nokids

It was odd looking for an egg donor. I would be asking a complete stranger to go through something embarrassing, inconvenient and not very pleasant – for absolutely nothing in return, except for expenses, and the warm glow of helping me! It seemed such a cheek even to ask.

I found it was more difficult to come to terms with the need to use an egg donor, than using a sperm donor.

I mean, to get pregnant, a woman always has to have a sperm donation from some man or other!

It was not the fact of losing any genetic connection – although I did feel sad about that, but overcame it relatively quickly. This would be a child conceived in love, just as much as any child born of a natural mother and natural father in love with each other.

No, it was the thought that the egg donor was usurping my own womanly/motherly role to some extent.

Just as for sperm donors, I decided I definitely did not want an anonymous egg donor. I wanted to vet the person myself, and decide not only that their looks were somewhat similar to mine, but also that I liked them, and that they would not let me down, so I rejected the suggestion from the clinic that I find an egg donor for the clinic and then I would get priority from the available anonymous egg donors (instead of waiting a dreary 2 or 3 years or more).

Also, just as for my sperm donor, I wanted the egg donor to be happy to meet the child (if the child wanted) when the child was 18.

I approached various national media asking if they would accept my ad. Many seemed to think that for a private individual, it was either illegal or immoral to advertise for an egg donor – it is neither. One paper firmly rejected my ad – then a journalist from that paper approached me to do a story! I turned the idea over in my mind – it was an attractive proposition if it could net me an egg donor as a result – and the journalist rung a concession from the editor that my email address could be included in the article – but in the end, my innate sense of privacy and shyness got the better of me and I turned the offer down.

I got into some detailed email correspondence with a number kind women who had answered my ads. Some seemed to want to tell me their life story. One seemed promising – then her husband stopped things going any further as he was worried about a child knocking on their door in years to come. Another wanted so much involvement that she wanted to specify the type of primary school the child should go to. I strongly suspected she needed to have her own child, not help someone else have theirs.

After placing an ad on an internet site, I must have received scores of replies from young American women seeking $1,000s for donating their eggs. Impossible! In the UK, it is illegal to offer more than expenses – and in addition, I was not about to fund either their trip to the UK, or my trip to the US!

One young woman with two small children of her own seemed fine – but after a visit to the clinic and a visit to her GP, it transpired that her metabolism could not cope with the hormone treatment required.

Another young woman, who looked a little like my mother at the same age (which endeared her to me) was all for going full steam ahead as soon as possible. I wrote to the clinic to introduce her and a first appointment was made – then at the last minute, she found she could not go through with it, and acknowledged to me that she had not thought through all the implications, especially as she did not have any children of her own as yet. What if she never did have her own children? How would she feel then about the child that was conceived with her egg, but that she had no claim on? It was frustrating to cancel the clinic appointment – but far better cancel the first appointment then for her to have second thoughts after going through all the treatment and minutes before her eggs are collected, or mixed with sperm.

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