I'd like to put my eggs in a freezer basket.
May 12, 2012 8:17 PM   Subscribe

Interested in donating some eggs. Genetic longevity and the like. Tips?

I'm interested in donating some eggs and have some questions about it.

STATS: 33 yrs old, physically and mentally healthy. 5'2", 118 pounds, white (Northern European), and pretty. Light brown hair and blue eyes. My documented IQ is 135 and I am in Mensa. I have a J.D., Masters, and Bachelors, from okay schools. I am unmarried and have never conceived, but believe myself generally fertile given my having practiced the Fertility Awareness Method for years, doing the measurements and such. I have had situational anxiety a couple times (i.e., during a bad breakup and when I was leaving a difficult employment situation, I took small amounts of Diazepam temporarily). Family history is all clear, a little heart disease on my maternal side, but everyone is doing pretty well for butter-eating farmers. People are a bit fat on my father's side. I am a generally happy person and have accomplished quite a bit personally and professionally. I am an attorney and writer.

REASON: I intend to have children, but have not met my perfect (read: adequate) match. I am most interested in donating eggs to preserve my genetic lineage. I am fine not knowing where they go, if anywhere. I would like to be compensated, of course, but it is more important to me that I do not significantly impair my ability to naturally conceive in the future. I would like to have a few eggs frozen for myself as part of the process, in case I'm 39 by the time I am ready to have a kid and my eggs are all dried up and cracking by then. So this is also heavily motivated by a desire for a form of insurance policy.

QUESTIONS:
(1) Given the limited amount of information I've provided, do you think I would qualify as an egg donor?
(2) Where would I start to find a reputable place to work with?
(3) Or is it really possible to find a couple who wants my eggs specifically?
(4) What can I reasonably expect in terms of compensation?
(5) Is it unreasonable to ask to have a few eggs frozen for myself as a sort of insurance policy against time?
(6) What other questions should I be asking or things I should be thinking about?

I've read the general information on Google, but feel a little overwhelmed in terms of figuring out where to start. Everyone seems to be saying something different. Figured I'd ask my old friends at Metafilter for some advice -- anecdotal or otherwise.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (19 answers total)
 
Read this. It's sort of a FAQ put out by the New York Department of Health. Which makes sense, since there are actually classified ads in collegiate student newspapers for couples looking for eggs/sperm donors. Give it a read.
posted by valkyryn at 8:26 PM on May 12, 2012


(1) Given the limited amount of information I've provided, do you think I would qualify as an egg donor?
(2) Where would I start to find a reputable place to work with?
(3) Or is it really possible to find a couple who wants my eggs specifically?
(4) What can I reasonably expect in terms of compensation?
(5) Is it unreasonable to ask to have a few eggs frozen for myself as a sort of insurance policy against time?
(6) What other questions should I be asking or things I should be thinking about?

1. Yes. Some places absolutely won't work with people who have not had their own children, but most will.
2. I can't answer this because I am in Australia and don't know the USA system.
3. Yes. Look on infertility forums, if you want to do this. Don't answer adverts at first. Just lurk and maybe interact with people. This is way more intense than anonymous donation, though, because you will get caught up in really wanting it to work for them, and miscarriages or lack of success can be heartbreaking. (This was my experience).
4. Probably. They don't freeze eggs, generally, they freeze embryos. Freezing eggs is much more difficult and expensive, and has a lower success rate. Also, chances are that all your eggs would be needed to give that couple a good chance of success. I was "lucky" in that I generally had about 40 eggs harvested at each donation (I did it three times). Of those, around 20-30 fertilised. About 10-15 made it to day three. 8-10 to day five. This is a very good success rate. But with a 20-30% live birth rate from each day 5 egg, that still doesn't mean the couple will necessarily end up with a take-home baby, even using all of your eggs. Hence the three donations I ended up doing.
5. Look into the complications from egg donation. They are real. I was only willing to do it because I know for sure I don't want my own kids. Infection can lead to infertility. That's a low chance. But OHSS can make you very sick (dehydration, even stroke can result). The chance of that is quite high among young fertile women.
posted by lollusc at 8:29 PM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


Sorry, I misnumbered 5 & 6 because I skipped 4. I also can't answer this because financial compensation is illegal in Australia. But as well as a payment, you should consider getting them to take out a short-term private health insurance policy for you, if you don't have good insurance already.
posted by lollusc at 8:30 PM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


I can't answer all the questions, but a grad student who is doing this just came to talk to my class about it.

