Egg Donor

[kittygrrl523]

I'm not at all sure where i should post this. Has anyone ever donated eggs before? What are the factors that a woman should consider before becoming a donor. I read an ad looking for women to be anonymous donors and i can't get this idea out of my head...

[abharrington]

there are quite a few medical risks and possible complications, so i would definatly do some research first. i believe they have to induce ovulation with hormone injections. i have also heard of women becomign infertile due to scar tissue formation. i'm not sure what your motivation for considering donation is, but often times the donated eggs are used for stem cell research and not actually helping infertile couples to conceive. the agencies can actually sell the eggs to the researchers. i wish i had some links for you...but i don't just picked up the info at a few lunch conferences at school. hopefully some other mamas will be of more help!

[kands]

You can donate eggs at a fertility clinic and they will go to a couple who is trying to conceive (and has likely been trying to conceive for a very long time). They synchronize your cycle with the cycle of the recipient. Then you have to do some injections of Lupron to effectively shut down your ovaries. This is necessary so that the doctor can have complete control over what your hormones are doing. Next you do some injections of ovarian stimulation drugs (Gonal-F, Repronex, Follistim, etc). This causes your ovaries to mature a whole slew of eggs at once (as opposed to the usual one or two that ripen each month on their own). Once the eggs get to a certain point of growth, you do a "trigger" shot, which gives the eggs one last boost for growth. Then, at a very specific time, you go into the clinic and they aspirate the eggs. They do this by using a very large needle and they go in through the back wall of the vagina. You would be unconscious for this. It isn't exactly general anesthesia, but as close to it as you can get. The eggs will then be mixed with sperm, grown in a lab for a few days, then transfered to the recipient where, hopefully, they will stick around for nine months

There are some risks, namely ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. What this means is that your ovaries produce so many eggs that they get full of fluid and, from what I understand, it can be pretty painful. However, most docs are very careful with their donors and they try very hard not to overstimulate them. They might be a little more cavalier with a woman who is undergoing IVF and is using her own eggs, but most docs don't want to inconvenience their donors any more so than they already are.

Oh, and as far as the process goes, there are a lot of doctor's appointments, a lot of bloodwork, and quite a few transvaginal ultrasounds. But you could potentially be giving someone something they have dreamed of all their life and have been unable to achieve on their own. There aren't a lot of egg donors out there. Plenty of sperm donors, but not a lot of eggs donors. So for people whose fertility issue is egg-related, there isn't a lot of hope, unless some very selfless person comes along and offers up a few eggs.

[mrflowers]

I've done it, and found it rewarding and not horribly uncomfortable. I did it through an infertility clinic, rather than an agency. That cut out the middleman, and saved time (IMO). I went on to conceive my third very easily about a year after that, so it didn't affect my fertility negatively.

I thought about doing in for a long time, about five years. For me, it was more about being 100% okay with relinquishing ownership of my eggs. Once I realised that I could do that, I was excited to donate.

As far as the risk if ovarian hyperstimulation, I would say just keep a very close eye on your body, and keep communicating with your donation team. I think I may have hyperstimulated after the retrieval, which was uncomfortable (felt super bloated), and didn't realize this until much later. Fortunately, there were no long-term negative effects from that, but when I realized that I had very likely hyperstimulated, I was disappointed that my team hadn't caught that.

[AugustineM]

I had a friend who did it in college and ended up having a ton of complications. There were ads all over our university for it and I actually did an article for the university paper where I interviewed women who had it done, and looked into it quite a bit. I ended up being kind of disturbed by it, and it seemed really time intensive, invasive, and a little weird. But I know that it does help couples who want to conceive. It just made me a little wary of the whole process, and at that time they really didn't pay all that much to the egg donor (it was like 5-7K). IMO not enough for all that they went through.