Recently I saw a mention in an article in which the author, Jen Dziura said she donated her eggs right after she moved to New York. She said it was something that both settled her life and allowed her to work on her career. I recognized myself in that situation.
I graduated from a great university six months ago, but still am trying to get a job. Right now, I’m working at the local mall; it’s awful only because I know I should be doing more. As I’m struggling to be hired in a big girl job (read: full-time and degree required) I could use some help financially to help me along until then. The money would help me with living expenses to allow me to keep looking for the right position in the long run. Egg donation will help me as I figure out the next chapter in my life. I may end up pursuing graduate school or post-grad certifications, and it’s possible I would donate again to fund those studies.
When I started to look over the application, I felt very lucky about my virtually spotless medical history. I felt that if somebody wanted my genetics, I should share them. As I pored over the 20-page application, the medical section was easy: “No” on almost every question. Then I got to the personality questions and these seemed more fun to answer. Still, parts of the application made me nervous: would they think I was a violent person if I listed Fight Club, No Country For Old Men, and Snatch among my favorite movies? I threw in some Disney for good measure.
Such a life-changing decision was made somewhat superficially.
As I told a couple people, they asked about having my DNA “out there.” I am an intensely curious person, and would wonder about any babies born 38 weeks after the procedure. However, I do not anticipate feeling any kinship. As a child of divorced parents, and from a family of many divorcees and twice married aunts and uncles, I do not feel that DNA determines family. The child will be the son or daughter of whomever raises him or her.
As I realized egg donation was something I was becoming invested in, I read articles here on Offbeat Families. While most of the articles don’t apply to me, I often get sucked in by the cute nurseries and then end up reading much more. I searched this site for IVF and read touching stories about the joy of bringing a tiny new human into the world. I nearly cried more than once.
What interested me in egg donation was a possibility to ease financial struggles, but what made me resolute in the decision was the way I could help in my small part to help grow a family.
So, are you actually an egg donor, or are you just signed up in a registry? This essay feels a little incomplete, but I just wanted to reach out with some supportive thoughts. I donated my eggs after graduating from college, to help pay for school and get settled in NYC. It was a good experience (though very work- and time-intensive!). I am not troubled by having other children out there who are related to me (even though I know where they are, because my clinic did not keep good confidentiality records). Now, over a decade later, I’m having my first child, and feel very at peace with these decisions. Good luck to you!
You’re right, so far I’m in the database. I was writing about my decision, rather than the process of actually donating.
I’m happy to hear from older donors! 🙂
People assume that they are the offspring of the people raising them because, lets face it who else owes it to you to take care of you since they created a dependent life they have to keep it alive. It’s great if someone else is able to pick up the slack for an absent parent and people can grow up well adjusted with absent parents in the care of others but its less than they deserve even if that person gives more than their parent ever could of because that person was not the one whose job it was to take care of them. Think of it this way two twins even have the same DNA on paper they are identical…you think their wives or kids think their father/husband could just be swapped out for the other one? They want their own. Just like we would not want the wrong twin to go to jail for murder. What I’m driving at here is that you are responsible for the existence of all your offspring and they won’t view your importance differently just because someone else gave birth to them. They may well bond with her for raising them but if they are told “of their donor conception” it won’t bother them until the go to school and learn enough to decode the infertility lingo. Once they realize that you are their point of origin and you caused their existence they will start asking about you. Pregnancy is really over rated in terms of bonding. I reunite people whose parents were egg and sperm donors. You meet the criteria for mother but they will be told not to call you that but they’ll start looking for you and their siblings as soon as they can use a computer. The whole process backfires on the intended mother. Bottom line is that when the doctor asks any of your children about their mother’s health history they don’t mean her they mean you. They won’t care who changed their diapers or spent hours in labor or breast fed them, they mean their maternal family, your family. You just can’t escape who you are to them and their desire for your acceptance is understandable because you owe all of your offspring the same love and attention, why did you decide to give those ones away and keep this one? Because you love the father of one but not the others? Is that their fault? Those are the thinks they start thinking. I hope they find you and that they and the sibling you are raising get to know each other and that you grow deeply bonded like the family you are. They don’t feel good to hear “I don’t think of you as my child” when of course technically they are but someone else raised them. Of course they’d rather have had the bond they have with someone else with you because you belong to them. That lady raising them wanted to raise her own kids to begin with and only settled for someone else’s kid as better than nothing. Well they are only settling for her too only you exist and her own child does not.
