How do you feel about donating your egg?

December2012

I know there is an interesting thread about surrogacy, I hope mods will allow this thread as Egg Donation is separate to surrogacy.

Surrogacy does not necessarily mean you are genetically linked to the baby.

Egg donation means you do have a genetic link, even if you do not carry the child. The physical work is shorter - no nine months of pregnancy and delivery - (although still not a cake walk!) but the effect is eternal, as the genetic link doesn't abate.

I was thinking about this when I heard of this story today http://www.thejournal.ie/uk-babies-with-three-parents-969936-Jun2013/ in which the UK Govt is allowing an egg from a donor to be used with the parent egg and sperm.

Could you, or have you donated eggs?

Do you think of it as you do pregnancy or surrogacy?

Myself, I think I might find it easier to donate an egg to my sister than to carry a baby for her.

I think the developments in the UK are a positive step, but I know some feel that this is "playing god".

I'd love to know what you ladies think.

lazygal

Donating an egg is not easy. You need to be artifically stimulated, using hormones, monitored to see whether you've ovulated and if so at what stage of readiness the eggs are at, and the egg collection is also quite invasive. I don't think some people realise just how difficult it can be physically.

I would not be able to donate eggs. I am very grateful to have the ability to bear my own children but I also know the value of knowing your genetic history (this may be very important for our family in the future) so I don't think I'd be able to do it.

I would also have reservations about my husband donating sperm. Maybe it might not make sense or sound selfish but I like 'our' children being 'ours' and not having half brothers or sisters.

Vojera

I'd find it way easier to be an egg donor than a surrogate. At the end of surrogacy you have to give away an actual baby, a baby you've carried for nine months and felt kick and listened to his or her heartbeat, but in my mind, giving away eggs isn't that far removed from sperm donation. I know it's not the same (you only have a finite number of eggs and I've heard it can be quite painful) but you're not giving away a person, just helping somebody else to make a person, if you know what I mean.

Maybe I'm under-thinking it, but I don't think I'd be thinking to myself "I have a son or daughter out there". I think I'd want to be fairly sure that my family was complete, though, because if later on I couldn't conceive, even if it wasn't directly related, I think I'd always be a bit resentful of the other anonymous family. Then again, I've a feeling that the younger the donor, the better the eggs, so maybe I wouldn't be a good donor after all if that's the caveat I put on it.

As for the playing God thing with the stuff in the article, really every aspect of fertility treatment is doing that in a way.

tinkerbell

^ What lazygal said. It's meant to be very invasive and difficult to do, nevermind knowing that you'd be genetically linked to someone out there who is not your child but IS your child! I wouldn't be comfortable with my hubby donating sperm either. It's exactly as lazygal said - I'd like our children to be OURS and not having half-siblings here n there.

It's not like donating blood or something like that. Your eggs are unique to you so there's no way I'd give any away.

jaja321

I'm trying to hang on to my own as it is!

Morag

I'm too old, but I would for family so that a cousin or sibling could have a child.

Teyla Emmagan

I would only do it for someone I really loved because it's a horrible process. You would need to have your eyes wide open.

eviltwin

I went for it a few years ago, its not an easy process and in the end I was refused. I'm glad I was because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. There is a very strict age limit, it was 35 when I did it and they prefer you to have already had kids. I think unless you are donating to a family member your egg is sent overseas.

Catari Jaguar

I like to be liberal but I am very uncomfortable with egg/ sperm donation. Kids out there that are half yours, a mini you that you don't know... It's not like donating blood or giving someone a kidney, you're creating a person. Just mad. Especially sperm, where you have potential to make many, many kids who won't realise they have half siblings and what if they accidentally meet someday. I suppose a bit like Jeremy Kyle with lads who have knocked up loads of young uns from the same estate. *shudder*

December2012

I wouldn't imagine most egg donations are anonymous; I would imagine they are done by / for a relative, so you would know if your "child" was out there somewhere.....

Pythia

In America I think you get decent money for egg donation, so I would consider it there. Not for free though.

Catari Jaguar

I found a site where they definitely are anonymous, well you pick a person, same s sperm donation - not a relative or whatever.

Welcome to the Donor Selection site. You could be about to come face to face with your chosen person.

Remember that the eggs that she donates for your particular cycle are not split between other recipients. They are exclusively reserved for you, now and in the future.

Here's a donor profile example It hasn't got much information on it about genetics or anything but it has eye colour/ hair colour, a photo as them as a child etc. It's like pick good genes for a designer baby. Then again what if you picked a donor and ended up with a child with special needs or something?

Naid23

I would have no problem with donating my eggs if it meant a loving childless couple had a chance to have a baby. I have no plans to have any either now or in the future so i would be all for it in the right circumstances obviously.

Hellrazer

Don't usually post in here but we donated the fertilised eggs that were left over after IVF.

They went to a clinic in the US to women for egg donation.

Completely anonymous and it didn't bother us in the slightest.

The clinic we used here gave 3 choices.

Take the eggs away ourselves and do what we wished with them.
Donate them
Or keep in storage at a cost of a couple of hundred a year.

We chose to donate.