futile and came to an understanding that finding an egg donor was the way to go.
My body was healthy and she felt that I was strong enough to carry a pregnancy to term.
Finding the egg donor match
I still had enough sperm stored from my sperm donor and so now it was time to find the egg donor.
But when it came to replacing my own genetics, I had to reach deep within myself and really think through what I was looking for in this other person who would provide her genetic material to help me have a child. I love being active and do yoga every day, and traveling is in my dna and I really wanted to find someone who shared my love of those things. My heritage is also important to me - my mom is half Japanese and that side of my ethnicity is really important.
A friend recommended that I use Donor Concierge to search for my egg donor as she had worked with the team there. They were amazingly caring and reassuring. My case manager scoured all of the best egg donor agencies, finding me about 30 lovely women who could be my donor. I was open to other asian egg donors and we narrowed the search down to two donors. Ultimately my fertility doctor reviewed the egg donor profiles for both and we decided on a beautiful young woman who loves yoga and wanted to take this step to give me the most precious gift.
The donor went to the clinic and had her egg retrieval. We ended up exchanging letters to each other and it was so rewarding. She’s agreed to have contact with my child in the future which I love! Her eggs were fertilized and I ended up with five good quality embryos. I went to my clinic for the embryo transfer and was so surprised when it worked the first time. That was 5 years ago - my beautiful little boy is almost four and another one who is two.
After I had my first child I wish I had done this sooner.
I am so proud of myself for taking this chance - while it’s a little daunting doing this on my own, I’m so grateful to the two amazing donors who helped me have a family. After I had my first child I wish I had done this sooner.
Interested in building your family with Donor Concierge? Schedule your free consultation today.
