Even if many women candidly admit their motivation to donate their eggs is monetary, I believe there still remains a true element of altruism. There are many other ways to make a few thousand dollars than subjecting oneself to weeks of painful hormone injections that cause face outbreaks, weight gain and guaranteed transformation from Jekyll to Hyde. Not to mention the painful retrieval of the eggs that result in all that fertility hocus pocus. I have seen on many occasions, young women leaving the andrology lab (where sperm are donated, eggs are retrieved and/or embryos are implanted) crying and crumpled in pain.
While I do think the egg donation process is obscenely expensive (with doctors and third-party agencies cashing in the most), I firmly believe our donor (or #539-CUJ, as we fondly refer to her) earned and deserved every cent of her fee. No matter what her true motivation, I know she went through a lot. I know because I've been there with our own IUI attempts.
I admire our donor's resolve to go through it all to help a couple like mine. Her desire to help is actually one of the main reasons I chose her. Yes, she's healthy, athletic, beautiful, wicked-smart and ambitious. Yes, she has many physical characteristics that are similar to mine (albeit, some when I was a bit younger) like blue eyes, blonde hair and a low BMI (body mass index). Yes, she and I share many things in common such as singing and a penchant for the culinary arts. But what made her really appealing to me - and worthy of holding the DNA of my potential future offspring - was her apparent kindness.
So, maybe it was only words on paper, and I'll never have the opportunity to know for certain, but it was our donor's empathy that struck me the most on her personal biography. She wrote that (although she isn't ready to have children herself) family is everything to her, and that she feels a personal calling - an obligation even - to help women like me who are not able to conceive. After crying my way through the review of hundreds and hundreds (not kidding) potential donors, 539-CUJ helped me understand what I was really looking for in an egg donor: a woman who is kind and a good person. Those qualities are far more important to me than skin color, BMI or IQ.
While I will never completely accept the fact that I have to use an egg donor to try to conceive, I do fully embrace it as an incredible chance to have a baby that I would not have had otherwise. With 539-CUJ's help, we were given seven chances to have a baby. Seven chances to roll the dice and maybe hit the jackpot. Seven chances to grow our family that we certainly would not have had without her willingness and desire to help a couple in need. A chance to grow life inside of me and deliver that precious child into the world, things I've discovered are very important to me in my quest to motherhood.
So, I'm not only thankful to 539-CUJ, I'm also comforted knowing that her DNA - her traits of kindness and empathy - helped create the six little frozen embryos that remain waiting for me. It's been four months since our failed first attempt at embryo transfer. I think I'm ready to try again.
While I do think the egg donation process is obscenely expensive (with doctors and third-party agencies cashing in the most), I firmly believe our donor (or #539-CUJ, as we fondly refer to her) earned and deserved every cent of her fee. No matter what her true motivation, I know she went through a lot. I know because I've been there with our own IUI attempts.
I admire our donor's resolve to go through it all to help a couple like mine. Her desire to help is actually one of the main reasons I chose her. Yes, she's healthy, athletic, beautiful, wicked-smart and ambitious. Yes, she has many physical characteristics that are similar to mine (albeit, some when I was a bit younger) like blue eyes, blonde hair and a low BMI (body mass index). Yes, she and I share many things in common such as singing and a penchant for the culinary arts. But what made her really appealing to me - and worthy of holding the DNA of my potential future offspring - was her apparent kindness.
So, maybe it was only words on paper, and I'll never have the opportunity to know for certain, but it was our donor's empathy that struck me the most on her personal biography. She wrote that (although she isn't ready to have children herself) family is everything to her, and that she feels a personal calling - an obligation even - to help women like me who are not able to conceive. After crying my way through the review of hundreds and hundreds (not kidding) potential donors, 539-CUJ helped me understand what I was really looking for in an egg donor: a woman who is kind and a good person. Those qualities are far more important to me than skin color, BMI or IQ.
While I will never completely accept the fact that I have to use an egg donor to try to conceive, I do fully embrace it as an incredible chance to have a baby that I would not have had otherwise. With 539-CUJ's help, we were given seven chances to have a baby. Seven chances to roll the dice and maybe hit the jackpot. Seven chances to grow our family that we certainly would not have had without her willingness and desire to help a couple in need. A chance to grow life inside of me and deliver that precious child into the world, things I've discovered are very important to me in my quest to motherhood.
So, I'm not only thankful to 539-CUJ, I'm also comforted knowing that her DNA - her traits of kindness and empathy - helped create the six little frozen embryos that remain waiting for me. It's been four months since our failed first attempt at embryo transfer. I think I'm ready to try again.