What an Eggsperience – how we started IVF (again!) but with another woman’s donor eggs

Just when I thought IVF couldn’t get any harder, we started the process of looking for an egg donor. Before you even get to this point though, you need to come to terms with the fact that even if you are one of the lucky ones that this donor process works for, you won’t be a biological mother. It’s something that feels unnatural to consider, it deviates from how you imagined your life would be. A big part for me was that it wouldn’t be ‘our child’ – it wouldn’t be a cocktail of my husband (who I cherish for than anything) and me. But you are so desperate to be a mum and broken by all the heartache and loss that going with the option that may give you just a slightly higher change of success seems like the best way to go. I remember something that really helped me be comfortable with the concept of using an egg donor is my furbaby, Odin. He is obviously genetically not mine but words can’t express how deeply I love him. So I am dam sure I would love a baby, any baby with any genetic origins, with all that I am.

There are two types of egg donation in Australia – known and clinic donation. Importantly thought, donations cannot be anonymous– the child has the right to know their genetic origins. Known donation is exactly how it sounds, when you know the donor – it might be a sister, relative or friend. Clinic-recruited donation is when a donor chooses to undergo IVF to provide eggs for someone they haven’t met. They must consent to the release of identifying information (name, date of birth and address) to any child conceived once the child turns 18. Donations also need to be altruistic in Australia, meaning that donors cannot be paid. This means there are very few clinic donations available and if you don’t have a suitable known donor, the only potential options are international and very expensive.

When we first started thinking about donor eggs, I ideally wanted a known donor. I thought this is what would be best for the child (all things going well). It would mean that have a connection to their genetic origin and it could be normalised from a very young age. This unfortunately was not easy for us. We were looking for under 35 years, healthy and ideally having completed their family. I don’t have a sister or any female relatives. My closest girlfriends were all having children, in between children, breastfeeding or trying to have kids as well so none were suitable. We spent over a year ‘egg dating’ – speaking to basically every woman we had come across in our lives who might be suitable. We even did blind egg dates – yep its exactly like it sounds. Our family and friends were trying to help us so much that we were set up with young women they knew who may be able to help us.

This was a time where we saw people’s true colours, there were amazing women in my life who offered this gift to us but unfortunately weren’t suitable based on AMH results (ovarian reserve), age, family history or genetic factors they themselves weren’t even aware of. To those of you who offered this, you know who you are, we are forever grateful to you x

Now the other side to this coin is the women in my life who I thought might be willing to donate or would at least manage it appropriately with me if they didn’t want to. I had a two girlfriends who might have been suitable as they had completed their families and even though I hadn’t asked them, they felt like they needed to just drop into conversation with me that they ‘just don’t think they could ever be a donor or surrogate – that it would just be too painful’. Having these passive aggressive comments dropped over a casual brunch when the topic wasn’t even being discussed makes you feel utterly awful. And this is on top of how hard it can be to even catch up with your girlfriends who already have children. But the most memorable to me was what happened with my oldest friendship – this girlfriend and I had been friends since we were 4. She had never wanted children and I thought she would at least consider donating given she had no plans of her own. I tried to ask in the most delicate way – I sent an initial message saying I wanted to chat to her about some IVF things and to let me know when suited her (I didn’t want to catch her of guard). She said she would prefer it over text message. She wouldn’t even speak to me on the phone. I didn’t hear from her for a week and when I messaged her she told me (again via text message) that she couldn’t do it. What I couldn’t understand is she said she couldn’t have a biological child that wasn’t hers. This was baffling to me as she didn’t value biological children – she never wanted them. What hurt me the most though is how she handled it – I would have been fine if she explained why she couldn’t donate after talking to me on the phone. She effectively just broke up with me on a text message. This ended our 30 year friendship. If you are ever asked to donate, just know how hard it is for that person even to be bringing it up with you and manage it as compassionately as you can. They will understand, it’s just about having a supportive and judgement-free conversation together.

So our egg dating continued. With no luck in our extended social circles, we signed up for online egg dating. Yes believe it or not there are websites and forums to connect people wanting to donate with people looking for eggs. After a lot more egg dates, we thought we had found a great match. She was smart, beautiful, early 30s and had donated previously with successful pregnancies resulting. She told us she was donating to one couple before us so would be ready in 4 months’ time. We weren’t happy about waiting that long, when you have been trying to have a baby for so many years every month feels like a lifetime. But she seemed perfect so we went with it. We did all the required prep work, several counselling sessions, medical appointments, blood and urine tests, genetic tests etc. We stayed in contact with her during this time and were starting to get a little excited that this may actually happen for us. Then two weeks before we were due to start, she left a voice message saying she couldn’t do it. I was completely shattered. Months of hope (and of course money spent to get it organised) all down the drain. And once again, it was how it was handled. She couldn’t even call me – just left a message that I listened to while I was at work.

After this, I was done with trying to find a known donor. As much as I wanted the child to have connection with their genetic origin, at this rate their wouldn’t be a child for this even to be a consideration for. On top of that, I just couldn’t take any more. After years of heartache, IVF and miscarriages, to keep being emotionally punched even before we could start a donor cycle was just devastating. So we decided to go with an international egg bank as we thought this would eliminate the stress related to getting the eggs. We used an egg bank that meets Australian standards where you can select a donor (that matches your partner’s genetic requirements) and you can purchase 6 frozen eggs. Their success rate is about 60% for each cohort of eggs so still not great but better than what we were dealing with here. I couldn’t help but think that 40% of couples still don’t have a pregnancy (let alone a baby!) after going through this. And this is all for the bargain price of around $20,000 - $25,000 AUD just for the 6 eggs (not covered by Medicare or private health) – that isn’t including your IVF costs at the clinic here.

So we went through the donor profiles, again just a strange online dating experience but for eggs, and selected our donors. The eggs arrived quickly and off we go with another IVF cycle. Unfortunately we were in the 40% - we didn’t have any success. We have since found out that we require a specialised treatment that can’t be used with these frozen eggs so we are back in the egg dating cycle yet again. The only potential option for us is a known donor.

Going through this process of trying to find an egg donor has been one of the hardest parts of our fertility journey and that’s really saying something. Egg donation is something you don’t even want to be doing and you are jumping through hoops trying to do everything to make it work. And it feels like all you get back is stress, judgment, awkwardness and disappointment.

So much awareness is needed on egg donation in Australia. Firstly on the importance of allowing these wonderful consenting women to be paid for egg donation through clinics. This will increase the amount of healthy eggs that are available for donation, stopping so heartache of women trying to find one in their social circle. Secondly on how as a community, we need to start talking about donation in supportive and non-judgemental way. Whether it’s because someone has asked you, or you are causally chatting about similar situation with friends, either in person or online. I once saw on a forum a group of women saying how unnatural donating eggs is. We need to stop the stigma around it. It’s a medical treatment recommended by a Doctor and those who need it should feel supported by the people around them and have the medical intervention that’s required available to them. And right now, either one or both are failing them in Australia. So what am I grateful for having been (and still going through) this process of trying to find an egg donor. I am grateful that I now know I want a baby even if its genetically not related to me. Above all, I am grateful that I now know in my heart that I will still love that baby to the moon and back – if I am just lucky enough to have the chance.