Is Egg Donation Right for Me?

It’s anything but easy. Egg donation is time-consuming for months, involves lots and lots and lots (and lots!!) of needles and injections that you need to do yourself and a minor surgery with some sedation drugs.

I’ve spent hours pouring over information to educate myself about the process and weeks of going back and forth with lawyers and reading legal documents. I’ve traveled across the country to attend clinic appointments (sometimes this involves two trips- once for screening and then once again for the main event). I’ve had to take time off work to attend all these appointments and travel and also to recover. I’ve had to arrange child care, dog care and my partner has had to fend for himself at dinner time when I wasn’t there. I’ve had to bed a friend to drop what she was doing and travel with me so I could have a safety companion.

I’ve gotten bruises from the needles (sometimes you hit a capillary but no big deal) and felt like I had run out of ‘fresh’ areas to inject in. The phlebotomist has struggled to find a vein that hasn’t been poked a million times already for blood draw. I’ve had hematomas from going through the vein for blood draw. I’ve had mood swings from the hormones, headaches, and cramps. The ultrasounds are annoying and very uncomfortable at times. I’ve been poked and prodded. The period following donation is always scary heavy.

It’s been an emotional process- waiting to see how many embryos develop and survive until day 5 or 6, then your recipient’s transfer of the embryo and the dreaded 2WW (two-week wait to find out if the embryo implanted). Sometimes the transfers don’t work and the recipients don’t get pregnant the first try. Sometimes they miscarry. Sometimes they have a stillbirth.

Egg donation is not for the faint of heart. There have been times when I thought ‘what the heck am I doing??’ but after everything is done I can look back and feel so proud that I got to help people grow their family and It’s been an amazing adventure. It certainly isn’t an easy process but for me, it’s been worth every single moment of discomfort.