I’ve been waiting for this post since I submitted a question regarding egg donation last week. Thank you for sharing, So glad that you had a nice experience and would be willing to do it again.
I am a married, twenty-five year old, female college grad with no biological children. I have always been drawn to the idea helping other women create families. I’ve discussed the idea of surrogacy with my husband, but he isn’t comfortable with it.
My mother recently brought up the possibility of egg donation, and since then I’ve been researching. I’m an organ donor, regular blood donor, and signed up for the bone marrow registry. I think it’s really important to give to others in whatever meaningful ways you can. So, I love the idea of egg donation, and the compensation could do wonderful things for our family as well.
However, some of the warnings about the uncertainties with long term effects of the hormones and potential risk factors have made me less certain. I was hoping you and other offbeat readers might share their experience with this.
Hi Autumn,
I too am suspicious of anything that doesn’t have longterm testing, like new drugs and new vaccines. But I have to say that I think the main concern for longterm effects of hormones would be for repeat donors. Most women don’t donate eggs 5 times, luckily. But I imagine the risks are similar to women who choose to undergo IVF and other fertility treatments multiple times in their fertility quest.
The drug protocol is usually: birth control, lupron (supressant), Gonal-F or similar (ingectible stimulators) and an HCG trigger shot. The one you might want to do more research about would be Gonal-F (the follicle stimulators), as those probably have the greatest risks.
In my case, I only donated eggs once, and the experience was helpful because during the process I was diagnosed with PCOS, and informed that I might find myself back in the fertility clinic some day. Which I did for various reasons, and I was glad I went into it with the advanced fertility knowledge I had gained from donating.
Thank you very much for your response, Qualm. The specifics are very helpful in making an informed decision. I get uncomfortable with an answer that glosses over the details, positively or negatively.
If you don’t mind me following up, do you know exactly how clean they expect family history to be? For instance, it seems like everyone is related to someone who has/had cancer.
It depends. At the (3rd party) registry I worked with (now closed) the registry didn’t judge you, but just put all the info out there for their donors to choose from. The second time I applied, I did it through a fancy university-affiliated clinic instead of a registry. They were *much* more dubious about health problems in my family history. Mental health problems including suicide are a big red flag. Grandmas with cancer are probably more acceptable. Anyway, these are good questions for your intake interviews, because they really vary by clinic. I’m sure many clients are comfortable with some family histories and others aren’t… Sorry I can’t be more specific.
The risks are indeed similar in some respects to those of IVF, because you undergo the first stage of IVF, up until egg harvesting – but then the fertilised eggs are implanted in someone else rather than in you.
I fully understand the gift that childless couples receive from sperm and egg donations. However I would warn any young woman to seriously consider all the potential health risks and the possibility of their future sterility or even death from egg donation. http://www.eggsploitation.com/
In my experience, the known health risks of egg donation are fully explained to egg donors, and donors in my program were required to discuss the contract and risks with an attorney. That’s a much more rigorous standard than we have for about 99% of the risks we take on every day when we leave the house. I think it is honestly disingenuous to suggest that egg donation carries a serious risk of death. Getting in a car is surely a much higher risk of death, as is contracting the flu or flying in an airplane or smoking a cigarette while on the birth control pill. I find the alarmism somewhat silly. Obviously everyone should live their lives in a mindful way that informs them of risks they are taking every day.
i am interested in egg donation as well- i even went as far as to complete the long application (but never submitted it). the whole thing is interesting to me, on the levels of liking to help people and science. i havent actually gone through with it, though, because i guess im scared of it. i wonder what kind of info you were given about possible complications and issues that could arise in the future from donating eggs?
also, surrogacy would be interesting too! but i dont think i can do that, because ive never delivered a child before (thats the rule, right? i dont know much about it)
(This is also a response to Autumn)
Well, first, you aren’t committed to anything at all with just the application. There’s still lots of screening to be done and you get many opportunities to ask questions throughout that process.
