Why Is Donor Sperm So Expensive?
In my last post, I lamented the fact that my wife and I are temporarily postponing starting our family due to the recession and the cost of sperm. If you have romantic ideas about buying sperm from a lovely bank and getting knocked up, you may not want to read on for fear of bursting your bubble.
The industry is one of zero regulation and very little competition. When it comes to big, emotional life-dreams, they could probably charge anything they wanted. It’s really hard to put a price on a baby, on life itself. While I’m livid that a little vial of the stuff we need is $500 a pop- we would likely even save up and buy sperm if it was $1000 a pop.
Supply and demand doesn’t factor in on this one in the usual way. There isn’t actually a lack of donors. There is, however, a lack of healthy, motile sperm that can survive a freeze. And there are even less donors that have viable pregnancies reported using their sperm. When you’ve found a donor that has the physical, mental and emotional attributes that you’re looking for, and you know his sperm works- you get attached and you’re probably willing to pay anything. That’s when you have your ‘œIf These Walls Could Talk Two’ moment like Ellen DeGeneres and Sharon Stone and you’re crying ‘œIf only you and I could make a baby on our own! Why don’t you make sperm, Goddamn-it?’
It is not uncommon for the sperm shops to make only ‘œwashed’ (tinkered with and sometimes twice as expensive) sperm available when it’s coming from a donor with known pregnancies. We would be buying unwashed sperm right now and doing with our midwife or at home if it was only available- but this is how the industry takes the most money it can from us. Whoever owns California Cryobank is making a killing.
And then of course, it’s more than just sperm you must empty your wallet for. Shipping is around $170 two vials at a time. And a skilled professional must thaw and insert the sperm through the cervix so that’s $200-$300 to have someone you have probably never met squirt it into you. And then there is the storage fees of around $100/month because it’s cheaper to buy multiple vials and they must stay stored at the bank…
At many fertility clinics, you and your partner will likely be forced to take a psycho-social ‘œevaluation’ before the clinic will work with you. You must ‘œpass’ this evaluation.
And that’s not all. Most places will make you do multiple blood tests to check your health, an x-ray of your reproductive organs and an ultrasound before each try to make sure you’re really ovulating and an egg is ready (this is because the infertility clinics are used to working with people with fertility issues). The last ultrasound I had unrelated to baby-making was $400 without insurance. And that brings us to’¦
Topping it off, even though you may not be infertile, just queer, your insurance will not cover any of this because ‘œinfertility treatments’ are not covered under any insurance I know of. If you happen to find one that does cover some treatments, it’s unlikely that your inseminations will be covered if they are not related to a medical problem. Both partners being female is not a medical problem.
All in all, our first month’s try in a clinic including tests would be about $2,470 or more. Check out Nina’s last post on the price of bringing home a baby.
Over and over again, we will endure these things and pay this price because the cost of legal fees if a known donor wants to take away your child is going to be more expensive than any of this, and even more emotionally difficult.
I fortunately just found out that our lesbian midwife is skilled and experienced in doing the intra-uterine insemination right in our home which will save us half on the doctor visit, and she won’t make me to through any unnecessary tests. But a lesbian midwife is a luxury you won’t find in many places.
My wife dreams of a world where you can pick up sperm at the sex toy store, already loaded into a fun toy. Until then I just hope I’m very fertile and we don’t have to try for more than three months.
Moorea: I wish you the best and a successful end result (that bundle of joy!) as you embark on this journey.
I like to remind wannabe parents (both lesbians and gay men) that fertility treatments or the adoption / surrogacy path is indeed a teeming enterprise. If there wasn’t money to be made then there wouldn’t be any sperm banks, fertility clinics or independent adoption facilitators. All of it, in my experience, is a racket.
By the way, as expensive as it is, I think you and your wife are making the right choice with the anonymous sperm donor route. The legalities and personal complexities of using a known sperm donor has the risk of costing you more in the long run should things go awry.
For other readers considering this, Lesbian Life at About.com had a helpful legal perspective of using a known donor. Linked here in case anyone is interested.
Keep us posted on your progress. I speak first hand that the end result is so worth the expense to get there.
Moorea,
First off, good luck in your journey to parenthood.
While I agree that donor sperm is expensive, I don’t necessarily agree about the long list of expenses you list. Yes, they exist but they aren’t really required. Every couple has to make choices about the path they are going to take toward parenthood. Adhering to a medical model – one with a fertility clinic and random professional to insert the sperm is an option as is the midwife route. But the fertility clinic, tests, medications, etc. are just that – choices.
My partner and I bought, quite frankly, discounted sperm. We bought 6 vials at a time which got us 2 free months of local storage (from a non-local bank) and we only paid shipping once. We had to pay a fee each time we took 1 (or more) vials out but the monthly storage fee was only $35 for the unused vials. We visited an Ob/Gyn so we were on record as having a medical provider with the sperm bank and she gave my partner an annual exam (covered by insurance). We used the Toni Weschler book and a fertility monitor to time periods of highest fertility, then did the inseminations at home. Our first child took us 4 months (8 total vials of sperm) to concieve. Our second child took us 1 month, 1 vial of sperm and we sold back the remaining 5 vials at half-price to the sperm bank.
