About Surrogacy

Fertility Grief and Using a Sperm Donor

Infertility grief isn’t unheard of for intended fathers who can’t use their own sperm to grow their families.

Using a sperm donor to help grow your family may have you looking for guidance on coping with infertility grief.

It’s perfectly normal to feel different and difficult emotions when it comes to growing your family, there’s no one right or wrong way to feel.

Addressing grief and infertility is an important step to take before you continue to live out your dreams of parenthood.

Contact us online to get the support you deserve. We can connect you with various infertility resources, from professionals that can address the emotions you may be feeling to fertility clinics that offer donor sperm programs.

This article will take a look at why using a sperm donor for IVF may be part of your journey, what emotions could come with using a sperm donor and strategies for addressing these various emotions.

How to Deal with Infertility Grief

There isn’t one answer when it comes to coping with infertility grief nor is there a quick fix to overcoming grief and infertility.

How you process it may look different than someone else or even your partner. That’s OK.

Here are some general strategies you can try to address the emotions you may be feeling:

Acknowledge your feelings. If you need to let off steam about this difficult process by crying, do so. If you want to yell into a pillow to get out some of your anger, try it out.

What you may be feeling could be similar or different from what your partner is experiencing. Everyone processes their emotions differently and you and your partner can work through your different emotions together.

Fertility counselors are prime example of getting an outside perspective to a problem that has affected many people from all walks of life.

Hearing stories from others that have experienced similar situations can help remove some of the false feelings that you are all alone in this journey. Learning about others and their outcomes can help buoy your confidence that parenthood is still possible for you.

Talk to your friends and family about your journey and share how they can help you address some of what’s affecting you the most.

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to dealing with your infertility grief, here are a few places you can start:

RESOLVE: RESOLVE is the National Infertility Association, a nonprofit that can connect you with the help you deserve, from finding a specific type of support group to other helpful resources and advice from those that have walked in your shoes.
R/Infertility: R/infertility is a forum on Reddit that deals with “primary or secondary infertility, social infertility, pregnancy loss after infertility, and/or recurrent loss.”
American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM): ASRM manages a website that has resources to help with coping with infertility grief from patient stories and frequently asked questions to podcasts and videos on various topics surrounding infertility.
Infertility Support Group: This is a 10 thousand member strong Facebook group where men and women support each other in their situations with infertility.
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG): ACOG has fact sheets on a variety of infertility topics, like evaluating infertility, treating infertility and other broad topics.

How Do Men Feel About Using a Sperm Donor?

There is no uniform emotion men can feel about using a sperm donor but it’s not uncommon for emotions such as shame, loss, guilt and even anger. Despite using a sperm donor becoming more and more prevalent, there is still a stigma surrounding using donor sperm.

Rhian Kivits, a Relate-trained sex and relationship expert, talked to MensHealth for an article about using a sperm donor and touched on why a variety of emotions can come up.

“Men can be quite shocked when they discover they need a sperm donor,” said Kivits. “It can bring up insecurities within men about their masculinity which they may need time to work through. They may struggle with guilt and shame, assuming they’ll be blamed and judged by their partner, family members and friends.”

Coming to terms with your infertility grief looks different for each individual, but understanding that the relationship you have with your child runs much deeper than just a genetic connection is an important piece of the puzzle.

The love you show your child through your words and actions are what will help develop a lifelong bond you’ll have with your child as they get older.

When Do You Need A Sperm Donor for IVF or Surrogacy?

Using a sperm donor may be part of your path to becoming a parent if:

You or your partner has a low sperm count.
You or your partner has low sperm motility.
You or your partner has issues with sperm delivery.
You are part of a lesbian couple.
You are a single woman.
You want to avoid passing on a genetic disease or disorder.

Grief and infertility may result from learning that you won’t be able to contribute to your child’s conception and not being able to share a genetic connection with them.

But becoming a parent is still within reach thanks to the advancement of assisted reproductive technologies (ART).

Fill out our online contact form to get the support you deserve. We’re here for you whenever you need us.