Mandy's Story Posted July 1, 2005 My husband and I have been trying to conceive for almost three years. We have just gone through our 6th unsuccessful round of IVF. The doctors cannot find out what is wrong, everything on paper looks medically sound. But the reality is, we have not been able to conceive a child together. As a process of elimination, the doctors at our fertility clinic are suggesting we move to donor sperm as a next option, we will try 1/2 donor 1/2 my husband's sperm to try and determine if it is a male or female factor that could be causing infertility and the chromosomal abnormalities in the embryos. I have such mixed feelings about this donor sperm/egg option. My husband is actually much more on board with it than I am. I really want to be pregnant, I really want to carry our child, I just always wanted it to be conceived biologically and thought that my baby would be a product of my husband and me. I am coming to grips with the donor sperm option. If we do conceive with the donor sperm I will so happy and ecstatic to be pregnant, but selfishly and internally I think about: whose sperm we would use, what the baby will look like, will the baby be medically healthy, what will people think, all of these thoughts run through my head. I feel blessed that we can afford to even try all of these options and that hopefully it will work, it's just coming to terms with the fact that it will not be 100% biologically ours. I will of course love my baby to no end as will my husband, but I am for whatever reason having these thoughts. Depending upon the outcome of this next attempt, we will explore donor egg and eventually adoption, our goal is to have a healthy child to love, care and provide for one way or another. I guess the bottom line is that this is such a personal decision and every situation is different but the feelings of guilt, grief and loss are all common and similar across the board.