Should I donate my eggs to my gay friends?
December 4, 2014 3:41 PM Subscribe
My very good friend has recently married his boyfriend, and I know they'd like to have kids in the near future. They haven't explicitly asked if I'd consider donating eggs, but I know they would be happy to have them. What are the issues for me to think about?
I think they'd both be great dads, and I know that both surrogacy and adoption are expensive. This wouldn't take care of all the costs, but it would help. I also think they'd be happy to have their child's genetic mother be someone they know and love. I do not think I'd be willing to carry a baby for them.
On the one hand, I have all these eggs I won't use. And I know they'd be overjoyed to have a baby, and would be excellent parents. On the other hand, I have a kid, and it feels complicated to think of my child having a sibling who's being raised in another home, by other parents.
Do you have any experience with this? Can you recommend any resources (blogs, websites, books, possibly support groups) that could help me think through the issues involved?
I think they'd both be great dads, and I know that both surrogacy and adoption are expensive. This wouldn't take care of all the costs, but it would help. I also think they'd be happy to have their child's genetic mother be someone they know and love. I do not think I'd be willing to carry a baby for them.
On the one hand, I have all these eggs I won't use. And I know they'd be overjoyed to have a baby, and would be excellent parents. On the other hand, I have a kid, and it feels complicated to think of my child having a sibling who's being raised in another home, by other parents.
Do you have any experience with this? Can you recommend any resources (blogs, websites, books, possibly support groups) that could help me think through the issues involved?
Also, I don't have a kid, but the sibling question is definitely worth thinking about. Would your friends be happy for your children to hang out a lot? Would they know their genetic connection? Would they experience the same sort of standard of living?
I also have friends whose egg donor has three children already. They are very close and they babysit each others' kids all the time. They are even considering moving into a duplex house where the families can live side-by-side and have meals together most days and so on. The egg donor said it was helpful to her that she had a similarly aged kid already (her son was born only a couple of months before she donated). The donor baby is also a boy and looks very similar to her son, and she says it helps her not feel like she wants him for herself, because she says "she already has one of him".
On the other hand, she is a single mother without steady unemployment, while the couple she donated to are both employed, own their own home and have good savings. Her kids are being brought up with lots of love, but not many middle class experiences or things. I think when they are older it might be difficult for them that their brother has so many more opportunities and resources.
posted by lollusc at 4:06 PM on December 4, 2014 [5 favorites]
I also have friends whose egg donor has three children already. They are very close and they babysit each others' kids all the time. They are even considering moving into a duplex house where the families can live side-by-side and have meals together most days and so on. The egg donor said it was helpful to her that she had a similarly aged kid already (her son was born only a couple of months before she donated). The donor baby is also a boy and looks very similar to her son, and she says it helps her not feel like she wants him for herself, because she says "she already has one of him".
On the other hand, she is a single mother without steady unemployment, while the couple she donated to are both employed, own their own home and have good savings. Her kids are being brought up with lots of love, but not many middle class experiences or things. I think when they are older it might be difficult for them that their brother has so many more opportunities and resources.
posted by lollusc at 4:06 PM on December 4, 2014 [5 favorites]
I don't know. To me this sounds really risky. Not physically (although that too), but psychologically. How involved would you be in the upbringing of the child? I take it that you are imagining donating the eggs and not having a substantive role in the child's life beyond that of close family friend. But have you thought about what you would do if you found yourself feeling very attached? Or disagreed with the dads on some point of parenting? Or how you would respond if they left the city you currently live in and you never saw the child again? Or how you would feel if the child, as a teen or young adult, suddenly wanted a close relationship with you or told you that she really regretted that you weren't more involved in her life growing up?
Personally, I don't attach much importance to biological relationships, but I've found, to my puzzlement, that many people really, really do. Given this, you may want to think carefully about the ramifications of this decision. For many people, genetic material is emotionally freighted in all sorts of ways.
(Also, while I realize most people don't share this view, I think there are real ethical questions about bringing children into the world when there are so many children waiting for adoption.)
posted by girl flaneur at 9:26 PM on December 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
Personally, I don't attach much importance to biological relationships, but I've found, to my puzzlement, that many people really, really do. Given this, you may want to think carefully about the ramifications of this decision. For many people, genetic material is emotionally freighted in all sorts of ways.
