Considering Egg Donation

If you’re exploring the donor egg route to parenthood, you’ve probably struggled through various fertility treatments. Your doctor has likely informed you that the problem lies with your egg quality and recommended donor egg as the next step. While coping with your anger, anxiety, and grief, you must now consider plunging deeper into assisted reproduction, a difficult task.

Exploring these questions with your partner may help:

• How important is having a baby with a genetic connection to one of you?
• Is adopting a baby an option? Why? Why not?
• Can we afford additional infertility treatment?
• Do we want to take another chance, face possible disappointment?
• How many IVF-egg donor treatments are we willing to undergo?
• If we choose this route, do we want a known or anonymous egg donor?
• If we’re successful, will we tell our child, when older, of his/her donor egg conception? Why? Why not?
• How will I feel carrying and nurturing a child who is genetically my husband’s and not mine?

Conflicting feelings should be welcomed. Sorting them out is part of decision-making.

Women who choose egg donation believe their connection to their babies will come from pregnancy, birth, and nurturing their child. Many women focus on what they treasure about their husbands (e.g., their sharp intelligence, beautiful eyes) that they hope their baby will inherit.

Part of getting to ‘yes’ also requires mourning the loss of your dream — a baby created from both of you. It’s helpful to explore your feelings with a therapist trained in third-party reproduction or with an infertility support group.

Egg donor conception is becoming more common each year. An estimated 100,000 children have been born of donor eggs in the U.S. since 1984, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).