Can you go through international sperm donation and artificial insemination without breaking the bank?

August 29, 2012 8:17 AM

How do you go about international sperm donation with a specific donor? Single, fertile (I think) woman in US; single infertile man in the UK.

I want a child and a friend has offered me his sperm. The issue is the sperm is on ice as he is no longer fertile and it is located in the UK.

Is it feasible for me to go there and have it covered by NHS even though I am not a UK citizen? If so, would I need to be there for months for this to work?

Can I have the sperm sent here and have the service performed under my insurance? Would it even be covered since I am not infertile and he is not my husband? I have checked online at my insurance and other plans at my job and this is a grey area I think. I will call but if anyone has experience I would be interested in how this would happen.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

If so, would I need to be there for months for this to work?

Well, you would need to be there every time you ovulated until you got pregnant.

Can I have the sperm sent here and have the service performed under my insurance? Would it even be covered since I am not infertile and he is not my husband?

That would make a lot more sense. You could likely have it shipped to your fertility doctor's office (and yes, that's who you would see whether you are fertile or not), assuming they have the facilities to store it. It would have to be shipped on dry ice. When I was investigating doing this (fertile and single at the time), my insurance covered everything but the cost of the sperm. YMMV.
posted by amro at 8:37 AM on August 29, 2012

Is it feasible for me to go there and have it covered by NHS even though I am not a UK citizen? If so, would I need to be there for months for this to work?

1. I seem to recall that fertility treatments on the NHS have been restricted to long term residents. Visitors and short spell guests don't qualify.
2. Even so, you wouldn't have leave to stay in the UK long enough to have treatment. You would need to be referred, be assessed, wait until your turn, and then have the treatment (or more) all in six months.
3. Morally, you would be taking a service you haven't paid for, which is wrong.
posted by Jehan at 8:49 AM on August 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

He checks with them about release, shipping, and costs.

You check with your insurance about fertility coverage.

You arrange for the sperm to be shipped to an appropriate doctor's office/facility near you where they can help you manage the insemination process. They can help you plan for ovulation cycles and whether some extra fertility help might be appropriate since you only have a limited supply to work with.

You should hire a local lawyer to help you draw up a sperm donor contract with the greatest chance of being valid in your jurisdiction, and (unless he's wealthy and generous), also hire two lawyers for him, one in the UK to look it over for UK issues and one in your jurisdiction. Those can be shorter consultations if the other lawyer you hire does the bulk of the work of drawing up the contract.
posted by Salamandrous at 8:49 AM on August 29, 2012

When I got pregnant through donor insemination, the sperm was shipped overnight in a special container. The shipping was the same whether one vial or more were shipped, so we bought several at once (the shipping was expensive!) and our doctor's office stored them for us. My insurance did not cover either the cost of sperm or the insemination, but covered my regular consultations with the reproductive endocrinologist, as well as any medications or tests I needed. It would have made no difference if I was infertile, as our insurance excluded fertility treatments. But insurance varies, so definitely check yours.

Overnight shipping from the UK is certainly possible but I have no idea what kinds of restrictions are in place for shipping medical materials or specimens. A little googling shows a place in India that you can mail your sperm for testing, so perhaps it is not that difficult.

If his sperm is being stored at a sperm bank type place (which seems likely as it certainly can't be kept viable in a normal freezer) they will probably have some kind of procedure in place for the kinds of paperwork salamandrous mentioned; our sperm bank had standrard forms.
posted by not that girl at 10:49 AM on August 29, 2012

Find a good fertility clinic near you. They can arrange for the sperm to be shipped frozen overnight. People do this all the time.

It is completely nonsensical for you to go to the UK and pay out of pocket (as you would have to do) and wait around doing the injections, etc., and have the IVF there, especially if it takes several cycles.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:32 PM on August 29, 2012

If you have normal fertility and your friend's samples are good, and you have intrauterine insemination done your chances are probably about 20-25% per cycle that you will get pregnant. So regardless of any of the other issues, it would not be surprising if that part took several months.

This sounds like a very special case and I think you should call a professional to discuss it. If you are fertile then your insurance probably won't cover this, but just having the IUI itself is not that expensive. I hope you can get it sent to the USA!
posted by treehorn+bunny at 7:02 PM on August 29, 2012

yep, I can confirm you would not qualify for this on the NHS. I can also confirm that a fertility doc can arrange the transport and treatment in the USA relatively easily.
posted by Wilder at 5:23 AM on August 31, 2012