# New and have NO idea how to use this site but would like some friendly advice!



## Philly-Cee (Nov 10, 2010)

Hi everyone! 

My wife and i are new to all of this and i hope i've posted this in the right bit. We have no idea how to use this!  

Right, well, my wife and i have decided now is the right time for us to finally start a family.

First, we went down the adoption route, but due to personal circumstances, we faced far too many obsticles. 

We have looked into finding a sperm donor on certain websites, but they all seem to be BIG cons!

We were then going to try a find someone we knew to donate to us but again, we seem to be facing difficulties. 
Question: If we used a sperm donor we know, what are the legal rights for my partner and i and the sperm donor?  

This is what we want, sperm, but no contact or anything from the donor. If we used a donor we knew, we wouldn't want them to have any parental rights. But when our child is 18, we are more than willing to let them contact their biological father.

Using a sperm donor we know all seems a little conmplicated, but if someone can answer the questions above, maybe it would be the route we choose.

We are now looking to use a Private Fertility Clinic for treatment. As we live in Manchester, we have been in contact with Manchester Fertility Services. They seen really good and were very helpful and as the clinic is in Manchester, it is better for us.
Question: Has anyone used this clinic before? If so, what are you're thoughts?

We have also been in contact with Londons Womens Clinic.
Question: Has anyone used this clinic before? If so, what are you're thoughts?

We really want to get the ball rolling, but as we don't know anyone who has been through this, it would be really helpful for some advice really.

We look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks very much.

Ria and Lou xxx


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## nismat (Mar 7, 2005)

Hi there, your first question is the most straightforward; if using a known sperm donor for self-insemination at home, your legal rights will depend on whether or not you are CP'd. 
If you are, then you and your wife will both be regarded as your child's legal parents, and the donor will have no legal rights - simple! (although in theory, the donor could obtain parental responsibility - more likely if you are actually aiming for some form of co-parenting, which clearly you aren't). 
If you are not CP'd, only the birth mother will be a legal parent (and the donor _*if *_you name him on the birth certificate). Gamble & Ghevaert's (legal) website has lots of clear, easy-to-read info. This link is particularly relevant: http://www.gambleandghevaert.com/page/children-conceived-1/5/ but have a look through their whole site to help you in your decision making.

If you are looking for a known donor, it seems like http://www.prideangel.com/ is a reliable website (and they can point you in the right direction for fertility and sexual health testing - both very important!!). I've also heard of several lesbian couples who have successfully found donors through http://sperm-donors-worldwide.com/

Clinic route: I've heard good things about MFS. 
We used LWC (London) back in 2005/6. It worked for us, in the end, but I think that my opinions are too out-of-date to be relevant to share. You will get wildly differing opinions about LWC on this section of the site: some have had dreadful experiences there, others have had great success/happy experiences. 
With any clinic, I would suggest going to a free open-day (most hold them), and go with whichever you personally feel most comfortable with. Being close to your clinic is also v relevant in terms of treatment, for scans, blood tests etc., without interfering too much with work/travelling (and therefore stress levels!).

Best of luck,
Tamsin

/links


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## snagglepat (Sep 13, 2004)

Hi there,

Good advice above re the legal side of things.

We used a known donor who has no rights/responsibilities. In our case, we do have contact with the donor, mostly by email though we have met a couple of times since our daughter was born and intend to continue to do so - no more than once a year. These meetings have been initiated by us, not the donor. He has donated to others with whom he has no ongoing contact, or just email contact. He already has children of his own and has no desire to parent any more, so his only concern was that we wouldn't expect anything of him other than information sharing and the occasional meet should our children wish it. We met him through an online forum that doesn't exist any more, but both the ones Tamsin has mentioned have been used with success by people we know. There are sharks out there but there are also some very genuine guys who actually do just want to donate with no strings. We found one, we know others who have done so as well. For the record, when we placed our ad we had 8 responses. 6 of them went straight in the bin for various reasons, many of which you can probably guess. Two sounded possible, we spent time getting to know them by email, then met them both (separately) in a neutral place. Once we'd met them face-to-face we  knew immediately which one to go for and he's stuck with us for five years, 15 cycles of inseminations, miscarriages and has given us one beautiful child and another on the way with no wish for anything in return other than the knowledge he's helped someone out. 

The law was different when we had our daughter so my partner has had to go through the adoption process, but now that is completed we are both legal parents and our donor has absolutely no rights or responsibilities - he has also cut off any chance of ever having them as part of the adoption when he was consulted by our social worker by phone. Now that the law has changed my partner will just go straight onto the birth certificate of this baby so it's very easy, thank goodness!

There are lots of options available to you. Good luck with your explorations and decision making!

Gina. x


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## Battenberry (Mar 18, 2009)

Hi there and welcome!

We had treatment (IUI) at MFS which resulted in our lovely daughter, and we found them to be great for us.  It was lovely being able to register her birth with DW as the 'parent' and me as the mother, with the new birth certificates. 
Good luck with exploring all your options, there is so much to think about isn't there?!

