Introducing Donor Dan

Lovergirl says she is ovulating soon so here we go with the round of driving two hours up to Brisbane and two hours back in pursuit of the elusive sperm. As it's a work week we are going to be going after work tonight, tomorrow night and probably Thursday night and coming home each morning before work.

I'm trying to stay enthusiastic but it's been over twelve months now - in fact this is our seventeenth month - seventeen months of dropping everything once a month and racing up to Brisbane. I have no social life and Lovergirl and I dont talk about anything except temperatures and ferning and whether or not we can bust from our fertility diet (no caffeine, alcohol or sugar) to have, gasp, a cup of decaf or a biscuit.

We have high hopes for our new approach - fresh swimmers. Originally we had decided that we would go through a clinic, partly because the men we asked said no (they didn't feel like they could be distant enough from a child they helped create, wanted to be a father) and partly because of the legal situation - I'm not recognised as a legal parent of Lovergirl's child and a known donor has a strong chance of getting access or even custody if they want. So it is a huge leap of faith to move to using fresh sperm.

Anyway we went onto a great internet site - the Australian Sperm Donor Registry - after my devastating IVF attempt (not one egg fertilised) and found a REAL BOY! Innovative huh?

He shall be henceforth known as Donor Dan (not his real name).

Donor Dan is a gay boy who lives in Brisbane. He's an accountant, very smart and very cute. He has a boyfriend whom I shall call James. They are a bit younger than us - Donor Dan is early 30s and James is late twenties, I'd guess. We met them twice then decided to go ahead.

Funny isn't it - making such a huge decision based on two meetings and a gut feeling that he's a nice guy who won't drag us through the courts demanding our baby. If this is successful, we will be connected with Donor Dan for the rest of our lives. We say we want the donor to have an 'uncle' type roleThey both seem sweet, and reasonably honest - as honest as you can expect when you have known someone all of seventy-five minutes. Donor Dan doesn't have family in Australia, and his family sounds pretty old fashioned about the whole gay thing. He says he wants to help gays & lesbians have families.

What would i want to know about someone I am planning to have in my life for the rest of my life?
- do you want to have kids of your own some day?
- what are your best character traits?
- what do you think are your worst character traits?
- what sort of qualities do you look for in a friend?
- when you get into dysfunctional relationships, what sort of traits attract you?
- why have you decided to donate sperm?
- what is your favourite thing to do with a day off?
- what do you feel passionately about?
- what are three things you love doing?
- if you could change one thing about the way our society works, what would it be?

Maybe I will send him a questionnaire! I think I'd better work on it a bit more first...I want to ask really good questions, all of these sound a bit naff.