Helping the Stork: The Choices and Challenges of Donor Insemination

Thing one to know about this book: it is all about what the authors assume will be your emotional issues with choosing donor insemination. If you are not having serious trauma about choosing donor insemination, this book has little to offer. The authors assume that you will be traumatized, and that your trauma will emanate from mourning the loss of your imagined heterosexual biological nuclear family. The book gives only cursory acknowledgement of any situation other than a heterosexual couple facing male infertility, and devotes a lot of the book to ruminating on the male partner dealing with insecurity and loss. To the extent that it talks about lesbian or queer couples (it certainly does not consider the possibility that a single queer person might be interested in having a child), it mainly rhapsodizes on how challenged your family and friends might be, "working through the image of of a family with two moms" (20). The authors' heterosexist, myopic approach leaves almost no space for the wide array of possible family, donor, and life arrangements in which it is possible to raise a child. I think, even if I was straight, I would feel a little trapped by the authors' expectations of my emotions and life choices.Moreover, it doesn't address any of the practical, nuts and bolts kinds of things that all people who are considering donor insemination have to think about--legal issues, what the pros and cons of various insemination methods are, etc. Seriously, almost nothing. The book drops some hints at what might be useful to know, like including a mention of cervical caps, but never actually explains what such a thing is and why it might be useful for donor insemination.What this book does offer might be useful to a subset of people. But if you are looking for any practical advice or if your life or goals deviate even slightly from, say, James Dobson's ideal family, then I would suggest looking elsewhere.

I was impressed by the authors of Helping the Stork -- they shared their story in an open and honest way. While the book seemed to lean towards favoring disclosure (which I happen to agree with) and known donor, I think they tried very hard to consider a variety of situations and rationales in a supportive and non-judgemental way. I do recommend this read.

It needs to be updated! So much has changed since 1997/2000...New research has been conducted (such as the one in Belgium about building sperm from stem cells), new numbers have become relevant (donors who have over 150 children), new facts need analysis (siblings finding each other through the web)...

My wife and I have read this together as we started our journey with DI. Yes, the book does concentrate on heterosexual married couples, but it states that in the forward. Even if you aren't the norm, there is plenty of general info on DI that is useful for anyone using this method to create a family. Our favorite parts were the personal stories and experiences. They are sprinkled throughout the chapters and really gave us a chance to talk out some of our different thoughts and emotions.There is technical/medical information, but it is not very in-depth. Most of the book deals with the emotional aspect of DI. Overall I highly recommend it.

This book is really more focussed on couples with fertility problems rather than single women choosing single motherhood. However, it did go in to some more technical detail which was helpful.

Well written and very informative. It has helped me on my journey to becoming a choice single mother. I highly recommend it

This book so far seems to be very insightful and interesting. It gives you various aspects on donor egg usage and how it effects different people and different situations. It's really good at giving women insight into how infertility effects men and how they deal with it emotionally. So far I really like the book and cannot wait to finish reading it.

This is a fabulous book that really helped my husband and I decide to move forward with using donor sperm. I strongly recommend this book to anyone in a position to consider using donor insemination! Personally I would love to thank the writers for this book and how it has helped us!

'Helping the Stork' is indeed a well written and thorough book on the topic of donor insemination. However, as a woman in the UK I found that much of the material was not relevant to my experience. I hadn't realised that the book was American until I turned to it for advice on selecting a sperm donor. It was then frustrating and saddening to read about the wide range of options available in the U.S which are not available in the UK. It left me feeling cheated by the system in this country, and did not relate to my experience. I would also argue that the book is mainly geared towards heterosexual couples who have opted for some level of secrecy around the issue of D.I. This book would be excellent for such couples, but speaks less directly to single or lesbian women. Having said this, the book contains enough supportive and helpful information to have been worth buying, even as a single lesbian in the UK, but women in the UK may feel isolated from it at times.

I loved this book. Was exactly what I needed to read. Tho we didn’t go this route (chose adoption) I still think it’s a great book and recommend it to all infertility couples I meet.

This book helped myself and my husband make a decision about possibly using donor sperm. We kept going back and forth and this helped us confront our fears and make a decision. A must read for anyone thinking about going this route.