A Potential Egg Donor Asks

A woman asked for perspectives today in my all things adoption group (basically they are about 100% against and I understand why). Here is her story –

Since before I was an adult even I have felt so sure I wanted to donate eggs, the desire and resolve only grew stronger over about a decade but I wanted to have my own child first. Now I have and coincidentally found this group around the same time. It has made me completely rethink egg-donation. I had a kid and I don’t have much time left to decide due to age, so I have to decide. I know there are some donor-conceived people in this group as well and I’d so so much appreciate your thoughts on whether it’s even an ethically okay thing to do? Anyone that wants to can answer of course. Would I inevitable cause trauma to the resulting child by donating eggs?

Extra info in case it matters to anyone’s perspective: I live in a country where I won’t get paid for it except medical expenses covered, and the law says the children will get their donor’s identity if they want at 18. The family services and all related health and social carers (they are excellent here) will strongly encourage all recipients to tell their children of how they came to be from the very start.

Here is my own response –

I can only speak from experience. Back in 1998, after 20 years in a marriage where the understanding was that he was glad I had been there, done that (I have a grown daughter and 2 grandchildren from my first marriage), my husband sprang on me that he wanted to have children after all. We did ovulation predictors, were referred to a doctor who does assisted reproduction and got a booster shot when I saw my last egg. No pregnancy resulted. Then, he told us about another way – egg donation.

We did everything ourselves. Vetted potential donors by email. One said something that reminded my husband of something I would say. We chose her. She already had 3 children of her own. But she had promised another couple first. In the end, they treated her very badly and I thought she would change her mind about us but she did not.

We have always respected her and what she did for our family. After our first donor conceived son was born, my husband immediately wanted another. I had a cycle between our two boys where my womb failed to develop a good lining and had a D&C. Our donor moved from the location of the first doctor – who only did 4 procedures that year with only one success – ours. We followed her to the new location with a doctor who was one of the first in this country to do these procedures. We succeeded in having our second son. Donating was not physically easy for her. We did what we could to alleviate what we could post-extraction.

Our boys have met her more than once. I show them pictures of her or her children sometimes via Facebook because distance prohibits a closer relationship. She did 23 and Me, so I bought a kit for my husband, then for our oldest son and then for our youngest son. She is shown as their genetic mother there. 23 and Me provides a private messaging channel should they want to communicate with her. She has said she is open to that. I send her photos about once a year and updates when appropriate.

I’ve only known about issues related to donor conception since I went on my first roots discovery journey in 2017 after my parents died (they were BOTH adoptees). Fortunately, we have been honest with our sons about their conception since day 1. The 23 and Me results allowed us to fully discuss their conception now that they are much older and more mature. They understand they would not exist otherwise.

Knowing what I do know about in utero bonding, I am grateful they gestated in me, I breastfed them each for 1 year + and I have been in their lives pretty much 24/7. They are now 18 and 21 and seem well adjusted. Only twice have they indicated their perspectives to us – once my older son asked if he was supposed to be grateful to her – we said No, but we are. The younger one asked if she was his mother at a very young age. I explained that I am his mother but that without her, we would not have him.

I think the respect we have for her and she has for us has been an important factor. I think our willingness to be transparent with our sons was crucial. Back in 2000, some of the mom’s in my donor egg mothers group chose not to tell. With the advent of inexpensive DNA testing and matching, I wonder what their experiences have been and whether they have any regrets but we don’t communicate as frequently or openly as we once did.

Legal Conflicts

Straight off, I will say that I am NOT in favor of gestational surrogacy. My primary objection is separating babies from the mother who’s womb they developed in. There is definitely an in-utero bond. I probably do know more families with donor conceived children than most ordinary citizens do. I know of situations where a surrogate was used. One in which the intended mother was actively undergoing chemotherapy at the time her twins were born and who did die when the twins were about 2 years old. They are being raised by their genetic father who donated the sperm in that assisted reproduction effort. I also know of a couple of women who simply didn’t want to wait any longer to have children with no husband in sight. They used both egg and sperm donations. BOTH carried their own children and I know them as awesome moms. These children are all 18 years old now including my youngest son.

