# finding a donor through altruistic websites



## Josie43 (Oct 22, 2010)

Hi all
Am new to FF and to ttc. Am 43 and starting out with lots of early questions
Reading the boards and realising more reading = more questions..!

Anyway - my DP and I want to explore finding someone to donate to try home insemination (realise 43 is a little late to try but Id really like to try first) - so would be really interested to find out people's experiences, stories, advice, help, how they used what I am referring to as 'altrustic' sources. 
Thanks all - i am really looking forward to talking with you and getting to know your stories.
Josie


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## snagglepat (Sep 13, 2004)

Hi Josie,

We found our donor through the parenting forums on rainbow network but this was over six years ago. I don't even know if those forums exist any more, but regardless, there are plenty of others around now. We initially tried with a friend but when that fell through we tried the forums, placed a short, specific and carefully worded ad using a free email account we set up specifically for the purpose and waited for the responses to come in. We got about 8 replies and of those, six were immediately binned for all the obvious reasons (wanting to try NI, being asian when we'd specified white, wanting to co-parent rather than just donate etc). The last two we struck up email conversations with and both seemed to have potential. We ended up meeting with them both (somewhere neutral) and one was immediately discounted after that. The last one was our star candidate and he's been marvellous. He stuck with us through several years of unsuccessful trying, was almost always available whenever we needed him and would never even accept petrol money for his travel costs. We have a three year old daughter thanks to him and our second child, also with him is due in January.

He had donated to others before us as wellas having three children of his own so we knew he was fertile but he has test results to show us too. He also had two previous recipients who were happy to have contact with us to act as referees which really helped boost our confidence in him. He'd already worked out a contract with a previous recipient that we were able to adapt and use too and of course he knew what he was getting into when he agreed to help us so there were no nasty surprises wrt the commitment involved. He's stuck to our agreement throughout. It has evolved a little with time from a vague 'willingness to meet any child conceived at a future date should they wish' to 'meeting up for a pub lunch once a year' but that has been driven more by us than him and he seems very happy with it.

We initially tried to get my partner pregnant - she was in her late 30s at the time. After 12 cycles with one pregnancy that resulted in an early miscarriage, and time still ticking on she decided to hand the baton over to me for a while. After our daughter was born she discovered that she couldn't imagine loving a child more even if she had given birth to it and her up-close view of pregnancy and birth had put her off a bit.  This has worked fine for us as I'm quite happy to do it again but we really didn't decide that until after our first was born.

Good luck with it all!

Gina. x


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## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

Josie I saw your post ont he Donor eggs and sperm thread as well.  I am also using a KD but through a clinic, but he was a friend. I would also strongly suggest that you also  have somebasic fetility tests doen via your GP, in view of your age.  I am 42 and have jut had mine redone and my fertilty has takena  huge nose dive in 2 yrs between 40 and 42.

Wishing you luck, also have a look at a website called Prideangel if you are looking for a KD and home insems, also check out the legal thread and advice from Natalie Gamble.

L x


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