Well, well...isn't that some shit.

lol, opps, my bad :p

I know someone who is an egg donor, and she sometimes just plain looks pregnant. I would never tell her that, of course!

Plus she's married, and well... it's not a great idea to have sex while you're undergoing the hormone treatments considering you're ovulating more than normal and could end up with several kids of your own!

I personally would never donate my eggs, but I respect others' decisions to do so. I just think people need to realize that the procedure is MUCH more invasive than a guy donating sperm.

I have a friend who had that situation-her half sister got pregnant really young and had a boy, and the still believes his grandparents are actually his parents-his bio mother lived in the house w/ them and thinks she is his 'sister'. Its so creepy to me, but whatever! :rolleyes:
I had actually just read a website on egg donation today. Its so amazing.

My brother and his wife used an egg donor to conceive my adorable nephew! It was such a long hard road for them to get him, that if I ever had the chance to meet the woman who donated I couldn't thank her enough! I know my brother and SIL got a general physical description of the donor as well as health history. They never saw a picture of her and never met her. They are also hoping to try again for a sibling soon!

And I would give my eggs if someone wanted them... of course they're 34 yrs old and they prefer donors under 30...

I've thought about donating my eggs. I guess I would be in the minority, I wouldn't want to meet the prospective parents or the child in the future. If I formed any time of relationship or attachment it would just be too hard for me. I'd want to be one of those completely anonymous donors. If the couple wanted to send me a letter saying "thank you" I would insist it go through the clinic with no last names (because then it would be too easy to try to "find them" and I again, wouldn't want to "tempt" myself).

I just feel that if I donate it has to be on those terms. I was born with all th eggs I'll ever have and I won't use half of them. Maybe I can let someone else have one to have a child. I'm not sure though. Mainly because I wouldn't want something to cause me not to be able to have children of my own in the future.


LMAO. Seriously too funny! Soap Opera story waiting to happen! I can see it now... "On the next (insert soap opera name)...." LOL.

So, 4 years later, I signed my donor contract last night...

I do have to provide them with pics which the receiving couple would see. If I get picked, I would also have to do a psych evaluation, personality test, and the most comprehensive medical and genetic tests known to man.


Finding out three years ago that I was conceived using IVF makes me want to do this even more.

Good for you.

I read a study a little while ago that sperm donors actually feel "more like a father" than egg donors. I remember it said that it might have something to do with the fact that sperm donors are still doing their "full part" in terms of conception while egg donors won't be the one who is pregnant.

Here's something about it that sort of ruffled my feather and I'm sure will have the GC feminist panties in a twist...my husband has to sign off on this. Mine won't have a problem doing that, but really? That marriage certficate gives him that kind of control on MY eggs? The ridiculous nature of our law allows me to abort HIS baby without his say so, but I don't have full legal control of my unfertilized eggs. WTF?

Uh, you shouldn't have to ask him for either. That's really weird. Is that a legal thing or a thing the agency requires?

I mean, if you had kids that weren't by him he wouldn't have any legal control over him, why would this be different - you won't even have any legal control over the baby once it's born to different parents.

Since it was mentioned in the step where you have your attorney consult, I'm assuming it's a legal thing.

The law doesn't require this step. It has to be a policy of the agency.

So what if the woman is unmarried? Do her parents have to sign off on it? Ridiculous.

"Hey dad, I need your permission to donate my eggs. Even though I don't need your permission to have a child, dig myself a whole of debt, blow myself up, etc."

Source on this?


And, no, if you're 18+ and unmarried no one has to sign off.

The implications that women need their husband's permission to do something like this are incredibly troubling to me. I've never heard of men needing their wives' permission to donate sperm. Granted, egg donation is much more intense and requires a lot more work on the part of the donor but still.

Yep. Like I said, my husband won't have a problem signing. His only contribution to the process is two weeks of abstinence and, like I said in the joint accounts thread, we are an "our money" household so he gets part of the benefit. Well, in actually it will probably be the NY Film Academy that gets the benefit. :p

I'm a lawyer, and I'm involved in reproductive rights work. Assisted reproduction is the Wild West as far as the law is concerned. If any state passed a law requiring married women to get their husband's permission (or even notification), the organizations I'm a member of would raise holy hell.

