Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Selecting a donor is an important first step on your journey toward starting a family. During your donor selection process, we recommend that you create an account to gain access to the extended profiles of our sperm donors.

Your registration will provide you with unlimited access to detailed donor profiles, where you can find all the information you need to make your final decision. The registration is free and without commitment.

You can use our Donor Search Tool to help you find a donor that best matches your criteria by inputting some of your desired characteristics (eye colour, height, ethnicity, etc) and selecting profiles from the filtered results.

To add a donor to your favourites, simply tick on the heart shape that is on the top right corner of each donor’s profile, if you are on the Addam website, or swipe right if you are using the Addam app.

A basic donor profile is a piece of information about the donor that shows to users who haven’t created an account with us. This information includes eye and hair colour, height, ethnicity and occupation.

An extended donor profile is a much more in-depth look at each donor and includes information such as personality type, interests and hobbies, detailed medical history, and much more.

A donor’s availability can fluctuate on a daily basis. This can be due to the donor’s family limit being reached or all vials having been exhausted.

If you have previously used a donor who is no longer available on our platform, they may have been removed due to a lack of family spots or stock. Please contact our team at mydonor@addamdonorbank.com.au to enquire if they are still available for use.

• Cytomegalovirus, more commonly known as CMV. CMV is a member of the herpes family which includes chicken pox and cold sores. CMV manifests in cold or flu-like symptoms. Most adults will have been exposed to the virus as a child. Once exposed to CMV you will test positive for CMV antibodies.
• If you test negative for CMV antibodies and choose a CMV-positive donor, we suggest discussing this with your clinician. A waiver will need to be completed if choosing a CMV-positive donor if you are CMV-negative As there may be a small risk of complications.

To find out your CMV status please contact your Fertility Specialists or nurses at your clinic. You will need to have completed your initial pathology screenings in order to find out.

The process of reserving donor sperm can take some time due to the clinical, legal, and counselling requirements involved. These steps are in place to ensure your treatment is safe, well-coordinated, and aligned with your individual circumstances.

Before you can reserve a donor through Addam, your fertility specialist and nursing team will support you through the required Donor Ready steps. On average, completing these steps takes approximately 2 to 3 weeks.

1. Attend Your Fertility Specialist Consultation: Book an appointment with a fertility specialist at City Fertility, Fertility Specialists of WA, or Rainbow Fertility and attend your initial consultation.
2. Obtain a Current Treatment Plan: Your specialist will provide a personalised treatment plan tailored to your specific medical and fertility needs.
3. Complete Online Registration: Your clinic will send you a registration form. Please ensure it is completed and submitted online.
4. Undertake Extended Carrier Screening (ECS): If required, complete this genetic testing and ensure your results are uploaded to your patient file. Alternatively, if you elect not to complete ECS, please confirm that you have signed the required waiver with your fertility specialist and that it has been uploaded to your patient file.
5. Confirm Superannuation Release (if applicable): If using superannuation for payment, ensure approval has been finalised before reserving your donor.

Once your donor reservation has been submitted and approved, your donor sperm will be shipped to your clinic. Shipping for donor sperm typically takes around two weeks if the vial is already with City Fertility. If your donor is from an International Donor Bank and needs to be shipped by the supplier, the shipping time may be longer.

Please note that you must have a confirmed reservation by Day 1 of your period. If a reservation is not confirmed by this time, you may need to wait until your next cycle. We cannot guarantee the completion or delivery of orders placed after this point.

Important note for self-imports

Please note that self-imports may take longer to process than selecting a donor from Addam. This is due to the additional compliance and regulatory checks that must be completed before donor sperm can be approved for import into Australia.

Donors available through Addam have already completed these compliance requirements, which can help reduce delays and support a smoother coordination process.

You are only permitted to order one donor at a time, although you can order 1 – 2 vials from that donor. Often individuals will purchase 2 vials of the same donor as it may take more than one attempt to achieve a pregnancy, and many individuals wish to have sperm reserved for treatments to obtain a sibling. We may be able to procure additional sperm from a particular donor once our supplies have run out of stock but this depends on the donor’s availability at the time. If you are choosing an overseas donor the overseas provider may be able to be contacted. Ask your clinic for their recommendations.

According to Australian law, donors may be used to create up to 10 families in Queensland, 5 families in New South Wales, 5 families worldwide in Western Australia, and 10 individuals in Victoria.

Addam donors cannot exclusively be purchased for one recipient only.

Once you have registered with us and selected your sperm donor preferences, you will receive an email with useful information on what will happen next. Our friendly staff will give you a call or email to organise everything for you.

If you are a new patient, we will:

• Book a medical consultation
• Book pathology collection
• Counselling
• Patient education

Donor Insemination (DI)

Donor Insemination using donated sperm is a fertility procedure in which treated sperm is inserted into a recipient’s uterus directly, to increase the possibility of conceiving

Donor insemination involves the use of frozen sperm from a donor. The method of artificial insemination most commonly used is Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI).

