Did you meet your egg donor?

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Mama-Bear

I've never been an ED but being a surrogate it's strange to me that ED's and recipients don't always meet and agree to match with one another.  I think it would be great to get a feel for who she is, and I'm sure she'd be thrilled to know who she's helping.

Km672

No, I did not meet either egg donor. We decided to have an anonymous relationship. While I am incredibly grateful for both our egg and sperm donors, I have no desire to know either of them.

ksgsmu

Mine is 100 percent anonymous and we even put extra things in our legal contract about forbidding any sort of contact ever. We just feel that is right for us. We are not disclosing to anyone...

brooklynesque

We will probably try to meet ours later, if the child(ren) want to. We have provisions in the contract allowing us to contact her through the agency or through her lawyer.

We thought about meeting her pre-cycle but thought if we did and loved her it would make it all the more heartbreaking if the cycle didn't work.

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2MamazInSeattle

We did not meet but did ensure she was open to it later. It was important to us that our child have the choice and we did not want that option to be taken away (this is the case for our sperm donor too). If it was me, I know at some point I'd have been curious to know or meet my genetic donors, and I couldn't imagine telling my child that they could've known but I took that possibility away from them. Now watch, she won't care ...

That said, I did exchange a couple letters anonymously with our donor. It was the best of both worlds. I felt a deeper connection to her as a result which I liked, and I got a much better picture of her personality. Now, it did make me feel more attached to her but not to the degree it would have if we'd met face to face. Had things not worked out I'd have been sad for sure, bit not devastated.

I do think we will meet her someday, but it wasn't needed beforehand for us. Between the profile, talking with our coordinator who knew her well, and a couple letters, we felt we had the right amount of contact and connection.

hth!

BeckyP005

At my clinic it is anonymous and we do not even see any pictures of her...not even baby ones. If given the choice not sure what I would do. We will never know who she is.

LittleLady77

Yes we did and it was an amazing experience we will cherish forever. We initially didn't want to meet her and shared many of the same fears you have. Through all the testing and legal negotiations we really felt like we got to know her. We finally told the agency that we would be open to having a Skype call with her if she wanted to meet us, which she did. I was so worried about it being awkward but it wasn't. I had already written her a letter so we had stuff to talk about. The best part was chatting and being able to draw all kinds of similarities between us that I would have never known before. Later when we went to the clinic for DH to give his sample she was there waking up from her egg retrieval. She asked if we would be there to say hi when she woke up. We did and got to meet her in person and we met her father. The whole experience was beautiful and amazing. We learned she is quick, witty, funny and so much more beautiful in person. We loved her. We still have an anonymous relationship. We can't reach out to her and she can't reach out to us. We like it that way but I'm so glad we met her. She will always be our angel.

LittleLady77

Also, a huge part of how successful your cycle is depends on how well your donor takes their meds. If they have met you and know the story behind your journey they are way more likely to stay on schedule with the injections and have a positive state of mind about the whole thing- I have to think that helps.

ArgyleBride

It honestly never occurred to me that a donor would do anything but take meds religiously.  It's a BFD.

BeckyP005

Just by reading the donor's profiles they pretty much know that whoever is looking wants a child badly that's why we are turning to DE.

I would hope and pray they are serious about this. Then again my last donor should of been using a condom. It's not my fault that I can't meet with her and tell her my story.

Km672

I was getting my blood drawn next to a girl that was an egg donor and it really freaked me out. She was explaining that her boyfriend never signed for her meds that were delivered because 'he is stupid' and she was asking if there was any extra gonal f in the office she could use because she had already missed her 1st dose the night before and had 'no idea' when she would be home to get her meds delivered!!!! I was so angry for the IPs, I would be so livid and hurt. I told my husband about this and he couldn't believe it either. This experience has stuck with me and seriously tempted us to go the frozen egg route, but we are still proceeding with a fresh cycle. So yes, it IS a BFD, but unfortunately there will always be some people that don't realize that.

Mrs.McIrish

ArgyleBride said:

It honestly never occurred to me that a donor would do anything but take meds religiously.  It's a BFD.

One of my donors stopped her meds 4 days in and decided she "didn't want to do it" and sent an email to the clinic quitting...

BeckyP005

@Km672‌ oh jeez. @Mrs.McIrish I forgot about that. That was like my donor being irresponsible. Idk..age thing? But still no excuse. Now all this talk has me freaking out. Praying this donor is a bit more responsible!

LittleLady77

Sorry but I know of a few people who selected a donor that skipped a shot here and there and ended up with very few retrievable eggs. Sometimes things happen that are out of your control and sometimes irresponsibility comes into play. I think the vast majority of donors do take it seriously and are wonderful but if there is a way that I can help them stay motivated why not?

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LittleLady77

Sorry, I didn't mean to scare anyone. I really do think the vast majority of donors are doing this from a wonderful place in their heart and do a great job at staying on schedule. Most of you ladies have been through IVF so you know what it's like to have to take the shots exactly on schedule, it can be hard. That's all.

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LittleLady77

Hubby had to give me my shots. A few times he was away or I was traveling and I had to do them myself- it was so challenging mentally. It always took me 20 minutes to actually shove that thing into my booty cheek the pain was never bad just the mental part.

ArgyleBride

Yikes.  I had no idea.  Well, I don't know if it reassures you any, but I take my meds very very seriously, and so does my clinic, so I'd bet they weed out anyone who gave signs of not being fully committed.  Becky, your donor wasn't using protection?  I had assumed it just failed.

BeckyP005

@ArgyleBride our cycle got cancelled because of a positive for STD. I'm not sure what the rules are when your an egg donor but I was just ticked she wasn't more responsible knowing what she signed up for and I've been on the waiting list for 12 months only for something like this to happen. Oh well....

I'm sure your very responsible!!

e74

Our clinic does anonymous only.

mm29

Although my cycle didn't work out.  I did end up meeting my donor. Long story short, she had to do IVF to conceive d/t MFI, and she used to post on TB.  She emailed oop meds for her FET and mentioned she was doing a donating her eggs before her FET. I learned we lived in the same state. I was curious about her before I "knew" who she was.  When I first put it together I freaked out. Due to the ethical dilemma, I felt sick about it. I knew I wasn't supposed to know who she was, it is an anonymous DE program.  Anyway we put it together and met. She is an amazing person. I'm happy we chose her to be our donor.    

Astrabacus

My sister will be my donor, so yes I know her very well. If we were going to use an unknown egg donor, I don't think I'd want to meet them. I'd be hyper-aware of every single fault I could find in them, and probably withdraw 100 times over knowing that they were actually the person we wanted. I'd also feel guilty if the donor didn't have any kids when they wanted them, now or in the future, because what if I took all their good eggs? I know they are all ridiculous, but I know that's how I'd react.

sarahjeri

@Littlelady77 I'm always amazed when I hear about women doing their own injections!  I had to do one little lupron injection during my cycle and almost passed out!  The rest were done by either my husband or mom.

@jimbobcooter  We used a known donor for the very reason that we wanted to know our donor and what she looked like (more than just one or two pictures) and what her personality was, and for our future LOs to have a relationship with her if s/he wanted.  Because of all this I think that if we'd used an anonymous donor that we would have wanted to meet her.  I'm huge into documenting everything with photos, so I'd take pictures of us with her to show our LOs.  I'd also want contact to be open for the future and maybe now like @2Mamaz does.  I'm in the camp that thinks future LOs should have the opportunity to know about who they came from...