By Next Dev Team Published on 30 May, 2024 5 MIN READ

A manila envelope from the country’s largest sperm bank arrived in my mailbox only three days after I had called to request it. I tucked it under my arm and looked around me before returning to my front porch, as if one of my neighbors might catch me—as if there were something forbidden inside. I sat on the step and ran my finger through the envelope seam to unstick the glue. California Cryobank, the catalog said at the top, in white letters on a royal blue background. My wife Kellie and I had already spent months trying to line up a community donor, but no one had come through with a yes. In contrast, this thing in my hands had come to me so easily. I had asked for it and, with the snap of a finger, there it was. Below the company’s name, there was a photograph. I’m not sure what I had expected—maybe a classic image of a baby growing in utero, maybe a mother looking into the eyes of her newborn child. But this photo featured two teenage boys wearing backpacks and smiling at the camera. They stood beneath a tree. It looked like an image I’d expect to see on a college brochure.

Kellie pulled into the driveway with her window rolled down. “Hey, lady,” she said and stepped out of her truck.

“Hey,” I said. My heart sped. I wanted to show her the catalog, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her. I tried to hide my grin.

Kellie sat down next to me. “What’s that?”

I handed it to her. “It’s from that sperm bank in California,” I said. “I called them.”

Kellie didn’t open it. She just held it in her lap.

I reached over and laid a finger on one of the faces on the cover. “Who is this supposed to be?” I asked her. “Are these the babies, all grown up?”

Kellie cocked her head and looked at me to make sure I was serious. “They’re the donors,” she said.

Shit. She was right. My excitement for the packet fizzled. These boys weren’t what I had in mind. Whoever designed the cover must have hoped to convey that these were young men at the peak of their health, but all it highlighted for me was that many of these donors were too young to be making decisions of permanent consequence. They looked like boys, not men. Staring at the picture made me think of factory farming, of dairy cows hooked to milking machines, of chickens dropping eggs in chutes. Were these boys ready to commit to a lifetime of knowing there were children out there that they had helped create? I suspected that most of them just wanted the money for textbooks or beer.

My position on sperm—my insistence that a sperm bank was our best and easiest option—was in part based on an assumption I had held since childhood when I first learned of the existence of assisted reproduction. I assumed that the fertility industry wanted to help me, that sperm banks had been designed with lesbians in mind.

I understood that straight couples and single women used sperm banks too, but I had always figured that lesbian couples would make a large share of their clientele, that sperm banks would welcome us, and that our needs would be built into the design of their operation.

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