MsCardeno

This answer hit close to home here and I had a follow up question.

My wife and I are using a sperm donor (through a cryobank) this fall to begin TTC.

We have absolutely no intention of having the donor in our child’s life. We will answer all questions and the donor’s info will be released at 18 and the child can reach out if they want to. But not before then.

Do you think we should be looking for donors that would be involved from day one? I would be very hesitant to approach it that way and it’s off the table for us but am open to hear the pros!

Well legally speaking, from the paperwork we signed - we can not dig into who the donor is. The only way it is released is to the child at the age of 18. We’re not gatekeeping as we don’t even know the information. Of course, everything we know they will know.

Also, we are two women. So no hiding the fact that we used a donor! But even if our child wanted to know at age 12 and demanded we tell them - we literally couldn’t. There was a case a few months back where a mom reached out to a donor family through one of those DNA sites and she was stripped of all of her sibling sperm and would be sued for something like $25,000 if she didn’t stop - we absolutely don’t want to be in that situation.

I guess I was looking at the pros of having a third adult in the child’s life. Again, we will not be taking the route but it would have been interesting hearing thoughts on the matter. Thanks!

Absolutely! I was just pointing out we would not be “gatekeeping” anything.

It’s interesting hearing takes. I never knew my dad or his family (grew up with a single mom) and my sister and I never had the need to “find out more”.

But after going through the whole donor process and hearing others accounts it seems to be very important to people. Obviously everyone’s mileage may vary but my wife always suggests reaching out to my bio dad (found through commercial DNA testing) but tbh that sounds pretty awkward lol. To me, the man is as much of a stranger as you and me. Oddly enough my sister feels the exact same way.

Hi Nick!

I also work with big data (finance/insurance) and when I heard about this evidence-based policymaking I was super interested. Thank you for doing the AMA!

Can you provide some examples or scenarios in which data analysis could help with policymaking?

I imagine there are tons of ways but I was hoping you can highlight some key ideas you and your team might have.

Thanks so much!

Yeah I’m guessing the SO makes good money with the way OP has been wording everything. I would bet the SO makes like $150k or more.