(Also, while I realize most people don't share this view, I think there are real ethical questions about bringing children into the world when there are so many children waiting for adoption.)
posted by girl flaneur at 9:26 PM on December 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
Two of my friends have looked into freezing their eggs, one's in her late 20's and one in her mid 30's. Ethical dilemmas aside... Unless your friends definitely had a surrogate lined up, who wasn't willing to also be a genetic parent, logically it doesn't make sense to do this.
It's very expensive. I think my second friend mentioned something around CAD$10-30K for a recent estimate. And it's not a sure-fire, reliable procedure to keep the eggs viable and implant perfectly. As two gay men, your friends would still need to get surrogate mother ($$$?), and she'd have to get the eggs implanted ($$). So I don't think this would be a cost saving endeavor. They also said that the ideal age range for extracting eggs is in your early to mid-20's, by late 20's it's less optimal. So if your intent was to sell some of your eggs to cover the expense, well there's also that to consider.
It involves a lot of hormonal injections, to get your ovaries to release a bunch of eggs at once. This means an emotional hurricane for you, at minimum. And other unpleasant side effects. And the extraction procedure sounded very painful. I think this is why my first friend there decided against it, the health impacts and the pain.
posted by lizbunny at 12:39 PM on December 5, 2014
It's very expensive. I think my second friend mentioned something around CAD$10-30K for a recent estimate. And it's not a sure-fire, reliable procedure to keep the eggs viable and implant perfectly. As two gay men, your friends would still need to get surrogate mother ($$$?), and she'd have to get the eggs implanted ($$). So I don't think this would be a cost saving endeavor. They also said that the ideal age range for extracting eggs is in your early to mid-20's, by late 20's it's less optimal. So if your intent was to sell some of your eggs to cover the expense, well there's also that to consider.
It involves a lot of hormonal injections, to get your ovaries to release a bunch of eggs at once. This means an emotional hurricane for you, at minimum. And other unpleasant side effects. And the extraction procedure sounded very painful. I think this is why my first friend there decided against it, the health impacts and the pain.
posted by lizbunny at 12:39 PM on December 5, 2014
You don't mention if you have children or if you someday want to become a parent. I've had conversations about this with friends who were struggling with infertility. Both couples (them and us) already have children. The conversation concluded with the ideas that it would be difficult to see someone raise "your" child in ways that are different from the ways in which you would parent. The idea of "that could have been our daughter/son" and feelings of some jealousy or sadness resulting was also raised. Certainly, the friendship would be forever changed, and not necessarily for the better.
I'm in my 40's with a toddler and another on the way. I parent in a way that is SUPER different than how I thought I would parent when I was younger, and in a way that is a lot different than most people we know (we're not super crunchy but we're on that end of the spectrum). It would be incredibly hard for me to see someone I knew and interacted with regularly parent my biological child in ways that are at odds with the way I parent. It would be incredibly heart-breaking for me to be on the sidelines if the child had medical issues, as I would have absolutely no say and no rights in the care of that child.
How would you feel if some tragedy befell your friends, and they had designated another person to raise the child in their absence? Would you feel that the custody of the child should revert to you? Keep in mind, when you donate eggs, you forever forfeit any and all parental rights.
A month or so ago I had another conversation with the same friends I mentioned above. They had a surrogate carry their first child, who is now 4, and the surrogate is still trying to be actively involved in the child's life (note, she is not biologically related to the child) by sending presents for all holidays and occasions, and asking for an in-person meeting. And it feels really weird and intrusive for the parents, and they can't figure out how to deal with it. On the one hand they will be forever grateful for the help she gave them, but on the other hand they don't want her involved in their child's day-to-day life.
Also, are you partnered? This could be incredibly weird for a partner who was not a part of the initial decision to realize that the half-sibling to his kids are being raised by someone else. People who have never been through the infertility struggle and who take their fertility for granted have a very difficult time understanding the point of view of people who can't have children but want to so desperately. Their stock answer is pretty much "Why don't you just adopt?" like that option is super easy (which it isn't). You may run into pushback like "how could you give your child away?" or "how could you let a gay couple raise a child?" (we all know those biases aren't going away anytime soon, despite recent civil rights advances).
