It was just another workday in an office cubicle when, once again, an advertisement interrupted Julia Martin’s playlist. “Thanks to you, some woman will get to be poked in the ribs by a tiny little foot. Some woman will get to shop for pants with elastic waistbands — and be happy about it. Thanks to you, some woman will get to carry her own child. Egg donors make motherhood possible,” the voice said. “Women 21 to 31, apply today.”
Fat chance, Martin thought. “I stood up, I took my headphones out and said something like, ‘I don’t know why people would donate eggs,’ and the girl in the cubicle next to me stood up said, ‘I did that,'” Martin recalls. “It was like a foot-in-mouth moment.”
That was about two years — and a very different mindset — ago. Today, Martin is such a proponent of egg donation that not only has she gone through the process twice, she also took a job at Shady Grove Fertility in Rockville, Maryland, educating potential donors about the process. “[Donating my eggs was] the most special I’ve ever felt … in adulthood,” says Martin, 24, whose name has been changed in this story since she donated her eggs through Shady Grove’s anonymous program before joining its staff. “It makes an impact on who you are as person. It fundamentally shaped me.”
Egg donation is a medical process that spurs young, healthy women’s ovaries to produce extra eggs, which are then retrieved and made available to other women struggling with infertility. While women can donate eggs to a friend or a family member, women like Martin are typically recruited by fertility clinics or egg donation agencies to join an anonymous donor registry. Couples seeking healthy eggs, then, select a donor whom they’ll probably never meet but who will, if all goes well, become their child’s biological mom. “You’re giving away something that’s very precious to these recipients,” Martin says. “To them, this is the end of a very long road.”
[See: In Vitro Fertilization Grows Up.]
In part because more women are delaying childbearing, which compromises the quality of the eggs but not the uterus, egg donors are in increasingly high demand. While there are no national statistics tracking how many women donate eggs, more seem to be attempting to meet that demand, says Michele Purcell, a registered nurse at Shady Grove Fertility, where about 15,000 women apply to be egg donors each year.
“Before, it was on a much smaller scale,” says Purcell, who directs the center’s egg freezing, donor egg and gestational carrier programs. “Now, reproductive medicine and reproductive technology and availability are so much more commonplace. Women now are hearing about egg freezing and being able to take control of their own fertility, and they also learn about being able to donate their eggs.”
But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Start with these expert tips when deciding whether to become an egg donor:
1. Find out if you’re eligible.
Only about 3 percent of the 15,000 women who apply to donate eggs at Shady Grove Fertility wind up doing so. Some are ruled out because they’re too old (32 is the cutoff), too far away (the center requires women to be able to travel from home or work to one of their locations in an hour or less), or have too little education. Women who smoke, are obese or who have certain health conditions like some sexually transmitted diseases or cystic fibrosis may not be candidates either. Others rule themselves out once they learn more about what the process entails.
[See: 16 Health Screenings All Women Need.]
2. Know what to expect.
Unlike, say, donating a pile of old clothes to Goodwill, “you can’t just walk in and give an egg,” Purcell says. Rather, candidates typically fill out lengthy, detailed applications (essays included) and undergo thorough physical and psychological evaluations including blood and genetic tests before being cleared.
If women are accepted and selected (recipients can browse donor photos, hobbies, education, health history and more), the process usually takes a couple of months. During that time, a donor undergoes most of an in vitro fertilization cycle: She first takes birth control to synchronize her menstrual cycle with the recipient’s, then gives herself daily injections to spur egg production. The process can be uncomfortable or even painful, can in tensify emotions and requires frequent appointments to monitor progress and at least one invasive procedure during which the eggs are removed. Donors are advised to avoid vigorous exercise, sex and alcohol. “It’s not fun and can be very overwhelming,” says Dr. Shannon Clark, an OB-GYN and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who went through five cycles of IVF before becoming pregnant as an egg donation recipient.
3. Know the risks.
Pumping your body with fertility drugs and undergoing an invasive procedure under anesthesia come with risks, as do other aspects of egg donation. For instance, there’s a 5 percent chance any cycle will overstimulate the ovaries, which can cause blood clots and requires hospitalization, according to Egg Donor America. And, while there’s no clear link between egg donation and long-term health risks, the procedure is still too new and poorly tracked to be sure. Don’t overlook ethical and psychological considerations either. For instance, do your family members and partner support you becoming a biological parent? “Those are your eggs and genetics; it’s a big decision,” says Clark, even though becoming an egg donor shouldn’t compromise your own fertility. “Make sure you’re educated and aware of what you’re doing.”
4. Shop around.
Not all egg donation “brokers” are created equal. Consider asking your OB-GYN for a referral, and look for a facility whose staff includes medical, legal and psychological experts who take the time to answer all of your questions — as well as those you didn’t know you had — both initially and throughout the process. Will you have someone to call when you have questions about, say, whether you’re taking the right dosage of medication or if your abdominal pain is normal? Ultimately, listen to your gut: You should feel like a person making an important decision — not a page in a donor egg catalog. “The egg donor should be … the most important part of the equation,” Clark says. “Everything should be in her best interest — not the woman receiving the egg.”
[See: 8 Tips to Ease Gynecologist Appointment Anxieties.]
5. Do it for the right reasons.
While many women may first be lured to egg donation by the financial rewards — Shady Grove compensates women $14,500 for two cycles, on average; Egg Donor America pays $5,000 to $10,000 per cycle — that’s not reason enough to commit to something you can’t take back. What is? An honest and highly informed desire to help women like Clark, whose twins are now six months old. “I was not able to share my genetics with my children, but I did carry them in my body … which means a lot,” she says. “It’s made a huge difference in my life.”
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Should You Donate Your Eggs? originally appeared on usnews.com
