# Known donor based overseas?



## Pepstar (Jul 6, 2009)

Ahhhh nothing like jumping straight in on my first post  

We potentially have a known donor that we would like to use who is based in Australia.  Has anyone experience of using a known donor based overseas and how we would go about doing this and the timescales involved?

We think at this stage (being at the beginning of what is going to be quite a big journey) that we would prefer to use a known donor but through a clinical process so that we are legally protected as our child's legal parents.  However being Australians ourselves we don't have any suitable male friends in the UK that we trust enough to enter into this sort of relationship with (hope this makes sense).

Our other option is using a sperm clinic (we would be importing from Europe) but this isn't our preferred option as we would like the child to have the opportunity to have access to its donor throughout its life.

Anyways thanks for any input you can provide and I guess a big hello from both of us


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## nismat (Mar 7, 2005)

If you're not talking about trying home insems on visits to/from Australia (not wildly practical I wouildn't have thought!), then the only way I can see you doing it at all is to get your donor to make sperm donations that could be frozen and shipped to the UK - which would have to be via a clinic in Australia. I don't know much about how fertility stuff works in Australia, but I do recall from previous Australia-based posters that the legal side varies from state to state, so it may not even be possible, depending on where he's based   And I don't know what the legalities of importing sperm from Australia to the UK are.
Or he could come over for a visit and make a series of donations at a clinic local to you here, that you know would then be able to treat you in the future. Whether the sperm was banked here or Australia (and shipped), UK law/HFEA procedures would require that your donor was tested for STDs etc. at the time of donations, and then again 6 months later (to make sure that nothing like HIV has emerged in between times that was dormant/not apparent at the time of the initial test). You wouldn't be able to start treatment until the second lot of tests was complete - the sperm are held in "quarantine" until then.
That probably sounds rather impossible I know, but there wouldn't be any other way to do it that I can see. 

Welcome by the way!


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## Pepstar (Jul 6, 2009)

Thanks for such a helpful post and lots of helpful pointers for us to look into with more research.

It does seem rather impossible and the timescales involved may dictate that we start looking at using sperm donation.  

Thanks again and here's to the start of this rather crazy journey!


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## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

There is one couple on FF who had a known donor overseas and he used to fly in every month for home insems.  Just as they were about to change to a clinic she fell pregnant and now has her baby.

Like the girls have suggested he could start off by donating for freezing and bloods etc at an Aus clinic and then get it transferred to the UK,but it would need quarantine. There are import forms etc that you need but many of the single girls ship sperms from Denmark/USA to the UK/South Africa/Russia and Czexh.  Maybe contact **** for their view  as it has to meet strict imprt criteria and then approach your chosen clinic.  it may actually be cheaper to fly him over here !

L x


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## jo36 (Aug 12, 2008)

Hi Pepstar. Welcome. My DP is also Australian (Queenslander) and way bcak when we were first discussing TTC we really wanted one of her best friend from back home to donate, and he was more than willing. They had spoken about it between themselves years before DP even met me! We knew he was fertile as he already has a daughter.He was going to come to Britain and do donating and form filling with our local clinc. We were told he'd have to return in 6+ months after the quarantine period, which he was more than happy with. But it was us who started to get second thoughts and could see the massive upheaval and stress, and we just wanted to start tx asap. Shortly after he was offered the job of a life time and would never have got the time off to do 2 stints of overseas travels within the same year, so it confirmed to us we'd made the right decision. 

I really hope you manage to find a way around this and get to use an Australian donor. For DP I think at first she felt by using an Australian donor our LO would be half Australian, but once DD was here she soon realised she was always going to be half Australian anyhow, regardless of which country the sperm came from.

Good luck in your exciting venture. Keep us posted.

Jo x


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