Conception Connections

By Jennifer

When I blogged several weeks ago, I talked about the reasons I decided to donate my eggs. Now, I’d like to share more about the medical aspect of my donation experience.

ARR matched me within a few weeks of submitting my application. I soon met with my recipient couple’s doctor and took a fertility test and a genetic test. Then it was time to match up cycles with the recipient mother so that when my eggs were extracted, her uterus was ready to accept the created embryos.

This cycle began by suppressing my ovaries to get everything to a base level before starting the stimulation. In a sense, I went through a mini menopause because all of my estrogen was suppressed. This happened during midterms. I was studying with a friend and started getting hot and sweaty for no reason. It kept coming in waves. Luckily the suppression only lasted about a week and then I was on to stimulating.

I got started on the hormones, which I injected every night to stimulate the follicles. During the stimulation, I had appointments twice a week to monitor the hormone levels in my blood and check how big the follicles were. You can’t miss these appointments because they show whether you need more or less of the hormones depending on how your body is responding.

Once the follicles reach a certain size you take a “trigger” shot that starts ovulation. This is timed exactly so that the extraction procedure takes place four hours before you begin to ovulate, when the follicles are ready to release the eggs. The procedure itself is a minor surgery where all the mature follicles are drained with a needle. It lasts about 15 minutes, and isn’t really painful - you just have some cramping like a bad day during your period. I was fine by the next day, ready to go back to classes.

I hope that learning about my experience can help other women who are interested in donating to understand what comes after saying yes.

By Robin von Halle

There’s a reason to go with a reputable agency that specializes in matching egg donors and gestational surrogates to those who are unable to bear children through traditional means. Services go beyond vetting candidates to make sure they’re on the up and up and emotionally equipped for the job. We also bring in experts to guide intended parents and donors and surrogates through the complex legal and psychological issues.

The importance of this role has been brought home through news coverage in recent months of heartbreaking situations that have arisen when couples have followed a do-it-yourself path.

Back in October, the Today Show did a story on Tom and Gwyn Lamitina, a Florida couple who fought for but lost custody of their daughter who was born by a surrogate they had hired who decided to keep the baby. Since then, the couple has filed a civil case accusing the surrogate mother of fraud – saying she produced a “litany of lies and dreadful acts of deceit.”

Two months later FOX News told the story of a South Carolina woman accused of promising couples she would be their surrogate – who exploited at least six people out of $14,000.

An agency with a proven track record and references supporting it will help intended parents offset the risks that can be involved with this process. The good ones will provide psychological screening of surrogates, legal representation for all parties and a support system for all those involved.

Caveat emptor is, unfortunately, the operative phrase when people show no qualms to take advantage of couples who are desperate to create families, leaving them financially strung out and without a child.

Submitted by Teresa

As I write this entry, I am working with ARR on my third donation. When Mary Ellen contacted me to see if I would be willing to donate again to the parents who received my egg a couple years ago, I jumped at the chance to give their child a blood sibling. I’m so thrilled for them!

I first decided to donate when a friend needed a donor egg a few years ago. After giving it some thought, we both decided that it would be best for her to use an anonymous donor. I still wanted to donate, so I did some research and found Mary Ellen at ARR.

I donated twice before having a child of my own last year. Now as a parent, I understand the lengths people are willing to go to have children. I love knowing that I was able to help someone else have a family.

By Mary Ellen McLaughlin

You don’t have to be a leggy blonde with blue eyes, with an SAT score in the stratosphere and Ivy League credentials to qualify as an egg donor. In fact, most of the donors we work with are characterized by the size of their hearts and the aspiration to help a couple create a family.

Alternative Reproductive Resources recently did some mining of our egg donor data to see how the typical profile shaped up. Interestingly, there was no “typical.” Our donors - like the intended parents who come to us - come in all sizes, shapes and colors, and from many walks of life.

If there is a “typical” involved, it springs from what motivates young women to donate their eggs: The money is nice, but they overwhelmingly want to help people who are otherwise unable to create the families they have been longing for.

Here’s what we found:

• 98% of our donors are in their 20s.
• 46% are currently in college; 29% have completed it; and 12% hold advanced degrees.
• 66% are Caucasian; 17% are African-American; and 10% are Hispanic.
• 71% of our donors did it for altruistic reasons - to help a family in need; 13% donated for both altruistic and monetary reasons; 9% knew someone who had problems conceiving and wanted to help in some way; and only 3% donated strictly for the compensation involved.
• 78% are single.
• They have a variety of different religious and ethnic backgrounds.
• 100% of our donors have at least one sibling and come from a family unit.

By Robin von Halle

Are you a 5′9” or taller Caucasian female, who is between 18 and 30 years of age, very attractive, college educated and athletic with no genetic medical issues? If so, an ad in the Stanford University Daily promises to pay you $100,000 for an egg donation.

Frankly, I’d find such advertising amusing if it didn’t cross a dangerous ethical line - treating human life like a commodity. No wonder some people think we’re in the business of selling “designer genes.”

When agencies compensate egg donors based on SAT scores, athletic trophies and beauty pageants, it sends a negative message about fertility practices. That’s why we at ARR felt it was so important to adopt a code of ethics and to promote that code on behalf of our entire industry.

Our code of ethics calls for compensating egg donors and gestational surrogates solely for their time, effort and inconvenience, in keeping with the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) guidelines. There are no premiums for blue eyes or Ivy League degrees.

We hope others in our industry will join us by embracing similar ethical standards. The world should know we’re in the business of helping build families, not auctioning off genetic matter to the highest bidder.