MEMOIR | Confessions of a Sperm Donor

MEMOIR (Autobiographical)

Confessions of a Sperm Donor

Donating sperm is not as glamorous or macho as most would think. 

Its actually quite a long drawn-out process.

First Visit

You provide a fresh specimen (harvested at the fertility clinic) in a wide-mouthed jar. You are ushered into a private room with a choice selection of “top shelf magazines” to help you hasten ejaculation. They will check this sample under a microscope to see if your spermatozoa are viable, i.e. of normal shape, high sperm count and of sufficient motility (moves vigorously and not lame).

Then, you must refrain from releasing for at least three days before they call you in for...

Visit #2

If you have low sperm count, odd-shaped spermatozoa or they have low motility, you won’t get to this stage. At the second visit, you provide another fresh sample. This time they’ll freeze it in liquid nitrogen for two weeks before reviving your sperm by thawing them out. And then, they check to see if the revived spermatozoa remain viable. So, a few weeks will pass before you know if your sperms can survive the cryogenics and remain viable or not. If they pass muster, you’ll get another call for your...

Visit #3

Not many would-be donors survive to this stage. I don’t know what the statistics are but I was given the impression its a very select few. The staff at the fertility clinic start treating you like a VIP patient, even though they’ll be the ones who’ll be paying you.

After giving your fresh specimen, they have to check whether you have any VD or STD. They do this by doing a urethral swab. Sounds innocuous enough, but I tell you, its one of the most painful, cringe-worthy experiences in my life. No joke. The ‘swab” is about the size of a satay stick with a cotton bud on one end. Its done in a flash, the male nurse basically pokes it into your meatus and takes it out. A swift jab, in and out but ever so painful. I suppose the nerves in the urethral wall are very raw and sensitive.

They don’t do the swab before you give your specimen, for obvious reasons.

The swab is then cultured in agar in a petri dish. Only when its negative will your sperm be used for in vitro fertilisation. When I remarked to the nurse about the excruciating pain, he buat derk and replied nonchalantly, “umph, yes, there is a little discomfort.”

Understatement of my lifetime. I still felt the pain for days after. And I still cringe and shudder when I think of it.

The rules are that a person cannot impregnate more than 100 women. I guess, it is so that if you do have some undesirable trait, you wouldn’t spread it to too many offspring.

The touching part is, you get to write an anonymous letter to your unborn child. Of course, you can’t identify yourself in any obvious way, but it was good to explain my motivation and to reassure the child that his/her parents want him/her so much, that they were prepared to go to every length to conceive you. I described my positive personality attributes and IQ, some physical attributes (colour of eyes, hair, skin; height, lobed ears, right handed, and etc.) so that if the child inherits any of these attributes, he or she will know they got it from me. London is not only a multi-ethnic society but also a world-class centre of excellence for fertility treatment. Patients from all over the world go to London for treatment and try to get pregnant. Of course, the clinic requires a donor whose physical attributes closely matches the parents. Having Arabic, Bugis, Chinese, Dutch, Minangkabau and Pathan ancestry, I have a pan-Asian look and can pass off as an Asian from anywhere from Burma, Indochina, Philippines, China, Indonesia, not just Malaysia. Polynesia and South America, even...

‘Your parents must love you very much for them to go through the whole procedure,’ I wrote. I remember I was very emotional and teary-eyed by the time I finished the letter.

Subsequent visits were very much like the third. You need to be a bit of a masochist to endure the urethral swab, but at least the money was good (£40 per visit, from the third visit onwards). You don’t need to write the letter again, I think they store it electronically and a copy will be made available to the parents or child upon request.

So, if the recipient mothers got pregnant and delivered successfully, I have biological offspring between the ages of about 20 to 23 that I don’t know about...

If you’re reading this and suspect you’re my offspring - I’ve embedded hidden clues in my letter to you - you can get in touch, if you like. I’m not insisting that you do but I would be really delighted if you did. No, you don’t owe me anything, it would just be very nice to see that enduring the urethral swabs was worth it. That I helped create a human life, now all grown up and mature, ready to procreate. Someone so desired by their parents that no expenses or pain were spared to create you. I feel so happy to be part of that process. There is nothing so blissful than a child so desired, so loved. So wanted.

Copyright 2003-2011 Azlan Adnan Legal Notice Copyright 2003-2011 Azlan Adnan. This blog post is sponsored by The Green Party of Malaysia