Donating the Future
A sperm donor is a man who donates vials of sperm and/or semen to be stored in a sperm bank. Donors must go through a long and stringent application process, verifying mental and physical health for several generations of his family, before his donation is accepted. Donors are not allowed to bring in their own donations from outside the clinical setting of the sperm bank; donations must take place either on-site at the clinic, or at an approved outside location.
Sperm donors are increasingly in demand due to single mothers and single or coupled lesbians who wish to have children. Donors are often paid for their donations, and the cost to women is sometimes covered by insurance, especially if part of a fertility treatment program. The decision between an anonymous donor and a "known" donor is not legally mandated in most areas, and modern trends lean towards "known" donors and extended families created by repeated use of one donor's samples.
How and When to Inseminate
Sperm banks, depending on size, can offer anywhere from several dozen to several hundred possible donors. Choosing among them is made more difficult by the fact that, if anonymous, there is often no picture to go along with the description. If you're hoping to create a 'super-baby', appearance might be an important factor.
Many women, when they find the 'perfect' donor, are excited about the insemination process to come. To maximize their chances of conception, insemination must be timed to take place within forty-eight hours of ovulation; and to detect ovulation, many women use an ovulation test.
An ovulation test is similar in structure and in use to a pregnancy test. However, a pregnancy test detects human Chorionic Gonadotropin, while an ovulation test looks for luteinizing hormone. Luteinizing hormone is the 'trigger' hormone that releases an egg into the fallopian tube. Once this egg is released, it is ready for ovulation. Positive results on an ovulation test indicate a spike in normal luteinizing hormone. If the egg is not fertilised within forty-eight hours of positive ovulation test results, it withers and dies, and will be shed along with the thickened endometrial lining at the end of the menstrual cycle.
"Failing" an ovulation test is not necessarily cause for concern. A woman only ovulates once a month, and each variety of ovulation test is designed to measure luteinizing hormone across a time period of several days. If ovulation test results return negative, it's actually a sign that she needs to try, try again. On the other hand, if you've been using a daily ovulation test for more than a month with no apparent surge in luteinizing hormone, discussing this with your doctor could point to health problems affecting your fertility. A consistently negative ovulation test series may indicate problems with your eggs leaving the fallopian tubes, or not being produced at all.
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