3) The place she worked with had a whole online website catalog where interested couples can seek out an egg donor. It shows your stats like height, weight, a picture, etc. The couple contacted her interested, and she agreed because it was a gay male couple and the reason she wanted to donate eggs was to help out a gay couple. From what I know, few people are willing to allow contact if a child is conceived, so if you list you are willing to allow the child to contact you when they reach 18, you are more likely to be picked.
4) She was paid in stages. IE if she was responding to the hormones, she received an x amount of money. if her oocytes were growing she received x amount more. in total, she is being compensated around $8,000 and will be paid that upon retrieval of her eggs, regardless if a child is conceived or not.
posted by fuzzysoft at 8:34 PM on May 12, 2012


From what I understand, in general, if you are going to be an anonymous egg donor -- rather than, say, donating an egg to a family member or some such -- it is preferred that you be younger. The cut-off is usually right around 31.
posted by Countess Sandwich at 8:38 PM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


I know two different people/couples who used egg donors (Washington State) and both of them said their cutoff was "under 30" - I got the sense this was not so much a personal preference as it was a medical recommendation.
posted by dotgirl at 8:42 PM on May 12, 2012


Countess Sandwich has it right. You are, unfortunately, too old to donate eggs unless it is to a specific couple that wants your eggs specifically. An egg donation facility will not take donors under age 30 because the chances of successful completion are substantially lowered after that age.

My ex-girlfriend donated eggs a few times and while it's a good way for a young, healthy woman to make money (you get paid around $6k the first time and up to $10k for subsequent donations), that's kind of the point -- women who are seeking egg donors are doing so often because they themselves are too old to conceive or carry to term, therefore they want young eggs to maximize the chances of success.
posted by imagineerit at 9:01 PM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


Yes, at this point (now that you're over 30) the fertility docs don't want your eggs unless the client specifically wants your eggs. So maybe asking the gay couples you know who want to be dads if they're interested?

I donated my eggs at 34 and the docs were pretty "oh, I don't knooooow, you're really a bit too old," but my friends really wanted to do this with me, not someone they hadn't met, and in the end it all worked fine, but.

I totally understand the "wanting to keep the genes in the pool" feeling. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to do that without parenting or giving birth. Yay, technology!
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:39 PM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


Actually, I may have been 33 when we started the process. In any case, the docs were really clear that they saw 30 as an important cutoff. My guess is that hasn't changed.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:42 PM on May 12, 2012


The answers you've gotten on donor age cutoff are accurate. I just wanted to say having your eggs frozen is a really good idea if you can afford it.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 9:50 PM on May 12, 2012


I heard 32 as the cut off. But it seems your question is also about freezing them for you. I would look into that if that is something you are interested in (and can afford).

I hope your eggs don't crack and dry up at 39- I've only got one more year to go!
posted by bquarters at 10:10 PM on May 12, 2012


My docs said, "32 is different from 20-something, but it's no biggie." Admittedly this does not mean someone would be willing to PAY for 32-year-old eggs if they have a lot of choice of younger women, which I guess was an element I wasn't taking into account in my answer, given as I said that Australia does not allow financial compensation of donors.

I know of a lot of even older (35, 36-year-old) donors here in Australia, but again, that's probably because over here doctors prefer donors to have finished their own child-bearing already.

So I agree with others that if this is something you really want to do, you could probably still find people who would want you as a "known" donor, i.e. among your own circle of acquaintances, or through the sorts of ads I mentioned above on infertility forums.
posted by lollusc at 10:51 PM on May 12, 2012


A very good friend of our family is an endocrinologist working in ivf and fertility for folk who are having cancer treatments. She tries to ensure options for creating the genetic children of these people in the future. Four months ago she told me that there had only been one live birth from someone storing their eggs.... or hell, was it ovarian tissue now that I'm writing it out..... anyway... one live birth ever.

I'm not sure if that's just in Australia or worldwide. But she said that women are in no way as lucky as men when it comes to storing their stuff for later use and that they shouldn't use it as backup. She stressed this very much to me because I was mentioning a discussion that came up here about freezing your own eggs and how I had said it wasn't available and someone here said it was. It turns out it is, but it's still just a money-making false hope.

