Donor sperm - will we or won't we?

After weeks of frank discussion, it's clear that my husband is vehemently opposed to even thinking about donor sperm. I could see in his face he was perplexed by me even bringing it up for consideration. His expression said, "As if this journey isn't painful enough, if I don't feel guilty enough for having had a Vasectomy, you now want me to consider being a part of impregnating you with someone else's sperm." Of course, he didn't say a word other than, "I don't think I like the idea."

I do understand his position, and I feel uncertain about it myself, so I dropped it. What I’ve always wanted is my dh's baby. More than a month passed, and we have been engulfed by our first IVF cycle.

Friday night he sat with me while I was relaxing in the tub. He sat on the bathtub’s edge with his feet in the water (you know, bathtubs are bad for his "swimmers" who need to stay cool, calm, and collected). He became really quiet, took a deep breath, and said, "You know. I've been thinking...” Pregnant pause.

My heart raced. What now? Does he have cold feet? Does he not want a baby anymore? Is this IVF cycle too much anguish? Is the cost too high?

And then, he says, “If the urologist goes in on Monday and finds nothing, then I want you to know I'm okay with us using donor sperm for the next cycle."

Excuse me, what? Where did THAT come from?

We often don’t give men enough credit. They sometimes need more time than we think they do. I know some will never get used to the idea, but my open-minded, loving husband had to get to this life-altering decision all by himself, without my intervention. And that is good. Because I love him, and would rather have his genetic offspring than use donor sperm. But I also know him well enough to know he could love any child that came into our lives, whatever the path. He is intelligent, loving, gentle, selfless. My soul mate.

I'm relieved that we have more options on the table now, because adoption is too expensive for us to even consider. If this IVF/ICSI cycle doesn't work, then all we could have done was to try the same thing again and again, maybe with a different protocol of meds and dosages.

With donor sperm, we have at least one more (albeit less desirable) option to consider. With DS, we get to bond with the baby while he/she in my uterus, we get to be present for the birth of our child, donor sperm is easier to match, more affordable, the baby would at least be genetically linked to one of us, and I get a reprieve from Endo and lower my risk of ovarian cancer by carrying our child. It's comforting to have a backup plan as we head into the uncertainty of next week’s retrieval - and hopefully a transfer of beautiful blasts.