Open ID Sperm Donation

a blog by S.I.F., February 15, 2011

There were a million different factors that went into my quest for the perfect sperm donor. I weighed height against eye color. Education against artistic ability. Musical interests against skin tone. I took all these criteria that seemed both important and excessive, and I attempted to determine how they could link together and add up to the man I was meant to make a baby with.

But there was one factor that didn’t easily mesh into the “this or that” equation. One quality that I found myself unwilling to compromise on. I knew, almost from the outset, that I would be choosing an Open ID sperm donor.

Open ID Sperm Donor

It’s hard to explain why it was so important to me that my donor be Open ID. I know I personally had no real interest in meeting this person down the line. I would never consider him to be my child’s father or feel as though he was the missing link in our lives. In fact, the whole reason I was going the anonymous donor route to begin with was because I wanted that role to be open and available for the man of my dreams to step into — when and if he ever decided to appear.

To me, all this person would be contributing was genes. And in my mind, genes do not equal family. The sperm donor would not be there for the conception, or the two-week wait or the countless doctors’ appointments that would follow. He would not be there for the birth, or the sleepless nights or the skinned knees in need of kissing.
This donor would be contributing one thing and one thing only; sperm. My interest in him beyond that sperm truly didn’t exist.

Choosing for Baby-to-Be Rather than Me

But…I knew in the back of my mind that the distance I was able to set between myself and my sperm donor may not have been the same distance my child would want to set. I knew that any baby-to-be may view that donor as more than simply the sperm. That they may have questions, or curiosities or even emotional ties that I really couldn’t understand.

I knew that I could never know for sure how open and available my future child would one day hope for the sperm donor to be, and as such; I had to choose Open ID. I had to give my baby-to-be the choice to seek out his or her sperm donor one day. The opportunity to find out more, if questions lingered long past the typical curiosity.

For me, choosing Open ID was a no brainer. It was a choice made with that baby-to-be in mind. And as more and more banks open themselves up to Open ID donors, I have to believe it’s the path the industry as a whole is starting to take. One that leaves doors opened instead of closed. One that allows for questions in the future, for curiosities to be fulfilled and for answers to be found. Choosing Open ID makes those opportunities a possibility.

So unlike green eyes, brown hair and a college education, it was a non-negotiable for me. Open ID was the only quality upon which I personally was unwilling to waver.