LilSugar

Super Sperm! One Man, 150 (Biological) Children

LilSugar — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 05:16:04 PDT

Not some tawdry tabloid story about rampant polygamy, the recent New York Times story, "One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring" tells the story of 20-year-old Ryan - born using donor sperm - and his 150 biological half-siblings. It's no secret that donating sperm is - ahem - less complicated than harvesting a woman's egg, and with no definitive regulations in place to limit the number of offspring produced from one donor, the number of children conceived with sperm from one donor is essentially limitless.

Groups like the Donor Sibling Registry are exposing the truth about this traditionally secretive industry, and it's pretty scary. Fertility is clearly big business these days, but critics have raised concerns that if left unchecked . . . the record numbers of half siblings could potentially result in an increase of - yikes! - accidental incest.

If you used donor sperm, how much would you want to know - or share with your child - about his conception and biological siblings?

Lil Community: What'll Men Think If I Have a Baby With a Donor?

Lil Community — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:00:00 PDT

It seems The Back-up Plan is on everyone's mind! Tearyeyed shared this question in the Birth Stories group.

I am 26 years old and it doesn't look like there is going to be a guy in my life anytime soon. I have never wanted anything more than to be a mom. So my thinking was to possibly use a donor and have a child but it worries me about what could happen in the future with getting in a relationship with someone. I wouldn't think anything different if I had a baby with someone else but I don't know if guys would see me a desperate just because I used a donor instead of having a guy there. So can anyone offer any advice either from a guy's perspective or if you have gone through it. Thanks!

Have a question you want answered by the LilSugar Community? You can ask us anything!

Celeb Look-Alike Sperm Donations Take Off

LilSugar — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:00:09 PDT

I'd like my son to look like Brad Pitt please. A Los Angeles-based sperm bank is stretching the potential of star power by listing the celebrities that donors look the most like. They also link to pictures of the actors, singers and designers in their donor profiles. According to California Cryobank, the question most frequently asked by female clients is who the donor looks like and through their Look-A-Like program, potential mothers have a better idea of what characteristics their child may have. Since beginning the program, web traffic has increased significantly. I'm curious who and what decide the resemblance factor.

If you could choose, which celeb would you want your child to look like?

Drawing the Line Between Sperm Donor and Dad?

LilSugar — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:00:00 PDT

As more people use alternative methods to create families, issues are bound to arise. For one New Mexico mother and her sperm donor, the debate was whether or not the role of "dad" came with financial responsibility. Janna Mintz conceived a son and later a daughter with her friend Kevin Zoernig's sperm. Though the couple signed a contract that Kevin would not be financially responsible for his biological offspring prior to Janna's artificial insemination, after an eight-year legal battle, he has been ordered to pay child support. Do you think the ruling is fair?

Meeting My Sperm Donor

The Good Men Project — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:00:50 PDT

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Ben Sommer, conceived through alternative insemination, is a young man now and tells the story of deciding to meet his donor.

I grew up in a middle-class home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with two loving parents, both of whom are women. My conception was perhaps the most organized and scientific miracle of the modern American family - my architecture, the dream of dozens of individuals conducting their work across thousands of miles.

Objectifying Ryan Gosling

I was conceived through alternative insemination. A donor submitted his sperm to the Sperm Bank of California in Oakland (TSBC). Later, it was sent to the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston. Since opening its doors in 1982, TSBC has helped families without the ability to conceive on their own to birth over 2,000 children. Two thirds of those have ended up, like me, being raised in a lesbian household. TSBC is also the first sperm bank to offer a donor-identity-release program, which allows children of alternative insemination access to their donors' information when they turn 18.

I am not as much an oddity as you might think. As of 2005, some 270,000 children in the United States had same sex-parents. We are a generation that is just now beginning to come of age and able to share our stories. This is mine.

Growing up in a lesbian household was much like growing up in any other family unit, I imagine: vacations to Cape Cod, parents working late and sometimes not, play dates with a diverse group of friends.

I never gave much thought to that mysterious figure across the country. I never questioned the fact that I didn't have a father. As far as I was concerned I didn't need one. Is having two moms really all that different than having a mom and a dad? Parents are parents, right? I didn't see a difference at the time. My parents didn't either - at least at first.

They decided to conceive through a donor, in part, to avoid the complications that a third parent would bring. Asking a close male friend to donate, like some couples have done, can create unforeseen consequences. In the past, there have been custody battles between the donor and the parents raising the child. This was the case with a friend of mine, whose parents arranged donation from a male family friend. With a semi-anonymous donor like the man my parents chose, it would be clear who my parents were. And it was.

