Girl at the sperm bank

But the pandemic spurred her to reprioritize: She moved back home to Santa Cruz, California to be closer to her mom, and the time indoors made her want to nest. All she needed was a sperm donor. So she looked into another option: Facebook groups that connect sperm donors and those seeking donations. She chose to have a natural insemination meaning sex, though Gordy and many other donors typically offer their sperm in a cup for artificial insemination, or they send it frozen in the mail. Leon-Weil, a marriage and family therapist, is currently 15 weeks pregnant.

The process can look like a seamless way to create a family, and for many, it is. In , the most recent year for which good data is available, some 30, to 60, babies born in the United States were conceived through sperm donation, out of approximately 4 million American babies born that year. As simple a transaction as sperm donation can seem to be, though, some find it to be stressful or isolating—and because assisted reproductive technology is a relatively new, rapidly developing field, the social and emotional challenges that can arise between the participants in a sperm donation are, for many, uncharted. Even decades after these practices have become common and their intricacies should theoretically be common knowledge, many of those who opt for sperm donation are still consistently surprised by all the ways it can shape—in some cases straining and, in others, enhancing—family dynamics. One such consistently surprised group is made up of infertile men. I shouldn't think this way.

Terry Gross. Chrysta Bilton's mother is a lesbian and her father was a sperm donor. She writes about her unusual upbringing in Normal Family. Growing up in the s and '90s, Chrysta Bilton didn't know any other families like hers. Her mother, Debra, struggled with alcoholism and cycled through various cults.

When I got pregnant, the law guaranteed lifelong anonymity. Now, with DNA testing on the rise, that law needs to change. O ut of 68 million people in the UK, there are just 29, individuals who have no legal right to know their parentage. My child is one of them. Twenty-seven years ago I decided to have a baby on my own.