We were provided with a number of profiles of prospective egg donors and as I had previously posted, we made our decision base on the age of the donor, fecundity (ooh big word, meaning woman’s prior birth/successful donation, and her medical/health record.

Our number one choice is a Blond and Blue-eyed Swimming champ that is in her mid-twenties. Second choice is a beautiful red-head with Hazel eyes and is a Physical Therapist and Semi-Pro dancer. We have selected a third and fourth choice, but we really hope that our first or second choice agree to be our egg donor.

It is a bit bizarre selecting the person who, if we are blessed, will be making such a profound impact on our lives. I think that women who have selflessly decided to be egg donors should be honored and given the respect that our society bestows on organ donors.

I know that the two acts are very different and some may criticize the comparison. However, they both have the effect of giving life. It is in that context that I honor the egg donor as my personal champion (regardless of her personal reasons for deciding to donate her eggs.)

In this world of uncertainty, struggle and conflict, it is comforting to think that these women are willing to give couples such as my partner and me the ultimate gift.

Because we will be traveling to India to take advantage of the fiscal advantages of medical tourism, the egg donor will also need to agree to travel to India and stay there for three weeks while she undergoes the fertility treatments before she donates her eggs.

My partner and I have elected to have an American egg donor.  The three most important factors that we are considering are:

1) That she is young, ideally in her twenties; 2) That she has either successfully given birth or donated her eggs that have resulted in a successful birth; and 3) That she has a healthy medical family history.

After these factors we will also like to have a woman with higher education, physically taller than average (I am a bit short so I would like to compensate), and race ethnicity matching my partner and I.

Will post next after we have selected the egg donor and we know when we will be traveling to India.

We got our lab results back and we are fortunately free from any infectious diseases that might prevent either of us from being the sperm donor.  So we breathed a sigh of relief that we can try to each have a biological child.

I hope to have more news next week as I continue to share our path to fatherhood.

I started the journey by researching the various options available to us.  Reactions from friends and family have been mixed.  One question posed is why as a gay couple we would not elect to adopt children as opposed to “creating” children using our own genetic material.  I have strong feelings about this notion, but prefer to focus on the journey and sharing what we’ve learned in the hopes that other couples might share their thoughts, experiences, and advice.

The Plan:  My partner and I have selected to work with a company who will help us find a U.S. egg donor and use surrogates in India.  Once we have selected a U.S. egg donor from their databank, they will fly the egg donor to India and both she and the two surrogates will begin the fertility treatments that will assist them in the IVF process.

My partner and I will fly to India and be available when the egg donor’s eggs are harvested.  Each of us will fertilize half (we haven’t discussed what we do with an odd number) of the viable eggs (they will use the ICSI process which I understand to be injecting a healthy swimmer into the egg directly).  Our respective genetic-related fetuses will be implanted in one of the surrogates each.  We hope to have fertilized eggs left to be frozen in the event that we want more children or need to try again.  Once implanted we hope that we will have a healthy pregnancy.

We will then fly back to India to pick up the babies.  If we are successful, we are hoping to each have a baby of our own genetic material.  (OK maybe I am nuts, but I hope that having two at a time will be easier than trying to take turns with the process.)  We will then each be able to bring our biological child back with us to the U.S. And once here we intend to cross-adopt.  The reasoning being that we will then each have legal rights to our children.  My legal child will be his biological child.  Also, the children will share a genetic link to one another because they will share the biology of the egg donor.

We are right now awaiting the fertility clinic to send us the proposed contract and the cost.  We were offered the opportunity to select a guarantee program that would provide us with the safety of having all of our money returned if after 18 months we have not been successful.  However, the cost was prohibitive for us and so we hope that we would only need to try once again each if we were not successful on our first try.

I would love to hear from other couples who have used a similar IVF process and hope to use this blog to communicate my family’s journey.

While I am admittedly “in the bag” for this nominee, I would like to write about the controversy surrounding her statement that as a Latina that she would be more sensitive in her jurisprudence than that of a “White Male.”

REVERSE DISCRIMINATION, is cried out by many seeking to oppose Ms. Sotomayor’s nomination to the highest court in our country. How dare she suggest that a “White Man” would be incapable of deliberating fairly and without bias!

My Answer: History would suggest that Ms. Sotomayor’s proposition is not fiction but rather legal deliberation and decision making made by panels of Judges exclusively from the ranks of the “White Male” demographic grouping has in fact handed down all sorts of discriminatory and biased decisions.

To be honest, history has corrected many of these biases. And the corrections have been presided over by a continuing majority of “White Males.”

That said, I agree with the general notion of diversity in all institutions in our great country. Diversity is not quotas, but instead the thoughtful inclusion of individuals with varied backgrounds and experiences who are fully qualified and would lend an opinion that we hope would be more inclusive and representative of the diversity in our country.

So, what is wrong with that?

Bush’s attempt was to appoint his Latino buddy the Attorney General to the great disadvantage of our country.