Berry x


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## Philly-Cee (Nov 10, 2010)

Hi everyone,

Tasmin - Thank you very much for all your advice and the links you sent us, we will check them out.
Myself and Louise got married in 2009, so if we understand this correctly, we will both have parental responsibilities?
We are actually members of Pride Angel, although the guys we have really been interested in, have not replied.
The trouble is, we are a mixed race couple, and there don't seem to be many mixed race donors out there. If you know a site that mixed race donors, please let us know. I am British Indian and my wife is White Britsh/Black African. I am the one who will be carrying our baby, so obviously, we need a close match to Louise.

As we live in Manchester, I think we will be using MFS. We have been in contact with them and they have been really helpful and possitive.
Thanks Tasmin x


Gina - Thanks for your post. Again, your advice has been very helpful. So we take it then, that if we are in a Civil Partnership, the sperm donor has no parental responsibilites? How does this work? We will check out the links from Tasmin, but it would be nice to hear it from you.
Thanks Gina x

Berry - Thanks for your reply and YES, there is so much to take in!!! WE are really glad to hear that you and your partner had a great experience with MFS, this is very reasuring.
Thanks Berry x

T  To all of you, it is really reasuring that there are genuine people out there, and once again, thank you all for your posts, we will definately keep you up to date. Good luck to all of you


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## snagglepat (Sep 13, 2004)

Hi Philly,

That's right. Because you are civil partners then both of you can go immediately on the birth certificate after the birth even if you use a known donor. I believe there is a section for 'mother' (as in birth mother) and 'parent' (for the other parent). We'll be able to tell you more when we register the birth of this baby in another few months time.  But basically, as long as you use 'artificial' rather than 'natural' insemination then the rule applies. I have no idea how anyone would prove which method anyone used, but we have a contract with our donor (have a look online - there are several options out there) which specifies we used artificial insemination and that he is to have no rights or responsibilities over any child(ren) conceived. We figure that if anyone ever asked, we could show this as evidence, but I can't imagine anyone will. 

There is a lot more legal info on the site that Tamsin recommends above.

Good luck with it all! 

Gina. x


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## Philly-Cee (Nov 10, 2010)

Hi Gina,

Thanks for the reply again.
The fact that we can both go on the birth certificate is a relief seeing as we are married!
We will definately be using artificial insemination, but as you said, no quite sure how anyone could prove this.
Yesterday wasn't a possitive day as we had previously found two sperm donors who seemed promising, but once we got chatting, we found out they were frauds. It's really not nice. It's stressful enough withour morons out there getting peoples hopes up. The site we found these guys on was Pride Angel. Not impressed.

Does anyone know of any other sites we could try?
So far we have been on:
www.prideangel.com, www.free-sperm-donations.com and the sites that are linked to free-sperm-donations.com

Help please girls.

Thanks Gina,
Ria and Lou xx

/links


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## snagglepat (Sep 13, 2004)

A quick google has brought up the following but I've no idea how good or not they are:

http://www.co-parentmatch.com/

http://www.co-parent-match.com/

The site we used worked well but it was 6 years ago and it doesn't exist any more - and like you, we had to wade through out share of people who weren't who we first thought they might be. It was a general LGBT forum that had a parenting section so that would be another place to look. The genuine guys do exist though, it's just a matter of sticking it out until you find one. I know of several others, mainly on other forums who have had similar experiences to you on Pride Angel. However I do know one or two who have found their lovely genuine donors through it too. The other site you're already using is also one I've heard several people have success with.

Stick with it. It took us several months to find our donor but once we did he stuck with us for years. 

There may be someone else with more links to offer.

Good luck!

Gina. x

/links


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## Philly-Cee (Nov 10, 2010)

Hi girls,

Thanks for your message Gina.
I think we have good news, or at least some hope!
Lou has asked one of her friends if he would donate to us and he has said yes! We are going to meet with him in the week and discuss things fully. Obviously this isnt something we are just going to jump into.
Also, I have asked a guy i know, who is in the thinking about it stage, but is genuine, so even if nothing comes out of it, it has definately boosted our confidence about genuine men being out there.
Fingers Crossed for us girls!

Ria and Lou xxx


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## nismat (Mar 7, 2005)

The most recent of your posts sounds very positive - I hope that the talks with both these friends go well. 

It's a real shame to hear about your bad experience with a couple of "donors" on Pride Angel - have you reported them to the site administrators/owners. I met the site owners (they are a lesbian parent couple themselves) at the recent Alternative Families Show, they genuinely want to provide a useful service, and I'm sure that they would want to know about it. Were these 2 "donors" frauds in the sense that they were actually looking for s*x?


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## Han2275 (Oct 3, 2010)

Hiya,
Just been reading through your thread. Sorry it's been such an up and down journey for you but I hope things start to get going now :0). We went through the clinic route as it was so important for us to know that we (and our children) were being properly cared for re our physical health and with all the horrible legal stuff. It is also comforting to know that our boys can try to find the donor if they want to when they are 18, and we will support them through that. We are not married and DP is not on DS1's birth cert because of the laws then, but it was great that I could go on DS2's birth cert. Because we went through the clinic route, we have legal documents that give us both parental rights and I also have legal 'ownership' of our 3 little frosties should anything (God forbid) happen to DP. 
This baby making business with a vital missing part ;0) can be so difficult but I wish you all the luck in the world with whatever you decide xx


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## Philly-Cee (Nov 10, 2010)

Hi Han,

Sorry it's taken a while for us to reply. Been a lot going on.
Thank you very much for all your advice.

Wish you well xxx


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