Becoming a parent is an exciting time filled with love and joy. For some women, for a variety of reasons, their journey to parenthood will be through utilising donor sperm.
There are a number of circumstances that may facilitate the use of donor sperm.
- families where the man has no sperm or has difficulty getting sperm.
- Same-sex women who have the desire to have a family
- Classic disorders like chromosomal disorders of men
- Disorders like cystic fibrosis where the only option for the commencement of a family is the use of donor sperm.
- Women who decide they would like to commence a family
All those circumstances, plus more, have an ability to use donor sperm.
There are two ways that donor sperm is used.
Firstly, the female patient brings along a known donor to an IVF unit. With a known donor, the IVF unit guarantees to you that we’re putting sperm in at the right time, it guarantees that the sperm has no infectious disorders, and it guarantees that there is no significant medical history from the known donor.
When the donor provides sperm, it is screened for infectious diseases such as Hepatitis, Syphilis, HIV. The sperm is then frozen and quarantined for six months. The donor is then re-tested for those same disorders. Once we know the donor six months down the track has no infectious diseases, then the sperm that was frozen six months ago is now able to be used.
The second way is by utilising commercial donor sperm units. We access this donor sperm from America, Europe and Australia. Due to regulation variances, there is a cost difference in sperm depending on the location of the donor. There is very specific criteria when accessing sperm within Australia. Both the donor and the recipient undergo counselling and need to understand their legal rights and responsibilities including, offspring having access to the name of the donor at age 18, the number of families and the number of offspring of donor, access to the donor and rights of their offspring.
The use of donor sperm can then be used with any IVF technology. Be that plain insemination, or used in combination with IVF.
Donor sperm is a common event today and the use of donor sperm, is an acceptable way in our society to help many people fulfill their dreams. There is an easy, set process and we can organize everything and ensure you have the information you need and hopefully we can increase your dreams of family and child.