Selecting A Sperm Bank

Name of Bank	California Cryobank	Fairfax Cryobank	Xytex	Sperm Bank of California	New England Cryogenic Center (NECC)
Contact Info	http://www.cryobank.com Client Relations Manager, Melonee Evans 1019 Gayley Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90024 (310) 443-5244 Fax (310) 443-5258 (800) 231-3373 mevans@cryobank.com	http://www.fairfaxcryobank.com/ 3015 Williams Drive · Suite 110 Fairfax, VA 22031 800-338-8407 · 703-698-3976 · fax: 703-698-3933 email: cryobank@givf.com	http://www.xytex.com/ 1776 Peachtree St., NE Suite 175 Atlanta, GA Phone: (404) 881-0426 Fax: (404) 881-6444 E-mail info@xytex.com	http://www.thespermbankofca.org/ The Sperm Bank of California Reproductive Technologies, Inc. 2115 Milvia Street, 2nd Floor Berkeley, CA 94704-1112 510/841-1858 phone 510/841-0332 fax info@thespermbankofca.org	http://www.necryo.com Catherine R. Rizza, President & CEO, New England Cryogenic Center 665 Beacon St. Boston, MA 02215-3202 Ph: 617.262.3311 Fax: 617.262.1234 necryo@necryogenic.com
Fees	DONOR SEMEN SERVICES ICI (Intracervical Insemination) Prepared Donor Specimen $165.00 IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) Prepared Donor Specimen $195.00 Donor Selection Consultation- each 1/2 hour- by appointment only $ 40.00 Genetic Counselor Consultation- each 1/2 hour- by appointment only $65.00 Donor Profile - short- first 6 short profiles per month are free each additional short profile: $ 5.00 Donor Profile - long $11.00 Fax fee (short profiles only - 2 pages - Within U.S.) $1.00 Donor Audio Tape $25.00 Donor Reactivation Fee Please call ext. 46 Same Day Account Set-Up $100.00 Change of Order Fee $50.00 Order Cancellation Fee $100.00	Fairfax Doctorate $208.00 (ICI) $248.00 (IUI) Fairfax (Regular) $168.00 (ICI) $198.00 (IUI) Family Solutions $115.00 (ICI) $115.00 (IUI)	Complete Donor Profile without PhotoFile™ -- $10.00 Complete Donor Profile with PhotoFile™ -- $25.00 Six Month Registration Fee With Unlimited Access -- $100.00	Donor Semen Donor Specimen 0.8cc - 1.0cc $150 Donor Specimen 0.5cc $95 Donor Specimen IUI ready $185 Donor Catalogue FREE Donor Profile (2 pages, includes donor narrative) FREE Donor Chart (11 to 15 pages) $15 Recipient/Donor photo matching $25 Shipping Tank - 2nd day delivery and return $130 Tank - overnight delivery and return $180 Dry Ice - overnight delivery $90 Additional fee for Saturday delivery $10	Fee schedule not listed on Website; Same day orders $25 extra Photo matching: $50 Characteristic matching (you fill out a form with characteristics you are looking for) $25 extra
Number of donors available on Aug/Sept 1999 List	169	114	76	40	87
Extra Options	Genetic counseling, donor matching consultation, audiotapes, racial color coding of specimens,	Site has a birth date calculator, blood type predictor (enter mother type and father type and RH and table tells you what type of donor will produce what type of child; Family Solutions from Fairfax Cryobank was initiated in 1998 to offer donor sperm from pregnancy proven donors at a discounted rate; Fairfax Doctorate (Fairfax Cryobank donors who are in the process of or who have completed their doctorate degrees, these individuals include: chiropractic, dental, law [juris doctorate], medical, optometry, and Ph.D. students and graduates; Photo matching; Genetic counseling; 2nd child by same donor; Donor re-activation; Keirsey Temperament Sorter	Donor essays, supplemental donor profiles (extra info eg. Does donor have dimples, how many people in donor’s family have blue eyes etc.), photofiles, babyfiles, videofiles; if the offspring of a Xytex donor contacts us after turning 18 years of age, we will try to get in touch with the donor and determine his interest in arranging a meeting; Xytex has permanently preserved donor cells to be used as genetic records. This process is known as Patriarch Genetic Tracking;	Sperm storage; Directed Donor Screening (private donors); semen analysis; sperm washing; assistance with home insemination; will ship to patient if you register through a medical professional who can be a doctor, nurse practitioner, osteopath, physician's assistant, or certified nurse midwife	High proportion of desireable occupations such as MD’s lawyers, CPA’s, engineers, Ph.D.’s; photo matching, characteristic matching,
Search options	Form available; can specify following variables on which to search: Race, previous pregnancy made, availability of audiotape, ethnic origin, blood type, religion, height, weight, hair color, hair texture, eye color, skin tone, years of education, occupation	Form has search options for height, eye color, college education, race, blood type, ethnic background, hair, race	Form allows you to search on hair color, eye color, blood type, height	No form available for selecting based on specific characteristics	No form available for searching
Hard to find Donor ethnic availability	African American, Chinese, Latino, East Indian, Polynesian, Jewish	Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Jewish, Korean	Puerto Rican, Native American, Filipino, Taiwanese, African American, Jewish	African American, East Asian Indian, Asian Chinese, Latino, Jewish	Chinese, African American, American Indian, Hispanic, Jewish,