I had thought the risk was a bit greater, but was okay with my preformed thoughts. It turns out it’s actually alot safer than I had heard. I had a meeting with a doctor who performs the transfers, and she was able to give me basically a whole lesson about IVF. Specifically, the hormones are increases of things that already occur in your body, and are often typical levels during pregnancy. The “operation” is really fast (thus quotation marks); it’s less invasive than wisdom teeth removal. And some of the long-term side effects about breast cancer or whatever are not correlated.
Sorry if this sounds preachy or like I’m trying to convince you, but I would not be going through with it if there were significant side effects. 🙂 I’m still happy about the whole thing
not preachy at all! im glad that most of the “horrors” that are out there are unfounded- because ill admit, i got kind of freaked out by those most of all! the whole giving yourself injections was a close second… haha
Ooh I forgot to mention that! I also kind of left it out to keep some anonymity, but my boyfriend has some experience with injections (legally!) so he’s definitely going to be shooting me up, because I get squeamish.
oh lucky! my boyfriend is very medically squimish and he categorically refused to help me with that part… haha
Saying that the hormones that you must inject are “the same” as the ones you naturally have in your body is not quite true. It’s the same lie OB/GYN’s tell you when they talk about birth control pills. In truth, they mimic your natural hormones but behave differently in your body. There hasn’t been enough research done to establish what the risk is for egg donors.
In reality the medications used in IVF (and egg donation) are from recombinant DNA technology. They are chemically the same molecule as the FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) that your pituatary produces every month in a natural menstrual cycle from puberty to menopause. In IVF by using the same “molecule” as the one your body naturally produces you trick the body into developing more follicles. The co-hart that rises to the “top” of the ovary every month can range from 1 (low ovarian reserver) to 40+. In a natural cycle your body produces just enough FSH to make 1 or 2 follicles mature but in IVF with the addition of the medicatios from recombinant DNA technology, you will have more mature ones than 1-2. In a natural cycle the rest the follicles just wither and die….there is no recycling of eggs every month. Once that cycle is over, it is over and those eggs are gone. Just come clarification.
I am a 41-year-old single woman who desperately wants children. So far, I have not needed to use donated eggs; however, I have used donated sperm as well as a host of other available options. What you are giving is the most beautiful gift I can imagine. I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of anyone who is able to have their dream family because of you. I have never wanted anything more. Love and light to you.
Wow, thank you!
DNA may not mean much to you, but I’m curious your thoughts or long-term plans for the “what-if” event of that egg conceived child re-entering your life and caring about the DNA you share? So curious how you and others will handle this!
from what i remember from when i looked into this, there is no way for the child to find you. its done double-anonymously, so you never know the couple and they never know you…
maybe it varies from business to business, or even state to state..?
This varies by state, so be careful. In some instances, adult children have successfully tracked down their donors, either through the courts or through online searching. Also, it might change if, as President Obama has indicated, the US becomes a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child. That treaty, because it says a child has a right to “identity and history” might have the legal effect of requiring all donors to become known donors. So if it’s something a woman is considering, that’s something to keep in mind.
I know that there are online donor registries for children of sperm-donation. And, it is interesting, in my perspective, that some individuals aren’t legally allowed information about their genetic history, so we should pay attention to that legislation that Obama might sign. I wonder if it will retroactively effect those or just moving forward?
