My husband's male factor infertility is caused by Klinefelter's Syndrome, also known as XXY Syndrome. Biologically he will always be unable to father a child, however, you should see how great he is at being a Daddy!
Several years ago when we were just starting the process of donor insemination we had to first select a donor. Man, what a decision that was! We were led into a small conference room by a nurse. She pulled out an ENORMOUS binder and set it on the table. The binder was so heavy that the table leaned to one side.. ok, over exaggerating a bit, but still.. very big binder and each page represented a possible donor. And not an over-exaggeration here: there could have been more than 500 pages. The binder was organized by blood type. (Why? Because if you decide not to tell your child about the donor, you don't want the whole story to unravel during a 6th grade science experiment.) So we looked under A+ and O bloodtype headings. Then we looked for someone tall. Then we looked for brown hair, green eyes, and light complexion. Then we looked at family health history. Then we looked at career choices, schooling, grade point averages, and hobbies. Seriously, there was so many choices and so many details. An hour later we were still sitting in the little room, reading about our future child's possible genetics. I decided to let my husband make this decision. It was overwhelming. How do you actually decide about this kind of thing? We had no picture of the donors. All we had was a broad description of their appearance. We went back through our specifications and widened the complexion preference to "medium"... and brown eyes were ok too... and we made "health history" our main priority. Finally, we were able to narrow down our selection to 3 possible donors.
Once we had selected a donor, we had to purchase a vial. At the beginning of my first cycle I had to call the office and place my order. It was so weird! I had the donor codes from the donor binder pages. Each donor had a unique code.. Our #1 code was unavailable... too many pregnancies... what!? Yes, after a certain number of pregnancies there is a risk of meeting a sibling someday and falling in love. Eww. I ordered our 2nd choice.
In 2006, the cost for one vial of sperm was $250. Shipment was an additional $80. (Why so much for shipping? The shipment is done by UPS and the sperm vial is placed in a coffee- thermos-looking container filled with liquid nitrogen. It must be handled carefully and delivered quickly.) So, in 2006, our cost for donor sperm was $330.
Today I paid $490. Inflation?
Once a pregnancy is achieved, a small amount of vials are set aside for future siblings. Thankfully, today I was able to order the same donor's vials. We had decided beforehand that if the same donor was unavailable for some reason, our quest to have another child would be over. It is important to us emotionally to have a full sibling for our daughter. Game on.
The sperm is "washed" before being stored for purchase. What does that mean? One word: Concentrated. All of the unnecessary "ingredients" are spun out of the original "deposit" (LOL). What I am inseminated with is pure sperm.
Once the day of insemination is decided, the sperm is thawed at room temperature for about 45 minutes. A small drop is placed on a microscope slide and inspected by a fertility nurse. I am given three numbers: total number of sperm in vial, percentage of those with good motility, and further percentage of those normal. In 2006, when our daughter was conceived, I was inseminated with 12.5 million normal sperm with good motility. I am also given an estimated risk ratio for multiples.
At one cycle many years ago, the order for sperm was placed late. It was a weekend and shipment would not be an option with such late notice. But I was determined to get that insemination done if it killed me! I picked the vial up myself for an IUI that same day. I was instructed to place the wrapped vial in my bra to aid in the thawing process on the way to the fertility doctor's office. What an interesting drive that was! A pregnancy did not result from the effort, however, a funny story did.
Here is a Purchase Agreement to buy sperm:
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