If it were me, I'd buy some sperm and freeze some embryos now in case I didn't meet the right person. /harrowed IVF graduate voice. (And if you did meet someone and wanted to use their sperm, donate to science or defrost your frozens. At 33 there isn't necessarily a lot of time left.)
posted by taff at 12:27 AM on May 13, 2012 [3 favorites]


I wonder if picking a sperm donor now and freezing embryos instead of eggs might be a better plan?

If you're willing to skip compensation I'm sure you can find someone to take your eggs. But people in the US are pretty convinced that women older than 30 are already dried up hags, reproductively speaking, so you may not find anyone willing to pay.
posted by yarly at 4:39 AM on May 13, 2012


I did some research on egg donation advertising as part of a job at once point; not only are you generally too old (for either brokers or for specific couples), but you're substantially too short and not accomplished enough. Most of the ads are for Ivy-educated women in their 20s, at least 5'6", and frequently specify you must have a varsity letter in some sport or have a certain level of musical attainment or be a woman with an engineering degree. Some people/brokers go after non-Ivy top-25 schools, but like Stanford, Chicago, CalTech. Many ads have a hard SAT-score cut-offs.

There are short, slender, brown-haired, blue-eyed, Northern-European-extracted families out there looking for a donor who "looks like them," but you'd still have to get past the gatekeeping aspect where you are out of your 20s and did not attend an Ivy League school, since generally they'd have options of donors who are and did.

The whole thing (the advertising side of it) was so eugenic that it made me nauseated, frankly, as if they only children in the world worthy of love are tall blonds who will go to Harvard.

In my head, I always worried about the kid whose donor was a 5'10" blond who modeled and majored in chemical engineering at MIT and played varsity volleyball, who by genetic lottery ended up five feet even, red-headed, and clumsy, who loved poetry and wanted to paint. With parents with such super-specific requirements for what kind of child they wanted, when the child inevitably didn't live up to those requirements, what would happen? It worried me. It can't be a good way to grow up; I mean, it ISN'T a good way to grow up when your parents have particular expectations of you and you fail to meet them; when you order a child on spec it seems like there's even more potential for that.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:17 AM on May 13, 2012


Eyebrows McGee, not true. People are looking for donors of all types - I know of people 5'3", brown hair, brown eyes, non Ivy-League degree that have donated eggs for money. Being part of a "rare" ethnicity like Jewish or Indian or East Asian also helps in that respect. People really do want children that look like them (that's a small part of why they're doing IVF/egg donation and not just adopting an infant), and not everyone is a blonde supermodel.

As others have posted, you are probably too old to be compensated for donating eggs. However, I have heard of at least one program (Cooper Institute in New Jersey) that offers a reduced price for your own egg extraction if you agree to donate half the eggs they get out of you. To clarify, that would be a scenario where you go to Cooper Institute to get your own eggs extracted for your own purposes (IVF or frozen) and then you agree to donate a certain number of eggs to any parent that would like them in exchange for a price reduction.

It's certainly possible for a 33 year old to produce a substantial amount of eggs, but the likelihood that they will be both plentiful and viable is just less for a 33 year old than a 23 year old. Even with a possible price reduction it will still be very expensive. However, if you really would like to have your own genetic kids someday, it might be worth it to you if you have money to burn.
posted by permiechickie at 2:36 PM on May 13, 2012


Here's the link to Cooper Institute donor oocyte program
posted by permiechickie at 2:51 PM on May 13, 2012


This is in response to taff, babies born from frozen eggs are not as rare as implied.

This article from Nature states:
"Worldwide, it is estimated that fewer than 2,000 people have been born from frozen eggs, about 400 of them in the United States."

The article also has a bunch of other interesting information about egg freezing and the odds it will work/the costs.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:34 PM on May 13, 2012


Here's the link to Cooper Institute donor oocyte program

They don't freeze eggs, only embryos. From their FAQ:
"What if I would like to freeze my eggs to use at a later time?
Freezing eggs is not an option at this time with the technology available at our center. It is only possible to freeze embryos which are fertilized eggs."

And reading their site, it seems that they don't aim for a frozen cycle by default either -
"In the event the egg donor experiences ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and must freeze all of the embryos, the egg recipient will be responsible for an additional $1200.00 to cover the added expense of a frozen embryo transfer for the donor."

So if a frozen cycle isn't included in their default costs, and they expect the recipient to pay extra for it, then it doesn't sound like a donor who definitely wants freezing would be a likely choice by the potential recipients.
posted by lollusc at 3:43 AM on May 14, 2012


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