Information for a First Time Egg Donor

January 8, 2008 12:55 PM

I'm looking for advice or experience about egg donation

I'm a healthy, college-educated 21 year old thinking about being an egg donor. I want to make an educated decision about what the options and risks are. From my preliminary research (including this) I'm still left with a few questions.

1 I'd be interested in a first person account of someone that has gone through the donation cycle. Have you gone through it? Read any blogs about it? If that's not available, I'd be interested in hearing about women that have done IVF.


2 I'd like to donate in the Boston area. Does anyone have information or experience with agencies or clinics there?


3 Though it's not my primary reason for donation, I'm unfortunately not in a place in my life where I can exactly turn down a couple grand. The estimates for financial compensation I've seen online vary widely. What could a first time donor (with no previous pregnancies) expect in my area?

4 Would I get any information about the recipients of my eggs? I have a weird paranoia that my future children will unknowingly marry their half siblings. I'm not against the idea of meeting the future parents, but I understand that that may bring up mixed feelings for them.

5 Speaking of my unborn future children, what are the known risks to my fertility and future health?

6 Finally, are there obscure things that will disqualify egg donors? My family has no history or genetic diseases or cancer, but my grandparents didn't live to be spectacularly old or anything.


Thanks for your answers, and feel free to clue me into anything I might have overlooked. If you want to contact me, I've set up an email at BostonDonor at gmail.com

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

Having briefly looked into sperm donation, I can tell you with regard to #6 not to underestimate the amount of information you're going to be asked for in that area.

Money may not be your primary motivator - and I wish you'd said what your primary motivator actually is - but I'd suggest you think long and hard about whether the money combined with [actual motivation] make up for the tremendous impact - immediate and long-term unknowable - you're going to experience from the quantity of hormones they need to inject egg donors with.

I presume you've looked at the three referenced sources in the wikipedia entry on egg donation, in particular Fertility Stories.
posted by phearlez at 1:29 PM on January 8, 2008

One of my friends did it 3 times or so. It was partly for the money, at least the first time, but she seemed to really be moved by the couples. Hence doing it a few more times. It depends on the service probably, but she got to meet the couples.
posted by herbaliser at 2:00 PM on January 8, 2008

3 and 5 :- Google ovum donation and OHSS, to get a full picture of the risks.

I'm a little concerned that we still don't know enough about the long term effects on your (reproductive) health for informed consent to be truly informed. But YMMV and IANAD.
posted by Wilder at 2:04 PM on January 8, 2008

I considered becoming an egg doner in the Oklahoma City area about five years ago, and my primary motivator was the money. I think the offer was $5000, but it could have been higher. However, I ended up deciding against it because the travel time and expense, combined with time spent in doctor's offices (and the possibility that I wouldn't be able to hop up off the doctor's table and immediately run off to work or play), just didn't work out to be enough per hour when I could possibly spend that time at my job or doing my college homework. So even if you're not very worried about the health risks, as I wasn't at the time, your time might be more valuable than that couple grand works out to be.
posted by korres at 4:07 PM on January 8, 2008

Try this blog. If you email the author, she'll likely answer any questions you have.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 5:00 PM on January 8, 2008

Follow-up from a MeFite who wants to remain anonymous. Anon, I'll be happy to out you in touch if you'd like

H'm, since no donors have replied- I did it three times. I am fascinated by medical stuff and found the process really interesting. I also enjoy giving myself shots. If you have an issue with shots, this may not be your cup of tea. Your experience will vary broadly based on the group you go with.

For my first two donations, I was with a single agency who treated me kindly and respectfully and like a full participant in the process. For my third donation, I felt like I was a horse going on the block. There was a lot of staring at my teeth going on. Be careful about who you end up going with- it will completely have an impact on your overall experience, whether it is positive and an adventure of makes you feel like you're selling something. At points in the third process, I nearly pulled out of my contract because the agency (not the prospective parents) made me feel, literally, like a prostitute.

During the third donation, the doctor involved actually suggested the parents dump me- because I was 25. Despite being a, um, proven great donor with lots of eggs harvested the previous two times, the doctor told the parents to find the youngest donor they could- 17 or 18 if at all possible, which I wasn't aware was legal. If you're older than me, you may have some issues. Or not.

To respond specifically to your questions:

2 No idea about Boston, all of my experiences were on the west coast. If you're an attractive enough donor (in terms of looks, where you go to school, demonstrated accomplishments or IQ, etc) you can get flown in from wherever. Two out of three times I was flown several states away for the donation, and that was fun- they put me up in a very nice hotel with a companion and I got to go on a mini-vacation to a new city.

3 First time donors get much less than repeat donors. For the first donation I got 3k, for each subsequent one I got double that, with my most recent donation being 8.5k. It wasn't a motivating factor for me, either: I did it for the fun. Also, as I said, I'm fascinated by the process, and I'm a vehement advocate for stem cell research, which I see IVF and related technologies as working to advance.

If you're a, uh, especially special donor, you may be offered significantly more for your first donation, but you'd have to be gorgeous (I'm quite good looking) and be at a HUGE name brand school (I'm in grad school at one of the top ten schools in the country) and precisely who they were looking for. A lanky brunette with green eyes, to match the "mother". Many prospective parents are concerned about their kid not looking like them. I'm a mensa member, and I've gotten emails from prospective parents interested in genius-level IQ: if I was willing to prove it with an IQ test (I don't think I'm a genius, but if I was, and I was willing to prove it) they'd pay ~$15k for the procedure.