Monk-Monk, just to clarify: The UDRC isn’t legilsation, its an international treaty that’s been ratified by a lot of nations. The United States so far has not signed onto it as a party. Obama has indicated that he would like to sign it, but per US law, the treaty would have to be introduced and ratified by the Senate first. However, I have heard that with the Democratic Congress, it might come up in the next 2 years.
The treaty would not automatically mean that all donors would become known. What would happen is that after ratification, an individual conceived through donation would have to sue for their donor’s info and cite the Treaty as the basis for the suit. If a court agrees with them, that would establish a precedent that donors would probably become known. The Treaty has language in it that says every child has a right to “identity, history and national origin.” Some courts have interpreted this as entitling all people to information about their genetic history. Not every nation that signed the treaty has experienced this, but a few have.
I’m not 100% on whether a treaty can apply retroactively, but it likely would change the debate, at least a little bit. Personally, I’m pretty interested in seeing where it goes. Reproductive technology is HUGELY unregulated in the United States compared to other nations.
Thanks for the clarification! I’m really interested in this, too, especially from the child-someday-adult’s perspective on the decisions that their biological parent/sperm or egg donor made.
To be pedantic (I’m a lawyer, goes with the territory) the UDRC isn’t a treaty, it’s a Declaration. That means it is morally or politically binding, but not legally binding under international law. Generally, courts may interpret domestic legislation consistently with the UDRC, reasoning that the legislature intends the laws it passes to be consistent, but they’re not bound to do so just because a State signs up. It would be a different matter though if domestic legislation stated that it must be interpreted consistently with the UDRC. In that case, a court would be bound to apply it. The UDRC can’t apply retroactively to a State, but by becoming a signatory a State warrants that it complies. Sorry, way off topic really, but have been unable to restrain myself since this is my area of expertise 😉
The Donor Sibling web site is a wonderful resource for sperm/egg donor conceived children, parents, families and the donors themselves. https://www.donorsiblingregistry.com/
With the hospital I’m using, there’s a check box with various levels of anonymity you’d like: meeting the parents now, meeting future 18-year-old, exchanging name and contact info, etc or nothing at all.
I checked yes to meeting them, mostly because I’m a curious person. To be honest, I think it will probably be like meeting a cousin as adults. This has happened twice: two of my uncles had children young and the cousin was raised with the mom. So I had no contact with cousins until very recently. One of them I’ve gotten to know a bit, and the other I haven’t really spent time with. I think it’ll be a similar sense of sharing genetics, but nothing socially.
Also, this is a bit different from when men donate to lesbian couples, and there are cases of homophobes disputing paternity. With IVF, the mother gives birth and the birth team may not even know it’s an IVF baby. There’s a bit less legal fuzziness for me to feel anxious about. Plus, IVF is crazy expensive and emotionally difficult for the parents, so I feel that they’ll probably be well-off financially, and very committed to parenthood.
In the event that you could possibly meet your egg-donor child in 18 years, just prepare yourself for the possibility that you could potentially be staring at a mini-me, both looks and personality-wise. It could feel a whole lot different than meeting a cousin. Genetics are a funny thing like that. My daughter is the mirror image of her dad, and I can see such an emotional response when he looks at her face (more so than I) or even if he sees a photo of the two of them together. It’s a special, almost eerie feeling to see your genes materialize. And what a heart thumping experience to see them develop your own quirks or interests! And I speak only as a biological parent. A really great donor documentary, where the male donor is a bit overcome upon meeting his donor children, is “Donor Unknown” on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/donor-unknown/
Also, I think there was a special on Oprah a few years ago, about donor kids meeting their siblings! It was SO cool for them to see those reunions, they were so excited to see other people that looked like them!
as a kid made by an anonymous sperm donor and my awesome mama, I find the whole thing fascinating and have thought of donating eggs myself – i love the idea that something that made my parents so happy, is something i’d be able to help give another family.
