Sperm Donor Adventures: the fourth installment
the sperm saga
© Melina Magdalena (2007)
I can divide my list of 12 prospective donors into two clear camps – those men who get a thrill out of knowing their genetic material has become a baby, and those men who want to be mummies. The heterosexual respondents have less at stake in reproducing, and tend to be less possessive of their potential offspring. I can understand this – like lesbians, homosexual men on the whole become parents by choice, which makes the decision to embark on such a journey, very significant.
It’s been an interesting ride. I’ve had to assess and reassess my motives, needs and comfort zones, and maybe I’m not just a nice person anymore. Maybe I am someone to reckon with, someone to respect, someone whose views are valid and worth considering. I feel clearer. I feel less guilty.
Not to deride men’s needs and wants in terms of being fathers – one part of me applauds their brave assertion that they can and will and want to parent, and not just supply the genetic material to father a child. The trouble is, unless I supported the arranged marriage of convenience scenario, I don’t trust mutual goodwill to carry through into twenty years of action.
So maybe I’m not just a nice person anymore. I’m definitely not that doormat. I’m suspicious, untrusting and impatient. If it were going to happen that way, I would have become friends with this man by now. We would be on our mutual journey of friendship embarked upon for the purpose of exploring the possibility of creating a family together.
And that is the key – not one of these men wants to be part of my family.
They all have wants, needs, desires, ideas and opinions. Some of them have expressed their intention to contribute financially to the raising of a child. Several very clearly stated they would not. One of them asked me why I want to have more children when I already have two. The rest don’t seem to care. For them, my motivations aren’t important. It is all about what they want.
There must be a degree of defensiveness that directs their motivations so selfishly. This, combined with their lack of experience in how life changes when one becomes responsible for another, feels shallow and rings hollow. It engenders a typically angry feminist defensive response in me that says – well what about me, and what I want? What about the child, whose needs and rights must also be considered? It’s not all about you men. You already have it your way most of the time in this world!
Which maybe explains how I’ve returned to the beginning of my journey. At the beginning I didn’t understand why all I wanted was some sperm. It seemed vaguely unfair, and possible immoral.
I just wanted some sperm so I could get pregnant.
I just wanted some sperm so I could get pregnant and have a baby.
I just wanted some sperm so I could get pregnant and have a baby and be left in peace to raise my child.
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Something I’ve written bothers me. It niggles at the back of my mind – something doesn’t ring true.
The idea that someone doesn’t want to be part of my family is distinct from the idea of my wanting to be part of someone else’s family. These men have not told me in so many words that they don’t want to be part of my family. I have placed that understanding upon our communications. I’m choosing to read it that way.
To me, the essence of family is not a group of autonomous individuals, but a group of interactive and interdependent human beings who share and contribute to one another’s lives, for the good of all. It’s not necessary to share a roof, but it is necessary to share an understanding of one another’s needs and wants, and to cooperate in attaining mutual goals.
Could it be unrealistic to believe I could find a man to or a couple of men with whom I could create a family that were not based on sexual bonds between us? If I were in the heterosexual dating game, presumably I would have a right to be choosy in the man I chose to bed and wed. The pool of choice in my case has not been large – the metaphor of drought could hardly be more clichéd.
Could Reverend Moon be in the right – that virtually any two adults whose sincere intentions are to work together to build a loving harmonious home can form a lasting marriage, even arranged under his auspices? The trouble with the arranged marriage is that its nature is patriarchal. I am unwilling to subjugate myself to the male: the husband, the father…
And if I have the courage to be brutally honest with myself, I have rejected on my own terms at least as many prospective donors as have rejected me.
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I have seriously entertained the ideas of raising a child in an environment that included its father. My concept of living as a mother naturally means living in a family. A family for me includes my friends and my relations, and those of my children. When men have expressed their desires to parent a child that we created together, I automatically assumed this would mean working together, not separately. It means that just as I would consider the lifestyle and needs of the father of my child, I would expect him to consider mine.
I’ve reached a point now where I think this is unlikely ever to occur. I think it is so unlikely that it is undesirable for me to even aspire to this.
It comes down partly to issues of control, which have something to do with money, but are mostly to do with time – my time, and how I choose to spend it.
Perhaps my intentions and behaviour could be labelled male. If male means wanting to control the parameters and install boundaries in those places that keep me feeling comfortable, than I am willing to own that term. If male means having the power to decide and choose how far I am willing to expend my energies for another adult, and to choose to not give that power away, than I willingly assume that label. But that is probably not a useful tangent for this discussion.
While I already arrange my life around the needs of my children, and to a lesser extent around my friends and my relations, I do not want to contend with a man who will interfere and impose his wants over mine. I’ve lived like this already for thirteen years, having to constantly defend my needs and the needs of my children, firstly by stridently insisting that those needs exist and are valid, and then in learning how to be successful in ensuring those needs get met. Most of the time it has not been successful. There has been a great deal of suffering, stress and sorrow. Sure – it’s useful to learn how to identify and assert one’s needs, but this uphill battle for survival has no tantalising goal. It seems a waste of precious energy. I don’t want to do that again.
My children expressed to me their belief that it would be unfair on a child not to know its father. When the issue has been raised, invariably one of them asks “But who is going to father this child, Mum?” It’s a good question.
In lesbian parenting circles the language revolves around the use of known donors and unknown donors. The idea of anonymous has been relegated to some slightly smutty arena. We don’t have to go there anymore, in these days of self-funded IVF fertility clinics.
You will already have picked up on the verb ‘to use’. Nobody likes to be used. We all like to be acknowledged. We like to be given our due, to know that our actions are appreciated.
When financial remuneration is not an option, what motivates men to donate sperm for others to use?
And we’ve come back full circle – there are those men who get a thrill out of their own reproductive prowess (and want little or nothing to do with their offspring) and those men who want to be mummies.
All I want is some sperm.