The situation that inspired today’s blog regards couples from other countries entering into surrogacy contracts with women here in the United States. In this particular case, the intended parents have refused to come and get their twins for over a year now (they were born in February 2021). The surrogate and her husband are on the birth certificates as the parents but lack any legal custody because the surrogacy contract supersedes any hospital created birth certificate. The woman has both TikTok and Instagram accounts but both are private (possibly due to the legal complications) but I really don’t need to see them myself. The Instagram has a cute profile photo of the twins.

The United States is a destination country for couples who find they have to undergo surrogacy abroad due to the laws in their own country. Surrogacy is allowed in the United States for international patients by law. Not all of the states here are equally “friendly.” The website on LINK> International Surrogacy notes “surrogacy arrangements are legal in the following territories: Nevada, California, Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Utah.” The states that ban surrogacy arrangements include Arizona, Michigan, New York, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska cautioning that surrogacy is even considered a criminal offence in some of them.

In the USA, a birth order is the legal document used to assign parentage to a child. These can be either a post- or pre-birth order that establishes the parental rights for the intended parents. This is key when undergoing surrogacy in the USA. Pre-birth orders can be started in the fourth month of pregnancy, whereas post-birth orders are granted on day 3 or 5 following the birth. This choice is very pricey for the intended parents – $95,000 to $290,000 – due in part to the fact that the US healthcare system is run by private businesses.

So back to our “trapped” surrogate and her husband. In order to have legal custody, they will have to go to court. They would have to sue for custody because simply being on the birth certificate doesn’t circumvent the surrogate contract in place. A complication of course is that they are not genetically related to these children and had no intention of parenting them to begin with. This even though they have been effectively raising these two babies for about a year. The intended parents have “broken” their contract but that doesn’t simply negate it legally.

Being a legal parent on a birth certificate does not always mean you have legal custody of your children – if there is another entity involved (like surrogacy, Div of Human Services/Child Protective Services with foster care, adoption until it is finalized, guardianship). It really depends on the country and this is the reason so many contracts, legal fees and lawyers are involved with situations such as surrogacy. Every situation is extremely unique.

Telling The Truth

The same can be said for your donor conceived child. Way back when, the suggestion was to begin to tell “the story” very early in the child’s life. That it would be good practice and that the truth would never feel as though it had been concealed. With the advent of inexpensive DNA testing and matching sites, I’m glad we followed that advice with our two sons. My mom’s group from over 18 years ago, once divided into two camps – telling and not telling. I am compassionately understanding of those who chose not to tell. Once I was talking to a friend who was stressing about telling her children they were donor egg conceived. While we were on the phone, her husband was in the backyard committing suicide. Understandably, the disruption of that tragic event has now robbed her of any good time to come out with the truth.

I do know of some late discovery adoptees (this is someone who finds out after maturity that they were adopted). One shares her point of view today – An adopted person should know they are adopted before they ever understand what it means. When is the right time to tell someone they’re adopted? Yesterday. The day before. The day before that. If you’re asking this question, you’ve already done it wrong.

If there is an adopted person in your life and you cannot say with 100% certainty that they know they’re adopted, you and the people around that adoptee have failed them. Withholding this information from an adopted person isn’t about the comfort of or what’s best for the adoptee, it’s about the unwillingness of the people around the adoptee to be uncomfortable.

Telling a person they’re adopted should never be done in a public setting. To do so is meant only to protect yourself from reaction and backlash. It’s cruel. There needs to be space and grace allowed for all the feelings that come with having your world turned upside down. This needs to be done with the understanding that your relationship with that person may never ever be the same moving forward. This needs to be done with the understanding that there might be no more relationship after this. And you need to understand *this*isn’t*about*you*. It’s about doing what’s right to make an adopted person whole. Because while it may seem that they don’t consciously know, their body does. The trauma of their separation from their natural mother has been stored within their bodily cells. To withhold this information from someone is emotionally abusive.