We are Cesca Taylor-Phillips and Lucy Eldred, research assistants on the Online Sperm Donation Project. Over the last two or so years, as part of Phase 1 of the research project, we have been interviewing donors and recipients who are undertaking online sperm donation. In this blog post, we each offer some thoughts and reflections on data collection so far…
Cesca
Looking back on my first interview for this project, I recall feeling nervous and apprehensive. This was the first interview I had conducted in-person since before Covid. What would it be like? Would it be awkward? How would I make the participant feel comfortable? Would they be chatty, reserved, or somewhere in-between? Upon arriving at her home, the participant and I made a cup of tea together and sat down in her front room. She proceeded to talk to me, very frankly, about her life, upbringing, and decision to start looking for a donor online. Her story was heart-warming, thought-provoking, and incredibly honest. On my journey home, I reflected on what she had told me, and was reminded of how important the research is, but also how important it would be for us to foreground the individuality and nuance of our participants’ experiences.
Almost two years, and 19 interviews later, I continue to be surprised by our participants, who give their time so generously to the research and provide us with endless insights into their lives and into the world of online sperm donation. As we’re now halfway through the project, this seems like a good opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has taken part so far. Your stories are important, and we will endeavour to do them justice as we begin the next stages of the project.
Lucy
I came to the project about a year after data collection had started, and so had to catch up on the interviews of the participants I would end up speaking to. I was nervous to take over from the previous research assistant, Georgie, knowing that I would be asking people to be open about often quite a private part of their lives. However, I’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone taking part in research. Everyone has been so open and willing to share, and it has felt like such a great project to be a part of!
As much as the media focuses on the salacious and hyperbolic aspects of sperm donation, for me, I think people’s experiences have overall highlighted the more positive and hopeful aspects of online sperm donation. As this isn’t the area of research that I got my PhD in, I feel like I’ve been learning a lot from participants and their experiences, too. I hope that one outcome of this project will be to really represent these experiences and add nuance to those more stereotypical, dominant narratives we see out there.
We’re so grateful for the time participants have spent with us and are really looking forward to catching up with everyone again for their last interviews. It’ll be great to see how people’s experiences have changed over the time the project has spanned, and it’s been exciting and heart-warming to hear about successful conceptions and new ways of ‘doing families’.
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