Apparently the human brain ignores the majority of information it
receives to prevent information overload. But once something becomes
"important", suddenly there are brown cars everywhere you look. I'm finding the same with being a sperm
donor. I don't think fertility and other associated topics were ever really discussed
around me. And now….well, everyone seemingly has a story.
I went to visit my brother and his family over the weekend. Over
dinner my sister-in-law piped up with "M and S are pregnant".
"Oh that's great!" I gushed, "They’ve been trying
for years right? Glad it finally happened - they'll be amazing parents".
Now it turns out that in fact they hadn’t been trying for years
and that was just something they'd been telling my mum to keep her off their
backs. We'd all just accepted the lie and assumed that M had chemically
castrated himself through over use of hair removal cream in places it shouldn't
be used...
However, it wasn't all good news: "Poor A and M are
still trying though. It's been two years now and they haven't had any
luck."
It transpires that A and M had been tested, and are independently
fertile and on that basis should be able to conceive. But apparently some
people aren't compatible (immune responses or somewhat) and no matter how much
they try things just aren't going to work out. They've seemingly tried
everything; A has even given up wheat (and beer) as it was suggested that
it may help but to no avail.
This was new to me. My running list of Reasons People Need
Sperm Donors included things like lesbian couples, single women, cancer, etc
but at no point did I think that two people who are supposedly in full working
order would need a third party to step in. And it's sounding likely that they are indeed going to involve a
donor.
So my weekend away with my brother and his family ended up not
only being a wonderful weekend, but also reasserting once more that I was doing
a good thing by donating. And if A and M do end up using a donor I'll be
looking very closely at their child to check for similarities...
Blog entry written by a current Sperm Donor and IT Consultant in the city
