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How to Donate Eggs

Posted on March 2nd, 2009 by Carmelia
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Donating your eggs isn’t the same thing as donating sperm. Egg donation is a decision that should be made with careful consideration and a full understanding of the process. Here’s what you need to know when it comes to egg donation:

Why Donate?

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) provides an option for infertile women to acquire egg cells not their own to pair up with their husband or partner’s sperm cell.

Economically speaking, donating eggs will also garner a financial compensation than donating sperms. This is because women only produce several hundred eggs in their lifetime. In comparison, men produce millions of sperm until late in their life, that is why eggs are much more higher-valued.

Emotionally, donating eggs can also be a way to give a couple a chance to have a child of their own.

Meeting the Requirements

Being a donor means you have to meet stringent physical and medical requirements. If you are responding to a donor ad sent out by a couple, you may have to fulfill other requirements such as IQ level, physical appearances, and family history. Otherwise, you just have to fulfill the standard requirements, which include:

  • Age. You must be in your peak reproductive age, namely 21-35 years.
  • Health. You must be in the ideal weight for your height, with no personal and family history of hereditary diseases or birth defects.
  • You have no displays of high-risk behaviors like addiction or alcoholism. You must not have an STD risk.
  • Some clinics will require you to have been pregnant at least once.

Where to Donate

  • Advertisements. Print publications can typically run advertisements for egg donors, and details on how you can get in touch with those involved.
  • Doctor. Ask your doctor to direct you to a clinic where you can donate your eggs.
  • ART Organizations. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology offers resources where you can proceed with your egg donation.

When deciding to donate eggs, it’s not a wrong thing to do background research on the doctor or ob-gyne who will be handling your case. Ask about your doctor’s experience in the procedure, how long he has been practicing and other things that you feel like you need to know. If you are not comfortable with your doctor at any point of the donation program, it’s okay to stop and discontinue.

Input Your Data

Once you are a donor, you will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about your specifics, background, ethnicity and other pertinent information.

You will also be asked to undergo some medical exams which include a physical examination, a pelvic exam, an STD test, psychological consultations, blood tests, personal and family’s medical history. You will also be asked to learn how to give yourself injections.

The Donor Agreement

After waiting, you will be matched up to a recipient couple and you will be asked to sign a donor agreement. The agreement should contain the following stipulations:

  • You have no parental rights over the child produced from your egg cells.
  • The recipients are the legal parents of the child.
  • The financial responsibility of the donation procedure must fall on the recipient couple. Rearing of the child must also fall under the responsibility of the recipient couple.
  • You are never required to provide child support.
  • Financial compensation other than the hospital bills for your efforts and dedication.

The Donation Procedure

  1. When you begin your menstrual cycle, you will self-administer the drug Lupron which represses the cycle for seven to ten days.
  2. After Lupron, you will self-administer hormonal injections of gonadtropin, which will induce your ovaries to produce more eggs than the usual.
  3. The clinic will check your follicles and determine how many eggs you are producing,
  4. You will undergo a transvaginal ultrasound.
  5. Daily blood tests will be done to check your estradiol levels to see how the eggs are progressing.
  6. You will be scheduled for a retrieval appointment. Do not be late. Do not drink, chew gum, eat or have sex the night of the procedure. Ask someone to drive you to the clinic and back home.
  7. You will be put under a general anesthetic and the eggs be retrieved via needle. You will spend an hour recuperating, then you can go home.

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