Sperm banks vary widely in terms of the number of available donors, types of donors available (ethnically and educationally, for example), completeness of information available, kinds of medical testing, profiles types (long and short, for example), cost, identity release, specimen claims, availability of washed and unwashed sperm, and how, where, and to whom they will ship.

We recommend that you collect lists and information from at least five ~~to seven~~ banks before you even begin to make a selection. In addition to the ones mentioned in the chart above you can find information at http://www.ihr.com/infertility/provider/spermbank.html . You can also visit http://www.fertilitext.org/sbanks.html to review information about accreditation of banks Make sure that you select from banks that are licensed. Any reputable sperm bank will be licensed in more than one state; many sperm banks are members of the American Association of Tissue Banks (http://www.aatb.org/) , an organization that provides quality screening of the bank itself. Also make sure to find out if your doctor or clinic has one or two preferred banks. Often doctors have had successful experiences with several sperm banks and not such positive experiences with others.

More than anything else, your sperm donor needs to have fabulous sperm. Even if a donor has movie star looks, genius brains, and is the right ethnicity for you, if his sperm is not of high quality, he's no good as a donor.

Selecting Your Sperm Donor

After you have narrowed your sperm banks list to at least three preferred banks, start looking through the lists. As you read through the lists, you will need to start narrowing down your search. In order to do that, it's important to figure out what matters to you. You may want a donor who is a "duplicate" of your partner: ethnicity, education, religion, blood type, height, weight, eye color, hair color, college major, career, hobbies and interests--the whole package. Or, you may want to duplicate you, particularly if you don't have a partner. So, if you are Irish and Italian, type O+ blood, Catholic, tall and thin and like camping and history, you might look for that. That way, you can help up the odds that your baby will look like you and maybe even prefer the same sorts of activities. Or, you may want to read the long profiles of several very different sorts of donors and then select a donor who has fabulous sperm and seems like a nice guy--someone you think you might like to spend time with, if you could. You and your partner might make your selections separately and then compare notes. Or, you may wish to work together throughout the process. We have helped countless couples and single woman make their choices and we can say that no two conducted their search in exactly the same way.

Here is a form that you can use to help you evaluate potential donors. Print It. Next to each characteristic assign a weight from 1 (not important) to 10 (extremely important) to each of the following donor characteristics. Then, use a separate form to assess how well each donor measures up to these characteristics. Write some comments in the Comments column next to each characteristic if you have something special to say about that characteristic for that particular donor.

Sperm Donor Characteristics	Importance	Comments
Donor’s age
Donor’s blood type
Donor mom’s race
Donor Dad’s race
Donor mom’s ethnicity
Donor Dad’s ethnicity
Donor mom’s religion
Donor Dad’s religion
Donor’s height
Donor’s weight
Donor’s body type
Donor’s skin type
Donor’s eye color
Donor’s hair color
Donor’s hair texture
Donor’s education
If college, donor’s major
Donor’s occupation (present or future)
Donor’s hobbies and interests
Donor’s intelligence
Motivation to donate
Has donor made pregnancies
Other