choosing a donor
Known or unknown? Involved or distant?
I debated these things endlessly and considered my number one priority - avoiding the angst and grief of family court that I’m still going through with Rosie. Obviously the easiest thing would be to go with an unknown donor so that I had complete control… only problem is that I’m probably still fertile and as such, in South Australia, I’m not eligible for treatment by one of the ART clinics (Assisted Reproductive Technology).
Apart from not fancying the expense and medical invasiveness of being treated interstate… I still held dear these romantic notions of a collective of loving friends and family members being around for the child… No matter how hard I might try and eliminate him from the picture, in my imagination I had a spot reserved for the biological father. It has always been my preference to be principal carer… but I liked the idea of the child knowing it’s ‘donor-dad’ as just one of a group of ‘fairy god-parents’.
I worked my way through a small list of a couple of prospective donors, but nobody saw it quite the way I did… and the one thing I dreaded most was conflict… so negotiations were always protracted as we tried to cover all possible eventualities and intangible expectations…
Evetually I found a local guy who was happy to be involved, but on my terms… and better still - we get along!
Check out the little paper bag the first specimen jar was delivered in!