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(I’m not a doctor so don’t take my words and suggestions as like medical advice. This is me more so just sharing my journey! )
I have known that I wanted to be a Single Mother By Choice (SMBC) since my only serious relationship didn’t work out years ago.
You make these plans with a significant other and then you one day realize as it’s falling apart that love while very beautiful and amazing…when it leads to heartbreak, well it’s annoying how much time it takes out of your life to get yourself back together.
I saw how long it took me and realized I didn’t care to risk going through years of my life again getting to know someone and then getting to unknow them and then dealing with the heartbreak after and picking up the pieces of my life to glue it back together.
I am not closed to love but my priority at this stage in my life is now becoming a Mom and I don’t have the luxury of trying to find someone to make that dream come true if it ends up the same as before.
Also, seeing some of my closest friends and their situation being a separated parent and co-parenting especially when co-parenting is toxic is not something I think I’m tough enough to go through or want to risk putting my kids through.
Anyway, the last two years I finally knew that my SMBC journey was going to start sooner than later and with my fear I kept putting it off until now.
But I now feel ready to delve into this dream and stop trying to plan everything out to the T and just jumping right in.
I’m hoping that my best Christmas present this year is becoming a Mom and meeting my little bundle of joy for the first time!
If you are thinking of becoming a SMBC with donor sperm, (do your own research as I’m not a doctor) I recommend doing a carrier test to check your genes way before you choose the exact date of trying to make it happen!
I think in my head once I knew I would be ready to become a Mom (don’t judge me please) I figured I would pick the time to inseminate myself/figure out when I wanted my due date to be, find my donor, inseminate, and then boom! Pregnant!
Donor details is something I didn’t think of tbh that much since I wanted to do an IUI/ICI procedure to make it as comparable as possible to getting pregnant the “normal way” and kept thinking when you fall in love and get pregnant that way, you don’t think of testing each other (or maybe you do and I’m just oblivious) for every single gene to make sure you will have kids or not.
Well now that I’m looking and think I found my future children’s father, it’s something I’m now wanting to check since the donor I want has this thing called CMV and it’s advised that if you don’t have CMV to go for a donor without CMV as well… and if you have CMV you can choose either/or.
Again, do your own research. Some don’t think it’s that important as risks (from what I’ve read) to contract CMV or your baby contracting CMV is low… but either/or I think figuring out your carrier details would be a good first step to do way before delving in the journey and you can do it at-home.
The test is a little pricey ($268) but you basically just spit in a tube and send it in. I’m still waiting for my results but I loved that you could do it at home.
The company I am using is called Invitae!
This is from their website:
The Invitae Comprehensive Carrier Screen checks your DNA for over 550 genetic conditions including cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, fragile X syndrome, and spinal muscular atrophy.
This is the same test your Ob-Gyn may offer at your 8-week appointment—but there’s no reason to wait. The sooner you know your results, the better.
Another first step I suggest is joining the singlemothersbychoice group. I joined with the year membership for about $35 and even though I haven’t checked everything about it out yet, just from what I have read and seen so far…it’s very informative!!! and seems to be an amazing community to be a part of!
One other thing you will be interested is joining cryobanks to see potential donors! I wanted to make sure I could see adult photos of donors when searching and most if not all cryobanks have the availability only if you pay the pricey membership!
But you are able to get free membership for a limited time if you just google discount codes for [insert cryobank you’re interested in here], which I didn’t know until recently and came in handy and wanted to for sure share with others!
I had been checking out California Cryobank first only and then when I finally got to see adult pictures, I didn’t find any donors that I was interested in.
I switched to Fairfax Cryobank and found so many more options there! Again I was able to get a discount code to be able to access more features like seeing adult photos of donors!
One other thing I’m adding is I bought some ovulation tests from Amazon to have an exact idea of when I’m ovulating for when I’m ready to inseminate!
I also wanted to take an at-home fertility test but the one I ordered from ModernFertility I got from Amazon (big mistake) and the activation code it came with apparently was attached to multiple tests they sold and I wasn’t able to register my test so I ended up pricking myself/making myself bleed for no reason (you need to bleed on the test to take it, it doesn’t hurt really and isn’t as creepy as I’m making it out to be) as I wasn’t able to use that test!
I suggest if you want to test your fertility that you buy your tests straight from the company website and don’t try and take advantage of Amazon prime shipping because it ended up costing me time and blood, literally.
I’m still thinking of buying another one or just ignoring that since the results aren’t very that specific and just say if your levels are low, normal, or higher for the various hormones they test. For some reason I thought it would tell you your egg count or something very specific! 😀
Also, you could probably buy a blood test from your blood lab and find out the same but I think that is pricier as I saw one for like $250+ (Quest) but they prick you and you don’t have to prick yourself so that’s a plus.
To iterate the first steps I’m taking:
- At Home Carrier test (Invitae) to help the process of finding my donor sperm
- Joining SMBC membership to have a community and resources/information on my journey
- Joining cryobanks to find my donor sperm and using discount codes to get free membership for a limited time to see adult pictures
- Ovulation tests to take along with my period app ovulation suggested date to figure out my exact day of ovulation
- Fertility test to see your fertility levels/details