‘Liquid gold’ is the term Karen Pooley uses to describe the value of donor sperm. A tank hisses as Pooley, 50, unscrews the top of the freezer allowing a mist of liquid nitrogen to escape. Inside are metal cans encasing thin plastic straws filled with sperm, each worth approximately £1,500 on the commercial fertility market.
Pooley is the lead andrologist at NUH Life, a fertility centre and sperm donor bank based at Nottingham’s Queens Medical Centre where she has worked since 1997. The arrangement of tanks and pipes seems mundane compared to the immense potential and diversity of life these frozen sperm have to offer. In Pooley’s experience, for those couples using a sperm donor, it can be difficult for men to come to terms with.
“Some men are very matter of fact about it. They see sperm donation as a solution to a problem they’ve got. They see that it’s going to be their child. They’re having a child with their partner.
“You get the complete opposite end of the spectrum where some men just cannot accept it and they have this massive fear of when they see their partner pregnant with another man’s child.”
Pooley takes pride in matchmaking donors to recipients. It allows couples to control a process – an opportunity that up until now they haven’t had.
“Over 50% of the sperm that is used in UK treatment centres is now being imported.”
Pooley’s clinic, NUH Life, is fortunate to supply recipients from its own sperm bank. Other fertility clinics aren’t so lucky, often having to use donor sperm from overseas.
“Over 50% of the sperm that is used in UK treatment centres is now being imported mainly from Scandinavia and the USA,” says Pooley.
She feels strongly about using UK-sourced sperm where possible because of the ramifications for a family’s future. “I think it’s in a couple’s best interest, in a child’s best interest to be able to have a connection with the donor that they’re using, and overseas donors brings a whole layer of complexity.”
It’s for this reason Pooley is keen to recruit UK men to become sperm donors. But there are numerous barriers to this, including the perception of masturbation to produce a sample as a sexual act and ‘seedy’.
A significant drop in donor numbers came from a change in the law in 2005 which removed the permanent anonymity for donors in the interest of the ‘child’s right-to-know’ their genetic origins.
A child born as a result of a donor can apply to the UK regulatory fertility body, HEFA, at 16 for a general description of their donor, and from 18, the child can request identifying details including the donor’s name and last known address.
In Pooley’s view this law change has resulted in donors donating for the right reasons, often for altruistic purposes. She finds some men wish to donate having witnessed their partner struggle with fertility and have a had a child using donor eggs.
It’s a humbling thought. It now leaves us to champion those men who have pushed the stigma of sperm donation aside and/or have reconciled with themselves there are other ways to create a family and become a father.