Rachel's home page - Egg donation - Afterthoughts

Afterthoughts

I'm very glad I did the donation, despite the disappointing end of the story. I doubt I will do it again, now that I know that I am likely to get OHSS. It's one of those things you can't know until you do donate, but now I do know, I think it would be foolish of me to repeat something likely to make me ill. And while I like the idea of helping an infertile couple, and am so sorry the couple I did try to help didn't succeed on that attempt, that isn't enough motivation to make it worth the risk. Perhaps if someone I knew needed help I might reconsider, but that opens up a whole new set of issues to think through.

I donated completely anonymously, but the law is now changing. Children born as a result of donor egg or sperm from April 2005 will be able to discover the donor's identity when reaching 18. I've considered this a bit, and I don't think it would make much of a difference to me, if I considered it medically sensible to donate eggs again. My main driver for donating was an internal urge for descendants which clashed horribly with my thorough enjoyment of my job. I considered it a second-best to having and bringing up children myself, which I didn't then feel in a position to do. I don't think I would at all mind seeing what my genes turned out like, if they wanted to find me, and were well past the cute-kid stage which might inspire inappropriate maternal feelings. I would never consider myself the mother of such a child - that's the woman who brought them up.

Rachel's home page - Egg donation - Afterthoughts