Friday, September 19, 2008

Shaken, Not Stirred

My wife and I over the past weeks have intensely looking over profiles of potential donors from a sperm bank.  It's way more difficult than I anticipated and honestly it's a little strange and even slightly comical.  If I've learned anything from my mom, it's to try to find humor in just about everything.  I mean if you can't find humor in a donor saying in their profile that Sammy Hagar is their hero then you really are dead inside.  Come on, that's funny!  Sammy freakin' Hagar, former Van Halen singer, the one that couldn't drive 55, and hasn't been relevant in like 2 decades!
  
Ok moving past Sammy Hagar.  So, we went into this thinking we had definite traits we were looking for but the more you look the more what you had in mind changes.  You start to stray from what you originally thought was most important and then the old nature vs. nurture debate comes into play.  I mean if you pick the genius, super jock, handsome donor will you create like an uber-baby?  Unlikely.  I mean the genes of my fabulous, smart, funny, outgoing wife might have some say in Baby X.  Certainly nature is going to have an impact as well.

So, starting out we were thinking tall (wife is only 5'1"), athletic, and preferable blonde hair/blue eyes so there would potentially be some of me in the child.  We started reading the profiles with our "ideal donor" in mind and we got really overwhelmed by all the other stuff. We got distracted by little, probably insignificant details that are kind of silly, and we said things like:

"Hey, this guy played in the Little League World Series!"  (Hell, so have a million other kids doesn't mean this child will be a baseball/softball prodigy)


"This guy's grandfather has a mineral named after him!" (...and that would mean? The kid will be obsessed with rocks?)


"Wow, this donor's grandmother has a genius IQ!"  (Does this mean our child is going to be the next Einstein? Perhaps not.)

After lengthy discussions and pouring over the donors, the other night we got it down to a top 3. Very exciting!  Donor #1 is clearly VERY smart, said he's athletic, but doesn't have an adult picture.  It may seem shallow but people are lying if they say looks don't matter.  Honestly if people had a choice of picking a baby daddy, they would try to pick a good looking man.  Donor #2 is smart, athletic, 6' tall, seems genuine, and has baby and adult pics.  Not great looking but not scary looking.  Donor #3 is a firefighter, appears to be smart, outgoing, friendly, good-looking.  Kind of that guy next door.  Not super tall though at 5'10" but not short.  Blue eyes which is nice.  We knew it was going to be a tough decision.  
 
Cut to last night (9/18).  We decided to go out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants in Waltham, called Tempo.  We ordered food and most importantly drinks.  My wife ordered her usual (Flirtini = chambord with champagne) and I ordered a pomegranate martini.  We started talking about our top 3 and we kept coming back to Donor #3.   We both said something on the lines of, "There's something about this guy.  He just seems like a good guy".  One thing #3 did have going for him as well was he was a "Yes" for identity disclosure.  My wife and I just couldn't bear having Baby X at 18 potentially saying, "I would like to contact my biological father" and our response would have to be, "Sorry, you can't do that because he doesn't want to be contacted".  It would break our hearts and having the option would be nice.
So, feeling pretty happy from the drinks and maybe a little tipsy I say "Did we just pick our donor?"  My wife smiled at me and said, "I think we did!"  So, he's not the smartest or tallest of the three and doesn't have blonde hair but at the end a gut feeling about this "good guy" won.  We don't need an uber-baby.  We will be happy with a healthy, honest, sincere good person.
  
Nothing like a sperm donor decision made over martinis! 

  
 

4 comments:

SupersammyG said...

I think we should make all important dec. over a flirtini and martini. Also I just figured out the title of the post. I am a little slow today.

Shazam! said...

I think everyone should make life decisions over martinis. Is the title too obscure? I thought it was kind of clever!

Anonymous said...

Very clever title ladies! So excited that you picked a donor,especially one that gives you such a good feeling. You're starting off great!

Anonymous said...

I think that feeling a connection to your donor, no matter what it is, is important. It played a huge role for us. Good luck!

~Kennedy