Maybe Babies
About three years ago I was looking into how I could make money off of my body, legally, and I researched egg donation.
I knew this wasn’t going to be easy income; it’s not like sperm donation where you can just jerk it into a cup and make your $30 every week.
Commitment
Note: This is the procedure that I went through with a local (independent) fertility center.
On the website there was a list of things I had to commit to:
- Self-injection of medication
- Frequent blood testing, requiring blood draw
- Frequent transvaginal ultrasounds
- Early morning availability
- Use of alternate form of contraception while in the cycle
- Committed time frame once your cycle is scheduled
- Psychological evaluation for the screening process
- Agree to report to our clinic any significant changes that could affect the status of your health, such as communicable diseases, tattoos, piercings, family history, and so on
- Agree to report any travel or planned travel to where the Zika virus is being actively transmitted.
I had no problems with any of the above and even had a friend willing to poke my ass if I needed help. At the time I was looking into donating, I was not on any birth control, so I thought it would be even easier to regulate my hormones to the possible recipient’s. I went through the website and applied. I got a call, sometime later, to schedule an appointment to go through the next step of the donor process (Prequalifying).
Pre-qualifying
At my appointment (which I was on my period for), they took blood samples and did the transvaginal ultrasound (to make sure my ovaries and insides were all good). Basically, I stuck a wand into my vagina and the ultrasound technician moved it around a bit and took pictures. It was only about as uncomfortable as my first time having sex; it didn’t feel like much, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands. It didn’t hurt and the tech made small talk, like the gyno does during yearly exams.
After the pokes and photos, I was placed in a room and given a packet to fill out. It asked about mine and my family’s medical history, back to grandparents and including aunt’s and uncle’s, it asked about my personal goals, achievements, and other “getting to know you” type questions. There were also risk assessment and psychological quizzes (“strongly/somewhat agree/disagree”). Everything that day took a couple hours total.
Once I was done, someone came in to make sure I didn’t miss any of the questions, and talk a bit about the next steps. I had been asked to bring in a few baby and child photos of myself as well to go along with all the information. I mean, if you’re gonna have eggs from a stranger, you kind of want to know what the kid might look like, right? The specialist told me that all my information would be put on file into the “donor pool” and if patient decides they want my eggs, I’d be contacted for the next part of the donor process.
Well, here I am, 3 years later, and I got a call at the end of last month asking if I was still interested in the donor process. They have since changed their procedure to include freezing donor eggs and are working with egg banks.
Now
After speaking with the new specialist (the one I had processed my previous paperwork with had since left/move on), updating her on the fact that I now have an IUD (which apparently is not a problem, however they definitely need to examine the ultrasound to determine where I am in my cycle, as I haven’t had a period since December), I was scheduled for another ultrasound, bloodwork, and paperwork day.
Not a problem! I go in, give a couple tubes of blood, then settle in for my vaginal ultrasound. Again, they give me the wand to “guide in” and then proceed to move it around a bit, taking pictures, all the while making small talk. At one point the ultrasound stenographer made some sort of “eventually you’ll want kids” comment, but I let it go, considering we were at a fertility center. Normally, these comments are super annoying and give me a bit of rage face. HOWEVER, she did say that my “ovaries are very photogenic!” Now I kind of want print outs of the pictures to frame in my living room.
Again, I filled out personal information paperwork (trying to remember my family history), minus the psych quiz from last time. I was there for a couple hours tops. The specialist came in with a pack of birth control pills (the IUD Mirena doesn’t affect the ovaries, so the pills will provide the hormone for that), letting me know that I was already scheduled for a visit with the doctor who will perform a risk assessment and take pictures of my tattoos and piercings. They want to make sure that there won’t be any changes that could potentially change me/my eggs, so new tattoos and piercings are an increased risk factor. Mine are all about two years old, so they shouldn’t be an issue as any disease or problem would have already presented (especially since I get regularly tested). I was to wait to hear back from the specialist before taking the pills (so that they could go over my bloodwork and beautiful ovary pictures).
A few days later I got the call to start taking the birth control and to skip the last row (inactive pills), but the pack will last until my next appointment anyway, so they’ll just give me new ones to keep me going until the actual extraction day.
I know everyone is asking the age old question of “how much are you going to make?” and, right now, I don’t know. One of the egg banks they work with says $8,000, buuuut, I’m working with the private clinic and grabbed a few numbers from around the internet: it could be anywhere between $3,500 and $10,000.
Next question, “why?” Well, I’m not planning on having children anytime soon, I have a pretty clear family medical history (mostly old age or environmental stuff), and I’ve had family friends who needed help conceiving. I am huge on science and have participated in many medical studies (in fact, got my IUD from one), so I know that medically speaking I’m a prime candidate to donate. Yes, the money is nice, but it’s not an immediate or even long term reward. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll need to turn to science to help me conceive, survive, fight battles, etc. I like helping in anyway I can.
