• One of the booths I noticed right away was that of Pacific Reproductive Services (a "lesbian-owned sperm bank" based in Sam Francisco, natch). They had a rather prominent flyer advertising their services to male-to-female transgender clients who are interested in freezing their sperm prior to their sex-change operations. Sadly, no one picked up a flyer while I was around. The booth had a hippie, alternative vibe; both the reps had body piercings (a nose ring and a tongue ring, as I recall).

• I talked a bit with a friendly communications rep for the California Cryobank, based in L.A., about some of the challenges facing clinics. The rep--this one sans piercings--talked about the many new services the clinic was offering clients, in part to keep up with the fierce competition among sperm banks.

CA Cryobank already has an unbelievable sperm donor catalog available on their website, complete with baby pictures, personal information (e.g., physical description, medical history, education) staff impressions, and handwritten essays from their donors. To this, they've added a number of premium services, including handwriting analysis (which the rep insisted was crazy accurate; he said they tested it on some of their staff before offering it to their customers), a personality test, and audio CDs. Currently, they're working on producing short films with the donors. The films will include voice-overs and show the donor (neck-down only to protect his identity) participating in favorite activities, like playing soccer.

I asked about privacy issues for anonymous donors. One of the donors listed his major as "Danish Literature." Surely, I said, there aren't many schools offering this major, and combined with the other information available, you could probably track the guy down after some avid googling? The rep agreed this was a concern, and said the clinic had hired a few private detectives to check the profiles and flag possible problems.

• Of course, donor anonymity might not be much of an issue for too long. Almost every clinic at the conference offers an "identity-release"or "open-donor" program to clients. Generally, the donors in these programs agree to have their identities released to their offspring when they turn 18 (though one program releases the donor's identity three months after the child is born).

The Sperm Bank of California (located in Berkeley) was the first to offer such a service, and other clinics have quickly followed suit. (Pacific Reproductive Services now claims the "most willing to be known donors.") The demand has largely come from gay and lesbian couples and single mothers.

UPDATE: On the rise of "open donor" programs, there's a paper on the subject by UC Davis prof Joanna Scheib (who I interviewed moments ago). Just in case you wanted actual data for once: Scheib, J.E. & Cushing, R.A. (2007). Open-identity donor insemination in the United States: Is it on the rise? Fertility & Sterility, 88, 231-232.

Labels: infertility, the baby business, third-party repro