In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)

In-Vitro Fertilisation involves the fertilisation of the egg by the donated sperm in an incubator outside the body before the embryo is transferred back into the recipient’s uterus.

Your specialist will discuss your IVF treatment cycle with you. The treatment type usually depends on an individual’s medical history, age, diagnosis and other related fertility factors.

For more information about who needs the help of donor sperm to conceive, click here.

Not all donors are suitable for all treatment types. Your clinician will advise you which treatment option is best for you, which is important when selecting your donor.

Yes, you may be able to use the same donor again, provided the donor has available stock and you either continue to hold a family spot or the donor’s family limit has not yet been reached.

To help retain your family spot, we recommend securing an additional vial of your donor sperm. A family spot is released once your final vial is used, which may affect future availability.

Please note that we cannot guarantee donor sperm availability for sibling pregnancies, as stock levels can change over time.

Once your pregnancy is confirmed at an early pregnancy scan, you have the opportunity to reserve 2 vials for a sibling pregnancy in the future. Please note that we cannot guarantee donor sperm availability for sibling pregnancies, as stock levels can change over time.

All donor reservations made through Addam are non-refundable or exchangeable.

Donor sperm purchased through Addam Donor Bank cannot be exported to external fertility providers. This policy is crucial in safeguarding our donor families by ensuring the accurate tracking of family limits and maintaining full compliance with legislative requirements. To uphold these standards, donor sperm provided by Addam Donor Bank is available exclusively to patients of City Fertility, Rainbow Fertility, and Fertility Specialists of WA.

If embryos are created from donor sperm, the embryos may be able to be released to other IVF providers.

Donors recruited after September 2019 now completed expanded genetic carrier screening through our partners Eugene.

City Fertility strongly recommends that patients accessing donated gametes complete either expanded genetic carrier screening or genetic counselling to understand the risk and implications of their selected donor’s carrier status.

Individuals of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds are welcome to become sperm donors if they meet these criteria:

• Aged 18-45
• Donors must be in good health
• Able to provide a family medical history
• If married or in a de facto relationship, the partner must consent to the donation.
• Clinic-recruited donors must have a permanent address whilst donating and be contactable for follow-up tests. They must be able to provide three identifiers and proof of permanent address (driver’s licence, photo ID and passport)
• A lifestyle declaration must be signed.

Learn more here.

• All sperm donors are tested for infectious diseases before donations commence. Donors recruited after September 2019 now complete an Extended Genetic Carrier Screening test.
• Three-month quarantine period applies to all clinic-recruited sperm donors.
• City Fertility Sperm donors may not have been screened for Fragile X Syndrome and Spinal Muscular Atrophy prior to July 2014.

Donor-conceived people can access their donors’ identifying details at the age of either 16 or 18 years, depending on the state where the treatment occurred.

Each state has a donor conception register that manages the release of information. Please see below for further information regarding these registers.

QLD: https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/rbdm-qld-donor-conception-information-register

NSW: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/art/Pages/the-central-register.aspx

WA: https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/articles/a_e/donor-conception-information-service

VIC: https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/articles/a_e/donor-conception-information-service

Under Australia regulation, we are unable to provide the recipient with any information that may identify the donor.

The donor’s availability list can change daily due to either all stock being exhausted or family limits being reached. To avoid disappointment, it is important to place your reservation in a timely manner and shortlist three donors on your donor request form.

There is no evidence to show that shipping sperm between clinics or from overseas has any effect on sperm quality.

You can either download the app from your App Store or from Google Play. Be sure to check the IOS app store or Google Play Store for mobile device compatibility.

You can download our Addam app from any device from Android, to iPhone. The only mobiles our mobile does not work on is for Microsoft devices. If you have a Microsoft phone, please note you can still navigate through our website and select donors you like – our website is mobile friendly and it has all the information you need to browse your favourite donors.

• A City Fertility nurse will follow up throughout your pregnancy. To ensure family limits are adhered to and are not breached, it is a legal requirement in Australia for any live birth created with donor gametes to be reported.
• All live births will be reported to the appropriate state register
• If an overseas sperm donor was used, the live birth will be reported to the provider in addition to state reporting.

What if all stock of that donor has been exhausted, what are my options?

• If a local donor was used, we can reach out to him to see if he would be willing to re-donate.
• If your donor is from one of our overseas providers, we can reach out to the sperm bank to see what remaining stock they have available.
• Addam Donor bank cannot guarantee that sperm will be available for sibling pregnanices.

Deleting an Addam account is permanent. After going through the process, all of your preferred donors and matches will be erased.

To remove your Addam account, simply email us at contact@addamdonorbank.com.au and we will send you an email within 2 business days to confirm your account has been deleted successfully.