I discovered that one sperm bank will give you unlimited access to the photos of the donors for a month for a set price. In trying to choose the second donor I was looking at profile after profile getting nowhere so I committed to finding a donor in a month and spent the money.
Then I invited my girlfriend over to review profiles with me... that was hilarious! Wine was involved of course and we would look at a donor’s photo and she would start freaking out because he would be young enough to be my son, then she’d remind herself that this wasn’t a dating website, we’re not looking for a partner for me. Of course normally when looking to have a baby we absolutely would be looking for a partner. Not this time...
There were so many things to consider... for me it was a no brainer the donor had to be in good health, his family had to be leading or have led healthy lives, in particular I was looking for no mental health issues.
I had to consider open donor or anonymous... an open donor is willing to meet the kids when they’re 18, anonymous should be self explanatory. I decided on open donor which meant for me that I didn’t want to choose a donor young enough to be my son because that would really be weird for my child to meet him one day. I have to say that the majority of donors fall into that age range because they seem to be students putting themselves through college by donating sperm. And to be blunt younger is better... they have higher quality swimmers!
In looking at all the different pictures it was amazing how quickly I would discount donors with such simple differences like eyes being too far apart (in my view) or too close together (again in my view). If you meet someone and fall in love you take the whole package and to be honest many of the slight variances in attribute such as distance between eyes would likely play a role in natural mate selection. The difference is that you get to know the personality at the same time and that influences you such that you either choose the person as a mate or not based on the whole person not separate attributes. When looking for a donor rather than a partner I found that I was really clear on what was important to me and likely I had already been selecting partners based in part on what I liked all along I just hadn’t ever pulled apart someone’s facial features to clearly articulate what I liked and didn’t like. It was funny to discover my likes and dislikes.
From a biological perspective the second donor I chose made sense as it also represented the man I had been casually dating at the time though I use the term dating loosely. It was funny, I told him I was planning to become a single mother by choice and while he wasn’t crazy about the idea at first, he got on board and even helped me select the second donor. Choosing a sperm donor now that's a strange 'date' night! I had looked at a lot of the profiles before he and I looked together and while the first donor I used had olive skin and light eyes after it didn't work with that donor I chose a donor with brown skin and green eyes. The man I was dating was mixed race with light brown skin and light eyes. He admitted he wanted the donor to be a likeness of himself in case we ended up together because then the child would look like him... that was never to be, but I was happy with the donor selection none the less. Once I was clear about what I was looking for in appearance, that being dark skin and light eyes, donor selection was easy as there was only one Canadian compliant donor. I figured if I could look at him and read his profile and think I could date him (and he was of an appropriate dating age...) I was on the right track and clearly I was because it worked! Donor number 2, you rock!!!
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