Have you (or do you know) a woman who has gone through the process of egg donation? What do you know about it?

I don’t know a huge amount about it, but I do know that in the UK that the compensation payment has just tripled to £750 per cycle.

I think the woman has to inject herself with hormones for a month. Then the eggs are harvested with needle but she could become infertile or have something like “fertility over stimulation” and rupture inside. It sounds ghastly.

I would love to find out more about it myself.

I hoped for a long time to become a surrogate mother. Unfortunately, it turns out pregnancy doesn’t like me very much. I don’t intend upon having more children, so the prospect of incidental infertility isn’t a big deal.

I’m making sure to follow this one.

They will interview you, and check your hormones, do an ultrasound, once you are deemd ok to donate you will begin the meds.

The medication protocols can vary, but the basics are:

You take a medication to stop your cycle, might be injections, might be birth control pills.

Then you take a medications, a daily injection (very small needle in your tummy or thigh) to grow eggs. You will have to be monitored by vaginal ultrasound to watch them grow. Once the eggs (egg follicles actually I guess) are a certain size they will extract the eggs.

You will be sedated during the procedure. I recommend you find out what type of sedation and if you will be completely out. The extraction is very painful if you are awake. If I did it again I would ask for Diprovan, which can only be given by an anesthesiologists I think.

Then you are done.

The medications can have side effects, and carry some risks. Most people are fine, but you should look it all over to make sure you are comfortable with the risks.

My friend did it. It was hard on her mentally because of the hormones injections.

Egg donation is pretty much the same as in vitro fertilization, except you don’t make your own baby. They stimulate you so you produce as many eggs as possible. Then they harvest the eggs. What happens next, I’m not sure. Sometimes they are fertilized the same as for in vitro—say with the husband’s sperm. Extra embyros, then, are given away, once the couple has all the kids they want.

The other option would be to fertilize the eggs with some other male’s sperm—say the sperm of the man whose wife has no eggs. Or the eggs can be frozen. I’m assuming that is doable now, but back when we were doing in vitro, there was little chance of revivifying frozen eggs.

If you want to do it, I think that is a wonderful thing. It’s very hard, emotionally and physically, though.