After selecting our donors, Mr. P and I received a phone call from a third-party mediator to get started on creating the Open Donation Agreement (ODA), the document which covers the legal transfer of property (the embryos) as well as the amount of communication between the donors and recipients. The entire process was done through a series of phone calls and emails.

During the first phone call the mediator introduced herself to us, told us about her services, and explained how the process would go. She would speak to us and the donors separately and ask each of us what our ideal communication looked like. She would also take any questions that we had for each other. It sounded simple enough to Mr. P and me. We scheduled our first official phone call the day before Thanksgiving.

On Wednesday afternoon my phone rang right on time and we got down to it. Our mediator explained that there were many different ways we could communicate with the donors. There was no right way or wrong way; it was all about our comfort level. Some ideas she gave us was sending letters to her that she would forward on, emailing through her or directly to the donors, phone calls, or visits. She also told us that we would put the minimum amount of communication we were willing to do in the ODA. If we decided we wanted to talk to them more than that, great. If not that was ok too. At this point Mr. P and I had already discussed together what we would be comfortable with and had agreed that emailing was the way to go for us. We told our mediator that we would like to email directly with our donors. Then we talked with her about frequency. She told us that we could send them something as often as monthly or we could go with annually, or anything in between. We felt that every six months would be good. It was often enough that we would keep the donors up to date, but not so frequent that it felt like a burden or like we didn’t have anything new to say.

Our mediator took notes on everything that we said and then let us know what our donors had told her during their phone call. She told us, “I can tell this is a great match because you guys are on exactly the same page.” Our donors also wanted to email directly and had asked for updates every six months. They adopted their daughter as an infant and communicate with her birth mother through email, so it is something they are very comfortable with. The only additional thing they asked is for quarterly emails the first year since babies change so quickly. Mr. P and I thought that was a reasonable request so we agreed to it.

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During that first call I remember feeling so much anticipation and excitement. It made me happy to hear that the mediator thought this was a good match. It was so relieving to be on the same page as the donors from the beginning. I felt so confident in our choice and felt no hint of doubts when we hung up the phone.

A few days later we had our next call. We recapped what we had talked about previously, and the mediator let us know that our donors were happy with everything we had discussed. This time we talked about pregnancy updates. The mediator asked our opinion on sharing pregnancy info with the donors. Mr. P and I thought an end of the first trimester update and an end of the second trimester update would be fine. The donors requested an ultrasound photo. Since we had already agreed to send photos with the updates, we saw no reason to say no to an ultrasound photo. She also let us know that our clinic required us to send a birth announcement to the donors within a month of the birth of our child. At the end of the call the mediator told us she would draw up a rough draft of the ODA and email it to us and the donors. If all of us approved we would sign it and have it notarized and then send it back to her.

In mid-December we received the rough draft. After reading over it we let her know we approved of it. Because of the holidays we didn’t get word to sign, notarize, and send it back until New Year’s Eve. As soon as our local bank opened after the holiday we went and signed and had our copy notarized, then we dropped it in the mail. Once our mediator received a copy from us and our donors she forwarded it to our clinic.

Here is what we agreed to:

– the number of embryos thawed, transferred, and remained frozen

– whether a pregnancy occurs from the transfer

– a pregnancy update at 3 months and 6 months, as well as 1 ultrasound photo

– first name, birth date, and sex of any baby born from the embryos

– quarterly emails and a photo for the first year, semi-annually from age 1-18

– both parties agree to give any necessary medical information to each other

– upon the child’s 18th birthday we give him or her the donor’s contact information and the child can decide on the method and frequency of contact

– any additional contact, such as phone calls and visits shall be at the discretion of the donors and recipients

Mr. P have been in contact with our donors since December and it’s going well! We started by sending letters through the mediator and have moved on to directly emailing each other. The donor mother and I have each other’s phone numbers and have texted back and forth a couple of times. It’s been easy to keep them updated on my pregnancy. They also share with us about their family and send pictures as well. In a later post I’ll talk a little more about our communication and the type of information we share.

While working on the ODA I let the mediator know we were hoping for a January transfer. The ODA needed to be at the clinic by my transfer day. She assured me that it would happen, and it did! I had to trust that she would be right because by the time the agreement was finalized, I was already on medications in preparation for my FET. Things were definitely starting to get real!