What Can I Get from Egg Donation?
An underdeveloped understanding of egg donation might leave you with the presumption that donating is a fast way to cash. However, health care for the donor and the psychological value to patients are often cited as the top reasons to either donate eggs or pursue fertility treatment using donated eggs.
Expect Donor and Familial Anonymity
While current and baby photos of a donor cannot be shared through Gynem due to legal restrictions, we supply general information and characteristics about each donor. Age, eye color, hair color, weight, height as well as blood type are known factors that we consider upon match making. After identifying a candidate, we can provide additional information such as level of education, line of work, personal hobbies and interests.
Going Forward as a Donor
A full health check, mental health assessment, gynecological exam in addition to genetic testing and infectious disease testing is offered for every donor. These are expensive medical examinations, considering that they even measure your ovarian reserve. A donor candidate gets money as compensation for time plus all these assessments free of charge, which can tell you how fertile you are and if you carry any genetic profile with a risk for disease.
If genetic abnormalities or diseases run in the family of a prospective donor, we utilize an important test called karyotyping to assess the risk. This test checks for genetic mutations of the connexin 26 protein, as well as any predisposition to cystic fibrosis, phenylketonuria (PKU) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Gynem also adjusts tests according to personal and family history.[1]
How We Ought to Value the Price and Outcome of Donations
Prejudice has long existed against egg and sperm donation due to worldwide need for adoptive parents as well as stark ethical opinions regarding capitalism, racism and even class.[2] However, we should remind ourselves of and respect the top eight reasons why prospective parents may prefer to raise a child that is at least partially similar to themselves.
Prospective parents seek egg donations:
- for parent-child physical resemblance
- for psychological similarity
- to achieve a kind of immortality or familial continuation
- to be a procreator and experience pregnancy itself [3]
One mother who underwent fertility treatment described how she had chances in her 30s to get pregnant but had never longed to or trusted her partners to raise a baby until days before her 42nd birthday—upon meeting the love of her life. Read her story here.[4]
On the opposite side of the spectrum, a young woman who signed up as an egg donor in her mid-20s found out she carried a Fragile X mutation and therefore had a 20 percent chance of early menopause and irregular ovarian function before the age of 40. Read her story here.[5]
Imagine a new-found genetic predisposition or a new-found pressure to conceive. In a modern era where birth control is a doctor visit away and long-term career goals sometimes precede reproduction, it becomes easy to wait until too late. This is why just signing up to donate can prepare you for the time when thoughts of baring a child might come, if given the chance and your health allows.
Going Forward with Treatment
Our specialists at Gynem clinic first seek treatments without resorting to egg donation but sometimes this is the recommend way forward for a patient. Using unfrozen, freshly donated eggs has a high rate of success and often allows clients to return home with extra embryos to freeze, which can be a relief after struggling to conceive.[6]
With high anonymity requirements in the EU and Czech Republic, this process will allow parents to raise a child as one’s own in thankful quietude, and unveil important health information for young donors prior to arriving to thoughts of parenthood.
Sources:
[1] “Egg Donors.” Gynem.co.uk, Medical Travel, gynem.co.uk/egg-donor.
[2] Smith, Erika W. “I Donated My Eggs & This Is What It Was Like.” refinery29.com, Vice Media, 11 Feb. 2020, www.refinery29.com/en-us/egg-donor-stories.
[3] Rulli, Tina. “Preferring a Genetically-Related Child.” Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 13, no. 6, 2016, pp. 669–698., doi:10.1163/17455243-4681062.
[4] Walker, Briony. “Donor Eggs: But Will the Baby Feel like Mine?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 May 2011, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/14/donor-eggs-pros-cons-concep....
[5] Lacey, Catherine. “What I Learned From Giving Up My Eggs.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Apr. 2012, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/mothers-helper-a-shocking-thi....
[6] “Egg Donation.” Gynem.co.uk, Medical Travel, gynem.co.uk/procedure/egg-donation.