Before considering this idea, had you ever considered donating your eggs to strangers? To people that you would have absolutely no idea what kind of people they really are or how they would raise a child? If you can say honestly in your heart that you would, without reservation, then maybe delve deeper into considering donating to your friends. Spend some time in support groups or a couple of therapy sessions to explore your feelings. Take the psych profile on the donor websites and see what issues it turns up for you. Talk to your family and see how they would feel about it, as it could come out someday even if you decided not to disclose your donation now.
There's a lot to consider, what I've written is just the tip of the iceberg. Your friends are lucky that you would even consider such a generous gift. But you absolutely must make your feelings a priority in this decision.
Oh, and on preview, yes, the cost is a significant factor. Your friends would cover the expenses, not you, but you would want to know that this is something they intend to do and can afford before you got too far into the process. Egg retrieval (the part that involves you) is in the ballpark of $10K, and surrogacy is in the ballpark of $50K (in California), and NOPE, insurance doesn't cover even one cent of it.
posted by vignettist at 12:49 PM on December 5, 2014
I'm in my 40's with a toddler and another on the way. I parent in a way that is SUPER different than how I thought I would parent when I was younger, and in a way that is a lot different than most people we know (we're not super crunchy but we're on that end of the spectrum). It would be incredibly hard for me to see someone I knew and interacted with regularly parent my biological child in ways that are at odds with the way I parent. It would be incredibly heart-breaking for me to be on the sidelines if the child had medical issues, as I would have absolutely no say and no rights in the care of that child.
How would you feel if some tragedy befell your friends, and they had designated another person to raise the child in their absence? Would you feel that the custody of the child should revert to you? Keep in mind, when you donate eggs, you forever forfeit any and all parental rights.
A month or so ago I had another conversation with the same friends I mentioned above. They had a surrogate carry their first child, who is now 4, and the surrogate is still trying to be actively involved in the child's life (note, she is not biologically related to the child) by sending presents for all holidays and occasions, and asking for an in-person meeting. And it feels really weird and intrusive for the parents, and they can't figure out how to deal with it. On the one hand they will be forever grateful for the help she gave them, but on the other hand they don't want her involved in their child's day-to-day life.
Also, are you partnered? This could be incredibly weird for a partner who was not a part of the initial decision to realize that the half-sibling to his kids are being raised by someone else. People who have never been through the infertility struggle and who take their fertility for granted have a very difficult time understanding the point of view of people who can't have children but want to so desperately. Their stock answer is pretty much "Why don't you just adopt?" like that option is super easy (which it isn't). You may run into pushback like "how could you give your child away?" or "how could you let a gay couple raise a child?" (we all know those biases aren't going away anytime soon, despite recent civil rights advances).
Before considering this idea, had you ever considered donating your eggs to strangers? To people that you would have absolutely no idea what kind of people they really are or how they would raise a child? If you can say honestly in your heart that you would, without reservation, then maybe delve deeper into considering donating to your friends. Spend some time in support groups or a couple of therapy sessions to explore your feelings. Take the psych profile on the donor websites and see what issues it turns up for you. Talk to your family and see how they would feel about it, as it could come out someday even if you decided not to disclose your donation now.
There's a lot to consider, what I've written is just the tip of the iceberg. Your friends are lucky that you would even consider such a generous gift. But you absolutely must make your feelings a priority in this decision.
Oh, and on preview, yes, the cost is a significant factor. Your friends would cover the expenses, not you, but you would want to know that this is something they intend to do and can afford before you got too far into the process. Egg retrieval (the part that involves you) is in the ballpark of $10K, and surrogacy is in the ballpark of $50K (in California), and NOPE, insurance doesn't cover even one cent of it.
posted by vignettist at 12:49 PM on December 5, 2014
Just to address some of the points made above: I've been through this and the "emotional hurricane" wasn't a thing - I didn't have any emotional issues/swings from the hormones at all. Same for pain during or after extraction, there was none. No physical side effects at all. Feel free to message me if you'd like to know more.
posted by sunflower16 at 6:53 PM on December 7, 2014
posted by sunflower16 at 6:53 PM on December 7, 2014
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If I could go back in time and decide again, I don't know if I would do it or not, but I would still tend towards yes.
Feel free to memail me if you want to chat more.
posted by lollusc at 4:01 PM on December 4, 2014 [2 favorites]