Pacific Reproductive Services (PRS) recently became a Choice Mom advertiser on this website. Which means I work with them to learn more about the services they provide, so that the Choice Mom community can make informed decisions from the many choices we now have in providers who, today, tend to be much more willing to work with us in building families than they used to be.

1) PRS was an early sperm bank in providing donors "willing to be known" to an offspring when he or she reaches 18. Today Pacific Reproductive Services today has ID-Open donors who contractually agree to provide not only contact information, but to meet in person at least once should an offspring request it. Additionally, although PRS has some remaining anonymous donors, it now requires all new donors to be willing to be known.

2) PRS is the only U.S. sperm bank to now perform electrocardiograms on every new donor for inheritable cardiac disease. PRS was also early to introduce donor screening for Fragile X Syndrome, the leading cause of inheritable mental retardation; Spinal Muscular Atrophy, an often fatal neurodegenerative disease; all 97 mutations of Cystic Fibrosis; and a full 11-panel, targeted screening protocol for donors of Jewish ancestry.

3) PRS offers client access to full-face, streaming video interviews of a broad range of donors. As the bank tells us, "This has been the next logical step in serving the special needs of single women and lesbian couples who represent more than 90 per cent of our client base." According to Sherron Mills, PRS founder and sperm bank director, "Unlike most heterosexual couples who use donor sperm, and often do not inform their children of their biological origins, our clients must be more disclosing. For that reason, we have always worked especially hard to give our clients the fullest possible sense of who our donors are as people while strictly maintaining donor privacy.

Important PRS Policies

• A commitment to provide immediate client notification of potential donor medical issues. When PRS receives information, either from a parent, a medical institution or a donor, of a potential health-related issue that could impact donor offspring, "an immediate alert is sent to everyone who purchased sperm from the donor, accompanied with detailed information on the steps to take with any resulting children and continued follow-up. Additionally, the donor is immediately removed from the PRS donor catalog until the issue is resolved."
• A commitment to support both legislative and non-legislative efforts being undertaken in the sperm banking field to limit donor half-siblings. This includes the recent formation of a new nonprofit agency, the National Gamete Registry, which has as its mission to develop the first comprehensive American donor database. It is being designed as a secure, voluntary and independent archive. "We strongly support this important initiative by sperm banks such as ours that are committed to limiting the number of potential half-siblings, says Mills. "We also support the current legislative effort by New York Assemblywoman Deborah Glick to introduce a bill setting limits on the number of children that can be conceived from an individual donor. These are vital first steps."
• PRS currently limits the number of reported births by an individual donor to 20. "When the number of known births for any donor approaches our limit, we limit distribution of any remaining sperm vials to families who already have a child from the same donor.
• Its oversight process includes:
  1) Continually monitoring reported pregnancies, births and pregnancy outcomes - including miscarriages and the health of offspring - for each donor.
  2) Being proactive in client follow-up. Every PRS registered client, prior to ordering sperm, is required to sign a contractual agreement to inform us in a timely manner of any resulting pregnancy or birth. However, not all clients adhere to that contract and "we conduct ongoing requests for updated information. Such rigorous follow-up is important to help ensure we maintain our 20-child limit. It also helps us receive timely information if there are any medical issues with a donor-conceived child."