As it is, this would be interesting grounds for a lawsuit even though this is a matter of private contract. But if the government tried to require this? You'd see it invalidated on civil rights grounds in a heartbeat. No competent adult can be required by law to get a relative's permission to undergo a medical procedure.

^^^Thanks, that's what I thought. I didn't mean to question your knowledge, but if something came up and I decided to make a stink about it, I wouldn't want to say "because some random person on the internet said so". I mean, you're still technically rando person on internet, but at least you now have net-cred. ;)

I'm really surprised. The only thing I can think of is that they don't want the husbands trying to lay claim after-the-fact, but that's odd to me anyway because it implies that you don't have bodily autonomy after marriage.

No offense taken -- there's no reason you should take my word for it! But you might search your state's code of statutes just to verify that there's no mention of this.

IMHO, the agencies are wildly overstepping their bounds by doing this, but it makes business sense. If a donor changes her mind, it costs them a lot of money. They want to select donors who are easy to deal with, stable, and predictable, not someone who's deceptive or undergoing major life changes. A married egg donor who wants to hide it from her husband -- or donate against his wishes -- is likelier to cause trouble down the road.

I was thinking thst if It was a legal issue and not agency policy, it might fall under the law about babies being born in wedlock legally assumed to be fathered by the husband unless a contrary affidavit is filed. In this case, even though the biological mother is not actually the one giving birth, it MIGHT be argued that the husband of the biological mother could be assumed the legal father. It would be a huge reach, but a really savvy and persuasive lawyer might at least get a hearing on it. Being how emotional this process is for all involved, I'm thinking this may be a safeguard about that even being a possibility.


This whole thing reminds me of Elle debating with Warner in Callahan's class about sperm donor's rights. LOL

I wouldn't think so. Technically, all parental rights would be with the couple/woman giving birth to the child. Biological or not, the legal mother would be the one who gave birth, unless it was a surrogate in which case the surrogacy agreement would spell out who has a legal claim to the child.

A little trivia (from last month) for those who don't play Ken Jennings' Tuesday Trivia:

The world's largest sperm bank has just announced it will no longer accept donations from men with what easily apparent physical characteristic?

Red hair. Ka-ching. Good think that doesn't apply to women (or Clariol red). :D

When I had my hysterectomy in 1998, I was told my husband would have had to sign off on the procedure had I still been married. Since when does a husband know more about the medical needs of a woman than her doctor?

DaffyKD

Would opinions change if this was about spousal consent for tubectomy and vesectomy?

For me they would not. But I figure you knew that already.

:) I didn't know that already. Did I miss a post somewhere?

This is incredibly improbable, but, I suppose the agency could be freaked about something like this happening: Woman agrees to donate her eggs. Goes through the stim cycle, has a bunch 'o eggs harvested, something goes unrealistically awry and woman dies. Husband still wants to have a child with said woman and only way to do it is to get back those eggs before they are fertilized with some other guy's swimmers.

Chances of that happening? Probably one in a gazillion. But there has been enough weirdo litigation over egg donation/embryo donation/sperm donation/conception after one party's death, etc., that the thought might have occurred to someone.

Not to be morbid!! But, that's the scenario that I thought of when you said your husband had to sign off.

On another note, you are awesome for doing this. We didn't need an egg donor, but I know many women who did, and it is a true blessing that there are women who will act as donors.

Nope. There's a difference between a spouse being UPSET and feeling betrayed about those kind of decisions and having a LEGAL say in those decisions.

Thanks for this. I have started praying for the future couple (person) and their baby!:D

:mad:

Here's another theory to throw into the pot. When a woman starts taking all those hormones, there is a load of emotions that come with them and not all are pleasant. Sometimes a husband has to have a thick skin to tolerate the mood swings. Perhaps the agency is protecting themselves in the case where this can lead to divorce?

Another interesting point, if a man goes to a urologist for fertility testing, if he's married, his wife's name is the primary one on HIS file.

OH YEAH TRUE STORY. (One of my sisters is driving everyone nuts, for this reason.)

FWIW - I had to sign off on my now ex-husband's vasectomy.

Cinderella (second daughter) is in the process of filling out her egg donation paperwork - she's through the first approval step.

:(:(:(

Why is that?