Shopping our baby around

We are not cheap people. We are of the school that less is more and quality over quantity. Our home is very sparsely decorated with little to no clutter or knick knacks. Tag sales are something that we don't partake in. We don't do lawn ornaments and have no random collections displayed in china cabinets. The material items we do have are ones that we chose because of their lasting, classic style. We would rather save our money for a few additional months and get the nice, expensive item over the cheaper item; it will surely be worth it in the end.

By the way, we're cheaping out and changing sperm banks. California Cryobank is a rip-off.

After five months of attempts at pregnancy, we figure that we've invested around $5800.00, of which $1500.00 was unnecessarily spent. That is a huge percentage, no? The reason is that with California Cryobank, we've paid a premium for sperm. Now granted, the reason that we chose them in the first place was quality: their website was and definitely is by and far the best and most user-friendly. They offer many additional items for 'free' to help decide on a donor. However, after learning about how every sperm bank is governed by the same group and every specimen must pass the same testing nation-wide, we decided to venture onto other banks websites.

Midwest Sperm Bank's website is lame. The interface looks like it's from the 80's. There are no bells and whistles. They only have about 35 donors total to choose from. There are no donor-composed essays to read or celebrity photos to compare. There is barely enough information to get a basic idea of the person: ethnicity, hair color, eye color, height, weight, level of education, field of study. Done deal. They will offer you a medical history if you ask for one, but I'm thinking it isn't digitally available or it would most likely be on the website already.

The deciding factor? Every specimen is the same price, $350.00, a savings of $235.00 from what we're currently paying. There is no popularity contest amongst donors like on CC's website where supply and demand jack up prices on the super-amazing-perfect donors. And shipping? $125.00 for our location on the map; a savings of $60.00.

Total monthly savings: $295.00. All we're missing out on are cheesy donor descriptions and even cheesier Q&A's about why they wanted to become a donor and what their favorite color is.

Instead, we can take our savings and put it toward baby gear and mommy-to-be work clothes. Shopping never felt so good.