When a friend sat across the table and snarkily described her ex (and the biological father of her kids) as a “sperm donor,” I didn’t think too much of it. I knew what she meant: he wasn’t present, didn’t support them, and was more concerned about his own life than theirs. He wasn’t a father.
Except later I realized… he is. He fathered two children and is on their birth certificates, no matter what involvement he has after their birth. He is actually not their donor. I know who a donor really is.
When you’re a girl in love with another girl you want everything that society has always told you one gets when in love. You want to get married, to care for each other, to hold their hand as you walk down the street. You want to grow old together, to make those boring day-to-day life decisions together. Often you want to have a family — you want to parent together.
The wonderful thing is that queer couples can do most of these things today. We put on tuxes and wedding gowns, smash cake into each other’s faces; we hold hands as we walk down the street in most areas of this country without fear of being hurt. We go to Target and pick out cheap trinkets and toilet paper and a half-gallon of ice cream. We have families… but there’s a catch to our families. We don’t have them alone.
Five years ago my wife and I decided it was finally time to start working on our dream of having a child. We discussed it, mulled it over, and finally decided to approach a friend of ours to ask if he would be the third party, the interloper in our conception journey. He said “yes” and he became our donor. Now we have two amazing children and there isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t have a deep and abiding sense of gratitude for what he has given us. He has given us a gift that we will never be able to repay.
He is a donor.
It is time to change the conversation around the term “sperm donor.” “Donor” does not equate “deadbeat dad.” A donor, whether a dear friend or a random person who grabs a magazine, a cup and heads for a small room at a sperm bank, is a wonderful person. He is the person who gives us our families, and no matter who he is, gay and lesbian families are grateful. It is a term of honor, a person who is so deeply special and important. There should be a day for our donors, a Hallmark card, a television special. We should have parades and fireworks and a day off from our jobs. Because without them so many of us wouldn’t be able to realize our dreams.
In two days my daughter will turn one, and as always my thoughts turn to our donor. I will write him my usual sappy letter where I tell him that he is wonderful, he is loved, he is forever part of our family and in our hearts. I will thank him, but it will never feel like enough because he has given us the things that our most precious to us in the entire world: our children.
Thank you and thank you to everyone who makes our families possible.
AGREED! We are eternally grateful to our donor too. I can not imagine our life without our daughter, and she was only possible with the help of our wonderful friend.
So true! I’ve been thinking a lot about donors lately, and how to best explain them when the time comes. It’s such a cultural joke, in some ways, to be a sperm donor, but without one many people (gay and straight) wouldn’t be able to become parents. I’m so grateful that some college kid is willing to donate his gametes, risk awkward phone calls in 18 years, and know that he has children out somewhere in the world that he’ll never see grow up so that I can experience motherhood with my beautiful wife.
This is so true. There are never enough words of gratitude that I give our donor.
Yes! Yes! Yes! I am so very grateful for our sperm donor! I hope he feels good about being such an important, though anonymous, part of our family!! We couldn’t be us without you, Mr. Finance Major with Scandinavian heritage!!
Beautifully written, Sacha.
Just the other day I looked at my son (11 months old) and thought, I wonder what the donor looked like. Clark looks so much like my partner that this might have been the first time I really wondered.
And I totally thought, Wow, thanks, random dude in Spokane. How is it possible that some mostly-unknown had a large part in the best thing in my life? I think I even said something out loud like, “I wish I could send him a card.”
Thank you for giving me the words for this thing which has been going around my head for ages. I live in an area of high teenage pregnancy (majority the ‘I ‘m about to leave school and don’t know what to do, hmmmm baby sounds good’ kind rather than the true accident)and single parents families (mostly mum) and hear the term ‘sperm donor’ used as an insult to at deadbeat dad often. This always felt wrong. but when I try to talk to anyone about it, they think I’m being silly, or ‘putting too much thought into it’. Thank you again for giving me the words to say to these people. and God Bless all the good men and women who give so generously so others may achieve their dreams.
It is my opinion that you can never put too much thought into anything.
I really appreciate this post. Our daughter was conceived by a donation from my husband’s brother–my husband is infertile due to cancer treatments. Our daughter knows her uncle was an important part of her conception and she shares a special bond with that part of the family.
I think we need to start sending him Father’s Day cards. Great post.
You make a good point. Donor donate, they give a gift, and THAT is a wonderful thing.
Right on. I’m pregnant right now thanks to a donor friend, and it’s an amazing feeling. In the U.S., entering a known-donor agreement also requires a fair bit of trust, since no contract you sign is guaranteed to hold up against a determined court system. So it’s the gift of life AND a huge gift of trust. I’m grateful for this every day.
Having two children w/men with whom I was in a relationship, I do refer to them as sperm donors. Neither has interest in being a dad, and neither is on the birth certificate. You have a beautiful family! As a single mom, who has dated both men and women in the past, having my children is the best thing I’ve ever done. I did it this way – I wouldn’t have it any other way!
At 30 years old I’m one of the oldest kids born to a lesbian couple as the result of a sperm donor. I’m eternally grateful not just to him but to all of the doctors who were willing to help my mom follow her dream of becoming a mother when so many others wouldn’t.
I actually had a conversation with a co-worker once who asked about my dad (he’d met my mom) and when I replied that I didn’t have a dad, I had a sperm donor he started going off on how he totally got that because his dad was a POS who wasn’t there for him either. Kind of took the wind out of his sails when I broke in to say that no, I really did mean a sperm donor :).
I am a single straight woman who used a known sperm donor, and people (especially other women) just don’t get it–they call him a deadbeat etc. But to me, he’s a hero. I consented to the arrangement, and I’m grateful to him. I don’t understand why people find the concept of a known sperm donor so hard up understand. It’s so frustrating! I think it has to do with so many women (straight women, anyway) being gold-diggers.
Thank you for trying to educate people. Add single women who can’t find Mr. Right (and don’t want to trap a man) to the list of those who are grateful to sperm donors!
to the list of people who
I am a single straight woman who used a known sperm donor, and people (especially other women) just don’t get it–they call him a deadbeat etc. But to me, he’s a hero. I consented to the arrangement, and I’m grateful to him. I don’t understand why people find the concept of a known sperm donor so hard to understand. It’s so frustrating! I think it has to do with so many women (straight women, anyway) being gold-diggers.
Thank you for trying to educate people. Add single women who can’t find Mr. Right (and don’t want to trap a man) to the list of those who are grateful to sperm donors.