A lot of the expenses are dependent on the choices you make. Also, if you think that $500 is expensive for less than an ounce of sperm, instead think about the price per actual sperm. If there are 35,000,000 motile sperm per ml, you may be paying .000142 cents per swimmer. That’s a pretty good rate given that any one of those guys could help make a baby for you.
Good luck!
OK, how does the x-ray of your lady parts make any sense? You usually have those covered up when you get an x-ray so that you don’t damage the goods with radioactive gamma rays (or whatever the heck they are). You’re trying to get preggers, so they expose your reproductive organs to radiation. HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?
On a side note, I watched “The Business of Being Born” last night. It’s a documentary by Ricki Lake about the birthing industry. OMG – it scared the crap out of me.
Good luck to you!
I’m on the opposite side of this…being as I would be the “donor” not the buyer (never having even contemplated the idea).
It’s terrible how much this costs for someone who wants a child.
I am reminded though of a friend of mine. a gay man married to a lesbian…”window dressing” as they call it…he was in the military from which he retired years ago.
They both wanted childred but the “usual” for of conceiving wouldn’t work….and Viagra was still a long way off if you get my drift.
Conception was done at home with the aid of the appropriate “reading material” and a race upstairs and use of a “bovine inseminator” gotten from a veterinary supply house.
Three sons eventually over several years and surprisingly(???) 2 of the three are gay…don’t tell me its not genetic!!!
Wow, Debra, I wish I knew how to buy discounted sperm! The X-ray doesn’t make any sense, you’re right, Serena! That’s why I’m go glad I can use a midwife and now a fertility clinic. They do it as procedure because medicine is all about finding “problems”. Everyone should see the Business of Being Born, Yes! But you will never want to have a child in a hospital after that. And Yay! I finally made it into Mombian!
If you’re interested in “discounted sperm,” have you looked into Northwest Andrology and Cryobank? http://www.nwcryobank.com/index.php Their prices are about half that of California Cryobank’s. They’re also the only bank (that I know of) which is willing to ship sperm to you without needing your doctor’s OK. Which means that if you wanted to skip all fertility testing and psychosocial evals and doctor’s fees, and just do home inseminations, you could.
(I didn’t use Northwest, but know several women who did and were quite happy with them. I used California, but so long ago that I was able to able to conceive my son for a grand total of about $2000, despite the fact it took 7 cycles. Sperm prices seem to have gone up noticeably faster than inflation.)
I would also suggest doing some more research into the question of one vs two inseminations per cycle. From the costs you list, it sounds like you’re planning on two, but the last time I looked at research, success rates with two insems were more like 1.5 times the rates with one insem. So it might be more cost-effective to do just one, unless you’re old enough that time really matters. (Given that you’re putting baby-making on hold for now, I suspect that’s not the case.)
Finally, general advice to anyone looking go the donor sperm route… this is an excellent time to tap into your local gay parents’ group. I would definitely not have found the midwives’ clinic I went to for inseminations by searching the yellow pages or the internet; they just don’t advertise well. Instead, I found them through word-of-mouth from a parents’ group. They were much cheaper and far more comfortable to work with than any big well-advertised fertility clinic would have been.
I’d like to repsond to your statement that sperm banks have “zero regulation” and little competition. First, the regulation issue. I worked in a respected sperm bank for several years as a lab tech and I can assure you the regulation load is very heavy indeed – as is the competition. The FDA, which regulates U.S. sperm banks, is extremely rigorous and conducts exhaustive clinic visits/asessments of every sperm bank annually as do state agencies. Any infraction – in any part of a sperm bank’s operations – must be immediately corrected or the bank faces closure. This is an extraordinarily demanding field. As for sperm costs, fewer than 1 in 10 prospective donors are approved – this after the sperm bank has invested a great deal of staff time and lab costs in the process of elimination/acceptance. I don’t know how these myths started, which are also promulgated by many in the mainstream press. Even the smallest amount of research would show the reality of what I’m saying.
Some articles on regulation:
Yes, sperm banks are within the last two years becoming more regulated by Health and Human Services. It depends on the sperm bank, though.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2005/05/sperm_bank_regu.html
http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?ThreadID=52109
> Both partners being female is not a medical problem.
Speak up, do you think it should be covered?
> Even the smallest amount of research would show the reality of what I’m saying.
Don’t let facts spoil this chance to rage out!
> to have someone you have probably never met squirt it into you.
Yeah, that is how a lot of people get pregnant, but usually for free.
Now, I notice you stop short of actually making a real complaint, you just list things you don’t like… cry much?
Why not tell us what you really think should change… do you think you have any ‘reproductive rights’ go on, use words that convey meaning like that, perhaps use the word equality in there. I am all ears.
I guess we also used “discounted” sperm from .midwestspermbank.com and saved HUGE money over california cryo. It’s $200/vial $50-$110 shipping depending on the distance from Chicago. The profiles and the photo-assisted donor selection is free. The doctor in charge, Joanne, is the one who answers the phone/emails. She will tell you, “No, that one looks nothing like you” or “Try donor 220 instead, he’s much more fertile”. She won’t let you buy based on a romanticized donor profile if she knows there is a greater chance of getting pregnant with another donor. Compared to the corporate feeling you get with california cryo… this was an amazing change for us. Would I call such an experience “discounted” sperm… not at all.
Go on yahoogroups and search free sperm donors. There are men who will altruistically help you.