I Would Have Bought Your Donor's Voice Recording, But I Spent All my Money at the Whole Foods Salad Bar

We've previously talked about how we are picking the sperm donor, but the Boston Globe posted an article yesterday that makes things a little more complicated. Basically the article is introducing a new optional procedure to test for 600 genetic childhood diseases. Great right? Sure.  But like most of us going through this journey it isn't like we can drop Benjamins like Big Papi drops home runs (sorry, the Red Sox are in the ALCS.  Any other time and I would know nothing about sports).  I think what the woman in the article went through is terrible, but it does point out another option/resource presented to you in this process that you have to budget for.... or not.  Let me lay out the numbers for you.

Doctor Visits (primary care, gyno, reproductive doc, etc)       $30 copay each time
So much poking and prodding.  But at least they call you the next day. <heyoo>

Testing & Meds (HSG, sonogram, blood tests, hysteroscopy, clomid, etc)  between $30 - $4,000

 **These can vary based upon your insurance coverage.  Simply call your company and they will provide all the answers <sarcasm>






OPK Kits    $22 for a pack of 100 little testing sticks - $36 for a the digital

I'll be honest- if you don't know me I am pretty cheap.  Most of the time I'll take "quality" over QUALITY if it saves me $5.  I also don't test well.  Meaning when I took the SATs in high school I took them 5 times. I'm not dumb, I just rationalize every possible option in a multiple choice.  So when presented with a stick that has two lines and if the lines are remotely dark in comparison you're

ovulating I have a panic attack.  Seriously.  You need a Pantone color swatch book.  "Shit.  I think Line 2 is

Cyan	4
Magenta	82
Yellow	26
Black	0

But Line one has darker tones of magenta?!?!!?"  Save yourself some time, stress and a graphic design degree and get the freakin' digital one.  It's either a circle or a smiley.  Or what I call the remedial OPK testing option.

Donor Sperm     $350-$1,000
We're talking reputable sperm here, people.  Our center works with about 15 different sperm banks around the country.  Meg, being the A+ student of the household, researched all of them and we narrowed our choice to one that will remain nameless here. It has a good amount of options (particularity since my CMV negative status narrows our options) and the pricing is reasonable (I already looked and they don't do Groupons).  We discovered along the way that some places even have bargain bins.... though this time, and I know this is a shock, even I will skip the clearance rack.  Other places, <cough, California, cough> offer "ad-ons" that you (no surprise) have to pay extra for.  Also, check out their donor search button....

Donor Information - Downloadable A La Carte Items
Handwriting Analysis	$20
Express Yourself	$20
Facial Features Report	$20
Donor Voice Recording	$20
Childhood Photo(s)	$20

And then there's shipping  for the sperm     $125-$340     & Storage      $450-$2,550

Blood Pregnancy Test     $70 each month (remember when they made me do one a week ago?!?)

As I've mentioned before, Meg is the planner in our family and, luckily, she builds in our savings from our budget.  There are a lot of pieces of this where you will be faced with financial options from "do we get a donor who looks like Taye Diggs?" to "do we spend a little more for additional testing?".  As long as they don't put these options in a multiple choice format I think we're gonna get through this.

Visualization of your bank account after all of this.

CMV, CVS & OPP: We're Down With Them All

If there’s one thing most people know about me (and this is Meg "speaking"), it’s that I’m terribly impatient. After our last appointment, we had to wait a full week before calling in to find out the results of our blood tests. I realize this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of waiting- I hear the “two week wait” is truly agonizing. That's the two weeks between an insemination and being able to take a

pregnancy test. I’m sure you’ll all have the pleasure of hearing me lament about that later.

Anyway, a week after our initial appointment, Kate called RSC to find out about our blood tests. I still can’t believe I had to have blood tests at all, as the non-bio Mom. I guess it’s important to make sure I’m free of infectious disease just in case we contract a disease later from our baby. The blood tests give us proof that we were initially disease-free. We were assured this was just a precaution and very rarely happens. Anyway, we “passed” this first round of blood test and learned a couple things that will impact our sperm donor choose.

#1- Kate has a positive blood type, which means our sperm donor can have a positive or negative blood type. That’s good as it keeps our options a little more open.

Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P.,
shouldn't we keep the P.C.
on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks
to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A.,
and then we'd all be put out in K.P.

#2- Kate and I are both negative for CMV. If you’re like me, you have no idea what this means or why it matters. According to stopcmv.org, Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common virus that infects people of all ages and is usually harmless to people with a healthy immune system. Most people have been exposed to CMV at some point in their lifetime without realizing it. Something like 80% of women in the United States have had CMV and would therefore test positive. Oddly enough, both Kate and I are negative. What this means is that we have to choose a sperm donor who is also negative (aka: has never had this extremely common virus). That narrows our options considerably.

#3- Kate has slightly low Vitamin D levels. Don’t we all nowadays? No biggie- we stocked up on

supplements with a buy-one-get-one coupon from CVS (Chuck- aren’t you proud of us???)

Kate's Artist Rendering of Fallopian Tubes

So our next steps are to get a few more tests that need to happen at a certain point in Kate’s cycle. I can’t even remember what they are- something about how many egg follicles are visible and if her fallopian tubes are free flowing. None of that is medically correct, but close enough. Those tests will hopefully occur over the next 2-4 weeks. Assuming we get the green light on all of those tests, we’ll go forward with choosing a sperm 



donor (Kate: don't you worry, we're gonna blog the crap out of that experience) and hopefully do our first insemination in...October? November? Stay tuned....