Over the past several years, I have had conversations with almost 100 egg donors for my egg donor research project and my documentary film. In these conversations I’ve heard repeated complaints from the young women who provide eggs for someone else’s children: “I don’t feel like I’m the real patient.” “I feel like I’m just a product to them.” For anyone using an egg donor—or any professional who works with egg donors—it is important to ask: Do egg donors have a legitimate point? If so, how does “feeling like a product” affect young women’s experiences as egg donors and what can be done to improve donor care? Some minor adjustments can vastly improve egg donors’ experiences. These are young women who take on considerable risk so someone else can have a child. Is there a way to do better by them? As a researcher, I spent many years talking to people about their experiences with infertility. In my early 30s, I was also concerned about my own ability to conceive when, after surgery to remove two dermoid cysts, I was left with a single, patched up ovary. I am not unfamiliar with what it feels like to face the trauma of involuntary childlessness and failing ovaries. I thought, “If worst comes to worst, I’ll have to use an egg donor who looks like me.” In that space, I had no concept of what that actually might mean for the hypothetical woman who might have helped me have a child. I understand how someone might become so fixated on achieving the joy of a successful pregnancy and the birth of a newborn baby—whether an intended parent who has struggled for years or a professional in the industry wanting to help them—that it is possible to lose sight of the humanity of young egg donors in the process. Not the Real Patient In a recent online article, donor egg IVF was defined as: “An in vitro fertilization (IVF) process that uses the eggs of a donor rather than those of the patient.” In response to the post, I asked: “Are egg donors patients too?” The language on the post has changed since I first responded—which is a good thing—but it reflects an underlying perspective that needs to change, that a donor is somehow different than the real patient. Unfortunately, many egg donors’ experiences reflect the “not a real patient” experience. After waking up from her egg donation cycle through The World Egg Bank, Rae—a 26-year-old donor—asked her egg donor coordinator for a copy of her medical records. Her coordinator refused to provide her with any records from her cycle. Since egg donors are not seeking treatment when they donate/provide eggs, HIPAA laws requiring access to medical records do not necessarily apply. Kate, who I interviewed for my documentary film, was 19 when she donated in an open donation to a single intended mother. She started one cycle, which the doctor quickly canceled stating she wasn’t producing enough eggs. On the second cycle, he increased her dosages of fertility drugs. Still, she produced very few eggs and they died off quickly. The physician knew before he even started Kate’s cycle that she had low ovarian reserve from her lab results, but never shared that information with her so she could decide if donating eggs was the right decision. “My intended mother told me the doctor didn’t want to put bad energy into the cycle, so they didn’t tell me. And they still haven’t told me. Nobody contacted me after I donated my eggs—not the agency, not the doctor, not anyone,” Kate said. “I absolutely feel like I have a right to my medical information. They shouldn’t have kept that from me.” These stories are unfortunately not uncommon. In my research, many donors have told me how they were refused copies of their medical records or were denied information or explanations about their anomalous genetic tests results after frantically calling to find out what the results meant. “The doctor said my medical records didn’t belong to me. They belong to the intended mother, so they wouldn’t even tell me what the results of my genetic test meant. I kept calling because I was scared and no one would talk to me,” Jenna, a first-time donor at 21, told me. In some clinics, even donor follow-up care is lacking: Several days after her third donation, Brittany, 22, was rapidly gaining weight, and it was getting hard for her to breathe. In one of her earlier donations, she was given a check-up the week following her egg donation. With this new clinic, she was surprised that not only did they not schedule a follow-up visit for her, but she could not even get them to respond: “This last time I donated my eggs I was in a lot of pain, and I was swelling up with a lot of fluid. I couldn’t even breathe,” Brittany said. “But the clinic didn’t care. They didn’t even return my calls. When I finally got a hold of the nurse, she just said, ‘Oh, that’s normal,’ and brushed me off. Since when is gaining 10 pounds in less than a week normal? I ended up having to go to the emergency room. I was literally passing out.” Feeling Like a Product “The doctor told me I’m an egg-making machine because I produce a lot of eggs. I feel like I’m just a product to them.” – Amanda, 27, 6-time egg donor Most articles written about egg donation are aimed at helping intended parents—especially intended mothers—sort through their feelings about using an egg donor, and how to find the right donor. Although unintentional, the language used in many of these blogs and articles highlight exactly why egg donors feel more like products and like their humanity is dismissed. Their looks, test scores, and body measurements come under online scrutiny, with women some considered more valuable than others. One advertisement announced a “Black Friday Special”,” with $500 off an egg donation
