Sperm

“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around – and why his parents will always wave back.” – William D. Tammeus

Someone recently posted a comment asking if Jeanine and I had a discussion about the race of our baby and if so, wanted to know if I would share with readers any issues we had in selecting a donor. I’m not sure how to tie this back to finances except to say that sperm costs money and we’ve budgeted a certain amount of it this year for the insemination process.

His question was, “All things being equal, except for race, wouldn’t your preference be for a white donor.” So regarding this topic of race… let me defer to our favorite Sunday night Showtime indulgence: The L Word. “Central to the show are Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals) and Tina Kennard (Laurel Hollomon), a lesbian couple who, after seven years of dating, want to have a child by artificially inseminating Tina.”

“The character of Bette Porter is biracial, of black and white descent. Bette and Tina struggle to find a suitable sperm donor until one day, Bette announces that she’s found the perfect man. Tina is shocked when the donor turns out to be black, and she realizes that she hadn’t fully processed the possibility of having a part-black child. Bette is surprised and hurt that Tina would be so uncomfortable with having a biracial baby, but Tina finally comes around and she is successfully inseminated.”

What was left out of this review was Tina defending why she thought they should have a Caucasian baby. In the heat of their debate, Tina said (this is the paraphrased version because I couldn’t find the exact quote online), “Isn’t it hard enough for a child to grow up with two mommies… why would we want to burden it with being biracial too?” Anyway, the writers felt the story line would be more interesting with a biracial baby so in Season 3: out pops adorable Angelica: the product of white Tina and an African American sperm donor.

Yesterday, The New York Times Magazine had an article by Jennifer Egan entitled: Looking for Mr. Good Sperm. Egan interviewed a woman named Daniela that was “attracted by the idea of a donor of another race. “I believe in multiculturalism,” she said. “I would probably choose somebody with a darker skin color so I don’t have to slather sunblock on my kid all the time. I wanted it to be a healthy mix. You know how mixed dogs are always the nicest and friendliest and the healthiest? If you get clear race, they have all the problems. Mutts are always the friendly ones, the intelligent ones, the ones who don’t bark and have a good character. I want a mutt.”

But, “her African-American friends questioned this strategy, suggesting that her child’s life would be harder if he or she was perceived as nonwhite.” Daniela said: “If that’s what I believe, I have to go by that. And it might help the world also if more people are doing it that way.”

She has a point. Perhaps, if we were Angelina Jolie and hopping continents to build out our family, but our journey is a bit more mainstream here in the OC. Also, we were selecting from a relatively small pool of anonymous donors and most were Caucasian. So to answer the question: we chose a donor that would look like me since he would be my representation in the gene pool.

Jeanine is almost full-blooded Italian, so we wanted to introduce some northern European characteristics: blonde, fair skinned and blue-eyed. Of course, Jeanine’s look is dominant as the birth mother but he or she will still be able to pass for my flesh and blood.

Thanks for asking though. There are many strange things to consider when you are buying the daddy.