That's not to say that it was smooth sailing. "When we first learned you were going to be a boy, we really panicked," my mother told me recently. "Who's going to teach him to throw a ball? We didn't have many male friends. There was even basic stuff, like who's going to teach him to pee standing up. That doesn't come naturally."

Read the rest of the story below.

Savvy Links: Choose a Plane Seatmate By Checking Out Facebook Profiles

Emily Co — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:32:10 PST

Choose a plane seatmate by checking out Facebook profiles - The Jane Dough
The hidden costs of using a sperm donor - LearnVest
5 kitchen luxuries that are worth it - Wise Bread
Crucial steps to asking for a raise - HuffPost Women
How to interview with friends - Corporette
4 cash-back websites - Real Simple
Find loyalty clubs that pay - AllYou
Things you might not know about credit scores - Credit Karma
Top 10 mistakes of DIYers - Bankrate

Talking to Tots About Egg Donors

Natasha Dantzig — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:15:13 PST

What's an egg between friends? Conception is no simple matter of wham, bam, thank you ma'am. With the numerous ways to conceive a child these days (in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial insemination, and fertility drugs to name a few), there are new issues accompanying these medical and scientific advances. Just as the story of the sperm donor with 150 biological offspring prompted discussion of how to talk to kids who were conceived with donor sperm, a new study published in Reproductive BioMedicine Online, takes on the sometimes tricky topic of talking to kids about their egg donor - especially when that person is someone they may know very well.

The study followed women who received eggs from friends or relatives, nothing anonymous about the process, and no money was exchanged in these so-called altruistic arrangements. At first, everyone is fixated on getting pregnant, but issues tend to arise later, when the child is older and there isn't clear consensus on what to tell the child. Typically, the donor wants to tell the child about the arrangement at some point, but often the recipient does not, making for some very awkward soccer games and birthday parties.

Would you ever take part in an arrangement like this? Or do you think it's just too complicated?

Grey's Anatomy Rundown, "White Wedding"

Becky Kirsch — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:30:15 PDT

Here come the brides! Wedding bells ring for not one but two couples on Grey's Anatomy this week, though the ceremonies are quite different. We've known about Callie and Arizona's big day thanks to the album of wedding photos we saw earlier this week, but Derek and Meredith's quiet courthouse marriage is an added bonus.

In between the wedding drama, the race is still very much on for Chief Resident, as Avery and April find their footing. Teddy receives an interesting proposal of her own, and Derek and Meredith make a decision that could change their lives. Ready to break it down? Just keep reading.

Link Time - Hey Girl, It's Feminist Ryan Gosling

TresSugar — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:47:00 PDT

There's a new Ryan Gosling meme in town: feminist Ryan Gosling - Em & Lo
How to handle a meddlesome mother-in-law - YourTango
Explore the underground world of free sperm donors - The Daily Beast
Illustrated: the rules of house-sitting - GOOD
Afternoon eye candy: hot men with dimples - theBERRY
Cute celeb-inspired BFF costume ideas - The Frisky
What our Facebook profile photos really project - Huffington Post
Who's your favorite manly actor? - Glamour
The craziest Lisa Frank supplies - College Candy
See photos from the new Snow White movie! - BuzzSugar

Are the Kids All Right? 5 Potential Issues With Sperm Donation

Lizzie Fuhr — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:35:00 PDT

The Kids Are All Right may have provided a glamorized look at what goes down when kids meet their awesome, and handsome, sperm donors, but what happens in the real world? Without a doubt, sperm donors have given many families unable to reproduce an invaluable opportunity, and it's been a positive process for thousands of families all over the globe. But as The New York Times points out, new concerns are popping up about the psychological implications and scientific consequences of sperm donation.

It may seem like a cut-and-dried, streamlined process today, since the first child was conceived through sperm donation in 1978, but unfortunately this is not the case. Unlike many other countries that rely heavily on sperm donation to help out families with infertility, there are no legal restrictions regarding the number of kids that can be conceived through a single sperm donor in the US. And since the science is all relatively new, there's no way to know what can happen in the future. Without more regulation, here are five potential consequences and concerns we should understand.

It could seriously affect the gene pool. Without the regulation of the number of kids fathered by a single donor, certain rare diseases could spread more widely through the general population. There's no way to know how far this reaches, since many families don't want to disclose that their children are products of sperm donation.

It can increase the chance of incest. Since many of the kids with the same donor often live close to each other, and sometimes attend the same schools, greater chances of unintentional incest between half sisters and half brothers have been recorded.

Read on for three more potential consequences of sperm donation.