This was partially due to personal circumstances and preferences on my end, but also what I felt to be a surprisingly small pool of donors to choose from. The sperm bank I used happened to be partnered with another clinic in the US, which means that certain men are marked as an "export-only resident donor" available only to international clients. The upside is that British "shoppers" have access to all these shiny American donors, which would be great if a) I weren’t also American, and, more crucially, b) in possession of a handful of male relatives living in the very city where the US sperm bank is located. Rather than subject my family members to an awkward grilling about what they would or would not do for some extra cash — or risk giving birth to a three-eyed baby — I decided to eliminate all Yanks (no pun intended) from my search.