The day I failed to become a father and had to let my wife convince me donation sperm was a good idea.

To experience infertility is one of life’s unlucky situations. I’ve known about my infertility for many years, but the feeling of loss is still as raw as it has ever been. I was lucky enough to conceive one child thru ivf with my previous partner. But time has moved along and am now re married and its back to that place I always dreaded. After many cycles of unsuccessful treatment I’m faced with the painful decision to use donor sperm. I thought it would be an easier choice than it has been. I feel the emotions of my childless partner and being the primary cause of the infertility this weighs heavily on my shoulders. Today is egg retrieval day and at this moment i face the fact that some other man is going to fertilize my wife’s eggs. For all the positive points of view i have read on this subject, it still does not make it any easier to accept. We men are simply wired to carry on our genetic line. So the reality of another man doing the job that i should have done really feels like a direct threat. It challenges your masculinity, your reason for being in so many ways. But we push further along and try to reconcile those feelings. Try to focus on the positive side of things. One thing is certain we will never have children which are genetically ours. So it takes time to accept that. But the process is moving forward and each step brings with it a new set of emotions and its own challenges. We can seek to run away from these steps or feelings. Recede into the black hole of childlessness or we can be brave and accept what donation can bring and concentrate on making a family in a different way. Children are children they bring joy and sorrow. But one thing is for sure they will change you for the better. Becoming a parent is a moment of personal growth and the drive to become parents is fundamental. So by accepting the use of donated sperm you can begin this journey even if it is somewhat different for the social father to come to terms with. You will allow you partner to become a mother to reach her dream. You have the power to do that. A happy wife is better than a wife that mourns for the children she never had. You can bring colour into a grey life.

At the same time as being positive there is always the ethical implications of such a choice. These worries never leave my mind

We must acknowledge the painful truth that, as infertile couples we seek to remedy our suffering through third-party reproduction, we are unwittingly inflicting pain on our future children. Eventually, those children must wrestle with the circumstances surrounding their conception. In aiming to satisfy our very natural desire for offspring, we as infertile couples go to great lengths to create children who are destined to experience complex crises of identity and purpose.

This transgenerational suffering precipitated by the experience of infertility is one that must be met with compassion, to be sure. Yet we must also offer a corrective that acknowledges the limits of desire and love.

Rather than supporting an inward focus on one’s own pain and loss from infertility, we ought to encourage deep consideration to the suffering that children conceived from these technologies may face. Moreover, rather than privileging one’s own desire for a child as the ultimate goal, we must encourage a preemptive compassion and empathy that should motivate us to refrain from pursuing such means.

A quote from an online article which i read stuck deeply in my mind. It is from the perspective of a donor conceived adult.

Titled – The loss of family tree

“Who are you to deny me half of my family tree—branches rich and strong with stories I may never be told? Who are you to give away my heritage, knowing it will be replaced with something false?”

“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry. Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage.”

“As a donor-conceived person, I have a sense of being part of an underclass … Having a child is a privilege not a right.”