I wish this was an easy option here in Canada; I have great eggs and cant’ have any more kids. I’d like to help other families have great kids but technically selling your eggs is illegal here. Donating them is possible but I haven’t been able to figure out the ‘hows’ about it.
At least in Ottawa it’s up to the receiving family to find an egg donor. There are independantly run message boards for people who are looking for donors, just google “egg donation in ______” and it seems to pull up the appropriate resources 🙂
We have similar laws here in Australia, where I was recently an egg donor for a family member. In addition to the Internet as mentioned, our local Melbourne Child mag (the type you pick up for free in kiddy places that has a few articles and lots of ads!) devotes a couple of pages at the back to ads for people seeking egg donors. Additionally, you can contact the IVF centres directly and they can match you with a couple seeking a donor. I believe this is less commonly done.
I donated ovum several times when I was in my twenties for similar reasons. Ten years later, I have a regrets about donation.
I have since then earned a medical degree, which gave me understanding of what I put my body through going through the drug cycles for donation. Despite the brochures and assurances by doctors and nurses, unless you have put in the years of study, you don’t have true understanding of what you are doing to your body.
My concern has also been aroused by the serious ethical breaches involved in egg donation/IVF in the U.S. There is no requirement of DNA testing or matching or tracking offspring of an egg donor. Unlike sperm donors, egg donors can donate for as many cycles as they can convince doctors to perform. There are in excess of 20 embryos from my donations out there – and at least 6 children not including my own – they could easily meet up and never know they are related.
Further concerns come up with the treatment of egg donors by the lawyers involved. If you look up Theresa Erickson, she was recently convicted in federal court of offenses related to her law practice involving reproductive law. She concurrently owned a “boutique” company sourcing egg donors and surrogates, for which she charged high prices to the intended parents.
Theresa Erickson was involved in selling babies. She had embryos sent to places like Yugoslavia, where they were implanted in surrogates. Then she would contact people interested in adopting a child and say one had just become available as an adoption hadn’t gone through – for a price of about $100,000 plus fees etc.
Erickson claimed what she was doing was just the tip of the iceberg.
She got off with a slap on the wrist of a few months confinement and house arrest. Hopefully she will be disbarred.
Erickson herself completed 30 egg donation cycles, no doubt compensated highly for each one.
As an ovum donor, Erickson’s actions left me with a sinking feeling, wondering if embryos that I had donated to, if no longer wanted by the intended parents, had been sent to be implanted in surrogates and sold off to the highest bidder. Often the intended parents pay for the donation cycle, but may get several embryos and only use a few of them. When they get tired of paying the storage fees, they can donate those embryos to others.
There is no tracking. There is no regulation.
You can’t legally purchase genetic material, but you can pay for the pain and suffering involved in the procedure. The more educated/accomplished/attractive the egg donor is, the more her pain and suffering is worth.
Egg donation isn’t altruistic. It leaves young women who are not in the best financial circumstances vulnerable to people who have more and want to buy a child.
I believe the US should regulate egg donation and surrogacy. It should be altruistic (as it is in Australia), not an opportunity to make money. Otherwise, it contributes significantly to creating a class of people who are essentially selling part of themselves to survive…very dystopian…very wrong. That isn’t a healthy society.
I believe in donating organs. I believe in helping people who can’t have children have a child. I don’t believe in doing it for payment or without proper regulation.
I think you bring up an interesting point. I agree that the example you bring up is a violation.
I’d like to point out though, that I am using a hospital that has significant more regulation than the “boutique” agencies. Hospitals need to make money to keep running, but it’s not a for-profit business. The hospital pays the same amount for all donors, not based on attractiveness or education. There’s also regulation about the embryos preservation, as well as the number of times a donor can donate.
I think the money issue becomes complicated because donation is more physically demanding than just blood donation, for instance.
I don’t necessarily think it’s problematic that donors receive compensation. In general, though, I agree it is kind of skeevy that people are making lots of money from boutique agencies that are for profit.