You see good-looking ads in many school newspapers offering 5-25k for the procedure- it is often, or typically, just to get you into the office, whereupon you'll be informed that you're not "quite" what they were looking for (in my case my hair was a liiiiiitle too auburn) but they do have other prospective recipients they'd LOVE to match you with. Don't make the same mistake I did. They were just looking to build their "book" of prospective donors that people get to look through on the web to make themselves more attractive.

4 I met two out of three of the prospective couples. Again, this will be the horse-selling part of the experience: you've filled out a ten page application, written a few short essays, provided pics (both childhood and adult) and even taken tests (I had to be evaluated by a psychologist as well as take a few standard "are you insane?" tests) and all they have to do is give you a sentence:

The prospective mother is a lawyer who went to USC and the prospective father is in shipping. They have one child.

That is often all you get to know. If they meet you, they may tell you more- I know precisely who the third couple is, though I'd never follow it up with any sort of contact. I wouldn't worry about your prospective offspring getting it on with their offspring. But I would be sure you've educated yourself about the process and READ the CONTRACT.

Central to me is the disposition of the unused embryos created in the process. Consider the following scenario: you're fertile and produce 22 ova, which are duly harvested, combined with Dad's sperm, and 20 eggs are successfully created. 4-6 implanted in pros. Mom and she conceives. You still have another 14 eggs sitting in the cooler. Maybe they want to have the next generation from the eggs they have frozen in the vault, maybe not. What happens to them?

With the donation process, you can be assured of two things: 1, the parents (usually) have enough money to care for a child in a decent way. 2, you've had some opportunity to vet them, or the agency has.

When eggs are "adopted" out, there is no similar process: anyone can adopt them. I HIGHLY encourage you to think about insisting on an addendum that if the eggs are not used by the prospective couple, they either be humanely disposed of or donated to research (the research is really good and really important, but hey, go for humanely disposed of by itself if you'd like)

Also, be clear about your future intentions. Are you going to care if the phone rings in 20 years and someone stammers, "M-mom?" You're not their Mom, but you will be their bio-Mom, and the issue will come up at some point. For me, I have no specific attachment to my genetic material, and consider parenting more about what is done and said to a child than what the origin of their DNA is, but I like interesting people. I'm ok with them choosing to give the kid(s) my contact info, hopefully after warning me ahead of time. But you should think about that.

Also make it SUPER CLEAR that you feel the same way I do about not being attached to the genetic material (in a kinder way, of course) or expect to be turned down as a donor. Nice or not, many prospective parents will get super-anxious at the thought of you reappearing in their lives and trying to take Jake Jr. from them.

5 Speaking of my unborn future children, what are the known risks to my fertility and future health?

Unknown. The industry has decided to limit the # of donations at 6-7, and only greater than 4 if you already have your own family and are not planning to add to it any more. The technology is just too new to have any idea of what might happen, should it be released to the world.

6 Finally, are there obscure things that will disqualify egg donors? My family has no history or genetic diseases or cancer, but my grandparents didn't live to be spectacularly old or anything.

Anything and everything, my friend. Your hair color, height, weight, IQ, even what SCHOOL you attend could disqualify you. You'll likely be screened by a genetic screener and if s/he finds any anomalies, they may test you. If anything at all is discovered altered about you (no matter how common the mutation) you will be rejected. There are plenty of (pardon me) perfect girls out there to get a donation from a known risk.

Finally, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or have jessamyn pass my contact info on to you, so long as you promise not to publish what I've said anywhere or link it to me in any way at any point. I know it isn't binding, but it is super-important to me that my donations never be linked to me in any way (bad for my career)

posted by jessamyn at 8:14 PM on January 8, 2008 [6 favorites]

anon, I really have no expertise on the topic, but my from my conversations with a respected biologist, I've inherited some of his major concerns. Chiefly: the procedures are relatively so new, that there is simply no information how what effects they might have 10, 20, 30 years down the line. Because - as I understand it - no rigorous scientific investigation has, or could have, been done -- you can receive no guarantee on those fronts.
posted by prophetsearcher at 3:06 PM on January 9, 2008

A friend of mine who did this talks about it openly and with humor... describing what she knows of the quintuplets born from her eggs and what she guessed of the parents from meeting them.

She did say that during the egg extraction she was heard to scream bloody murder from several rooms away. She has no personal memory of it, because they used one of those anesthetics that affects memory. But technicians in the room and nearby related to her that she was in extreme discomfort.

I think that's an interesting question. Will you care how painful it is if you won't remember it?
posted by scarabic at 7:03 PM on January 11, 2008

one more follow-up from the OP

Regarding pain during the actual procedure, I have a high pain tolerance and really really wanted to know what was going on, so I convinced the doctors involved in 2 out of 3 donations to give ma a local. I'd describe it as quite uncomfortable, the kind of discomfort that you'd like to squirm away from, but have to stay Quite Still, or else they're going to dose you into La-La land.

Still, that's a pretty low level of discomfort for me. Much less painful then, say, getting your wisdom teeth out, getting stitches, getting a tattoo, getting your finger slammed in a door, getting a root canal, or any more major pain-related events.

I don't think that you should choose not to donate because of fear of pain. I do reiterate that if you fear needles, this is not the project for you. Lots and lots of shots!! (With tiny insulin needles and a couple of big honkers that you have to shove into your own ass)

posted by jessamyn at 3:41 PM on January 12, 2008