To Anyone Thinking About Egg Donation!

I was asked some questions recently by a woman that is preparing to go through the egg donation process- here is my reply to some of her questions- it may answer some other people's question's as well. . .


I just want to let you know that you don't need to be scared- at least not about certain things! Like when I was going into this whole thing I was terrified that I would not look at the child as my own- since I did not produce the egg- I thought that it would be too weird and that I wouldn't be able to live with it. I couldn't have been more wrong!!!!
I rarely think about the donation. Well except lately, because we are thinking about doing it again. I mean from the moment that they heard her little heartbeat with the Doppler I felt such a connection! I think that the experience of pregnancy is so awesome and I thought that I had been robbed of that experience. The donor enabled me to experience the coolest feeling on earth. I don't tell just everyone about the egg donation- because some people just don't understand. How could they? Our options are weird at best.
If you are going to do this you have to decide that the egg is only one part of the puzzle. I have talked to my daughter about this from the time that she could talk. I tell her that Mommy wanted a baby and that I didn't have all the right pieces to make one. I tell her that a nice lady who we will never meet gave us a wonderful and amazing gift- the piece that I was missing to make the baby! I tell her that the doctors took a piece from daddy and a piece from the lady and put it in mommy. Then Mommy made the baby grow! I compare it to a plant or baking a cake - things that she can understand. She is only 3 but she is so smart- she asked me if we could meet the lady that helped us and I told her no - that she wanted to give us a present without us knowing who she was- like a secret Santa- she seemed to understand that. She is totally fine with it. I mean I carried her, nursed her, stay up with her when she is sick. . . I am her mother. Just as you will be your child's mother. That egg- its only an egg. You will make it into a baby. Your love will turn that baby into your child. I don't look at Vivian and think about the donor. Neither does my family. She acts just like me . She looks a lot like her dad- but not unlike me.
I would say things to look for in a donor- youth!!!, someone who looks similar to either you/your family/ your husband/your husband's family, clean from psychiatric illness and any genetic linked disease (certain cancers for sure), successful past donation is good but not necessary, local to you is cheaper!, available in your time frame. I would narrow your choices to 2-3 and then see who is available and go from there. Our donor was not our 1st choice- but obviously it wound up OK.
The 1st thing you need to do is find those 2-3 donors that you like. Then they will do a psych screening on you and your spouse and make sure that the girl you want is still available. From there you start preparing your womb!! They will give you a calendar and tell you what to take and when- usually Estrace and Prometrium or something similar- there will be different doses on different days- they will want you to have at least one good menstrual period before the transfer if not two. They will do a "saline sonogram' (inject saline into your cervix- uncomfortable but not horrible) to check if your uterus is the right thickness. Once your uterus is the right thickness (at the same time they are doing things to the donor to prepare her for the retrieval) and the donor is ready- then they schedule her retrieval day and your transfer day will be 5 days later. That is nerve racking!! She starts off with a bunch of eggs and they put them with your husband's sperm and then the waiting game starts! We went from 20 eggs to only 2 viable blastocysts on day 5!! Thank God one took!!

Basically we were told by our wonderful doctor (Dr. Alfred Rodriguez in Plano Texas- the BEST!!!) that if the uterus is good (which they can make sure it is) and the donor is young (21-24 preferably) there is no real reason that you can't get pregnant. He has a 80-90% success rate- although he thinks higher in favorable cases like I just described. It was nerve racking! Don't get me wrong. We had spotting and bleeding at times and I was convinced that I would not carry that baby to term- but it all worked out!! You are in for the ride of your life- but whatever it takes- it is totally worth it!!!