Wow. So much interesting stuff.
I became a donor last year, and I’m starting hormone injections for my second donation next week.
To share some thoughts:
RISKS AND RESERVATIONS
As far as I know, in South Africa, the amount of times you’re allowed to donate is restricted. A donor may donate no more than six times, or five viable pregnancies. However, the fertility clinic I’m doing it through doesn’t recommend more than three donations, because it’s still a fairly new procedure.
It’s also completely anonymous. Again, as far as I know, in South Africa it’s anonymous by law. The extent of the information you receive is that, at your request, they’ll tell you if the pregnancy was successful.
I’m not sure if the compensation is limited by law, but the agency I use has a standard amount they give donors, also for travel expenses/inconvenience. Also, it’s not *that* much. I mean, it’s a good chunk of change if you have a job, but it would barely cover my home loan repayment if I were unemployed. So I don’t think the compensation amount is unreasonable, in this case.
A friend of mine who studied medicine said the only concern she had (for me) was that by stimulating egg production, I was potentially bringing forward menopause.
I was told, though, that once I donate the eggs, they belong to the recipient couple, so they can have more children with the same genetic material. I don’t know if this means they can sell/donate the eggs to other couples, but now I’ll ask.
As for the injections thing… The thought of injecting myself made me nervous, not for fear of needles, but for fear of fucking up. I kept having horror visions of this couple who paid so much money to get pregnant and now they have a batch of useless eggs because I injected myself wrong once, or something. This, luckily, didn’t happen. It’s one of those things that’s really not as scary as you think.
I also didn’t have wild emotional moodswings except for one isolated incident of crying during an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit about the elderly. *shrug*
THE FOLLY OF OPTIMISM
I’ll admit, I didn’t really intensely research and consider the process, because a) I did really badly in biology so none of it really makes sense, b) I really want to help a family have children and c) I, fairly naively, still trust doctors :-/
Perhaps I’m also a bit cavalier towards my own fertility because I don’t plan on having children.
BUT all that stuff aside, I didn’t have any (immediate) ill effects, and I’m really glad I did it.
BECAUSE I’M AWESOME
Perhaps the donation was, at least in part, fuelled by my own narcissism. I’m child-free, but god DAMN, my genetic material shouldn’t go to waste. Also, I am also one of those who want to help – blood donor, organ donor, would be on the bone marrow registry if it didn’t cost so much.
One of the unintended (positive) consequences was that I started taking slightly better care of myself. I mean, I wanted my donor baby to be as well-off as it is possible, so I did what I could – started eating vegetables, exercised more regularly… Stuff I’ve been meaning to do for years, but never really got around to, what with the perceived immortality of youth.
Also, hearing that my recipient is pregnant was probably one of the best feelings. It was a great start to the year (I donated in Dec, and I heard she was pregnant in Jan) and it also means my mystery egg baby might have the same star sign as me.
People have also asked me if it’s weird to think I’ll have a child out there, and my response is pretty much the same as yours. It’s not MY child. Yes, it has some of the same genetic material, but parents are the ones who raise and love a child.
TL;DR
Sorry if this post was totally all over the place, and sorry if it isn’t even actually helpful. I also apologise for the length.
To sum up: Stuff can go wrong but nothing did and I trust doctors and that’s probably stupid but helping someone make a family made me really, really happy.
