The known makes for too many unknowns

If you haven't read MJ's intro, you may want to do so before you read all of my "how too" for the Colorasbians (That's Colorado Lesbians).

The first decision we weighed was known donor VS sperm bank. For those who don't know, a known donor is asking someone you know to donate sperm for you - like a friend or the handsome UPS delivery man. We initially thought this is what we wanted because 1. It was a lot cheaper, 2. We could answer questions about the biological father and 3. we would know what the donor looked like.

Let's all face a small fact right now - we want our children to be cute. If you are using a sperm donor of any kind, the big question you are secretly thinking about is appearance. You want tall, dark and handsome. Even lesbians want their boys to grow up handsome and their daughters to be striking beauties. No one wants to have a kid with Mr. "My hobbies are picking my nose and wiping it on my shirt"

So I initially thought it would be nice to have a known donor. MJ and I had conversations around who we would want to ask. We even had friends that just had a baby via known sperm donor. Then she took the plunge and asked a close .. but not too close friend.

After a few days of "logistics" research .. like "How would we capture his donation? Where would we store the stuff? How much does storage cost?" I came across some disturbing news - 1. Sperm storage was very expensive - like $700 a year. 2. to have our friend donate he would have to have two physicals at $500 a piece, he would have to donate and then we would have to wait 180 days before we could make a "withdrawal" and 3. known donor agreements have been over turned by some states. Colorado was a "gray" area.

I was like "whoa, whoa I am not going through all this to have my child taken away because I didn't give birth to it!" My main concern is my legal rights to the child. This is my kid too regardless of biological factors and I want to make sure I can adopt the child when he/she is born.

So the legal issue made it easier to decide that using a sperm bank was the right way to go for us.

Take away facts
1. To protect your legal rights, use a sperm bank
2. To protect your legal rights further, use a physician to administer the sperm ... not as fun as doing it at home - but the results are the same
3. Although sperm is free at many bars in town - Colorasbians have to pay for it.