If you are still contemplating this try really hard to think logically about why people would be gushing with thanks to you for your eggs. They don’t want your eggs they want to take your children and force them to pretend to be their children to satisfy their need for a “better than nothing” plan B child who is not truly wanted for who they are child of you and whoever their father will be, no they are wanted because they will appear to have traits that she would have passed to her own children had she had any. She’s casting them to play a roll in a movie that won’t end for your children. Your kids won’t be good enough for you to keep because you don’t love their father. They won’t be good enough for their father to keep with you because he does not love you. He’ll keep them if they’ll pretend to be his wife’s child and at least by picking you they will look like her. Nothing about who your children actually are is going to be wanted by anyone, not you, not their father and not the woman who gives birth to them. The woman who gives birth to them will likely believe she is influencing them gestationally somehow to make them more like her than you – they have to be less like who they are and more like the child she would have had in order to be loved and cared for. If they are told about you they will begin being curious late in grade school and by middle school they will be looking for their brothers and sisters on the DSR and looking for you by joining FTDNA and 23 and me. I know because I help them and they are not waiting for mutual consent registries or their 18th birthday because who else has to wait to know their own grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins? Be careful to ask to be dna tested against the male you’ll be mating with because with all the worry about your kids inbreeding everyone forgets you have a huge chance of inbreeding too. Ask for results and don’t breed closer than 3rd cousin. They don’t offer the dna test because they’d loose too much money because its really common. Just be careful, they are going to do what they can to make you think you are not your own offspring’s mother but you will be when they are born. When doctors ask your kids about their mother’s health history they mean you not her. When doctors ask you the ages all your kids had the mumps measels or if any have alergies stuff like that – you won’t know the answer because you won’t even know how many kids you have let alone how their health is. Remember the only qualification these women have to take on raising your children is that they are willing to pay cash to conceal their adoption by giving birth to them. They have not passed any home studies like adoption even and they might be very old and very vain. Watch the movie tangled for an example of the type of woman I’m talking about. You won’t know anything about these people. You’d give your children away to people who don’t have children out of the kindness of your heart that is why they are falling over themselves to thank you not because you gave them and egg so they could have their child! Would you give your house to a homeless person? How about your car to a habitual pedestrian? If you are the kind of person who would do that would you want a little more information than your going to get? If you had to place someone else’s infant in the care of total strangers what screening process would you use to find a permanent home? Would you be more careful than your egg donor agency is in finding a home for your children? Would money be your primary concern with a fake counseling session designed to get you to go ahead with it so the company can make the cash? Oh please think about what your doing. It would be better to sell your own body for quick cash than to sell your kids out of your family. What will you say when they find you and with any luck they will even if your anonymous – I find anonymous donors for their kids all the time its hard but it can be done. What will you say is the reason you raised some kids but not them? If you turn them away it will hurt but they’ll just go to your mom or sister or cousins, you won’t be able to control your family wanting to know your kids because you are special and your family will love your kids even if you don’t raise them. Only the very shallowest of people come out of being egg or sperm donors and have no emotion or compassion for their kids 20 years later. They feel like horrible people but their kids still love them. Don’t worry about helping people who can’t have children. They are not donatable objects and no amount of giving birth will turn another woman into the mother of your children. No matter how much they bond with her they will always live with the knowledge that it was supposed to be you doing what she’s doing and just try to only make kids that you want to raise yourself.
As a recipient of an anymomous egg donor, I can tell you that it is truly appreciated and not taken for granted. It’s not an easy task – lots of poking, prodding, and hormones (for both of us!). In addition to all of that, our specialists required that we also underwent psychological evalution to make sure that we were going into it for the right reasons and prepared for the future. While legally it may currently be kept anynomous, we were told to be prepared because what if later in our child’s lifetime laws/regulations changed and opened up all records. So we really had to accept any eventualities that could come with the process. In addition, all the donors at our specialists underwent the same evaluation. In fact, we had our eye on a profile of a young woman who was new to the practice, but in the end she was removed from the program due to unsatisfactory psych evaluation. It’s comforting to know that both sides are both physically and mentally prepared for the challenge since it does take a toll on both your body and mind. Knowing this the type of rigor involved made it even more touching to have that sacrifice made by a special woman who helped us have a child we dreamed of! I find it interesting to read some people to liken it to organ donation and maybe that’s true because I will always feel like I was given a heart. I applaud you for considering egg donation – I know that the joy you will be providing to a family will be immeasurable.