Egg donation is a great gift to give to another human, and most people are turning to it because it is viewed as a quick source of money. We have three categories of people who go for egg donations based on their motives. One category does it purely for money. The second category does it purely for help. Either a close friend or just because they don’t want to have kids of their own, so they opt to help those willing. And the final category does it both for money and because they want to help. The egg donation process takes 3-5 weeks from the suppression and ovarian stimulation injections to the egg retrieval.
So, How Much Does One Get From Egg Donation?
Averagely, you will have $8,000 compensation after your egg donation. The payment is on the number of egg donation cycles and not on the number of eggs donated. However, it is advisable you consult with your clinic on taxation and the compensation in case of a cycle cancellation due to your fault or no fault of your own.
What Are The Requirements For One To Be A Donor?
The first qualification is age. Mostly, an egg donor is required to be between 18years to 35 years old. However, other clinics will only consider those between 21-29 years old. If you qualify here, the next step involves filling in an application for egg donation program of your choice. If you are lucky to receive a call after your application, you will go through screening and testing (for health purposes). You must be totally healthy, and you will also be required to fill in whether your family line has some health conditions or so. You will also be called in for interview (two rounds at least) with clinical coordinators and physicians. It is only after passing the screenings, testing, and interviews that you proceed to the next steps.
Note: the egg donation programs are very selective. Very few of the applicants succeed.
The Process Before The Donation
This process involves suppression of the donor’s natural cycle to synchronize her cycle and that of the recipient’s and ovarian stimulation for the egg donor. Naturally, a woman will have only one mature egg per cycle. However, during the ovarian stimulation phase, a donor uses daily injections of gonadotropin for the sole purpose of stimulating her ovaries. With gonadotropins injections, she can have more than one mature egg per cycle.
These injections are self-administered. One is shown how from the clinic, and they then do it for the next two weeks on their own. The first week involves one injection per day, but the last week requires you to have two injections per day. (If you fear the sight of a needle like most people do, you can get a close person to do it for you).
The process involves close monitoring through ultrasound to ensure that the ovaries are responding and to avoid going into hyper-stimulation, and blood tests. With this, the egg donor will have frequent visits to the clinic, and it is thus required you reside near the clinic primarily because mostly these tests take place in early mornings.
The Donation Process
The donation process/egg retrieval takes place only after it is confirmed by the ultrasound imaging that the donor’s eggs have sufficiently developed. The donor is asked to trigger ovulation with hCG injection two days before the retrieval. The retrieval process takes just minutes, and it is not painful as one is sedated.
After Donation
After the egg retrieval, one is required to take a 24 hours rest to recover from the whole process. What follows next is a post-retrieval checkup to make sure that one is recovering properly from the retrieval and ovarian stimulation.
In most cases, one takes a day or two to return to normal. However, there are some cases that someone develops some issues, and it is advised you keep in touch with your clinic for advice until you are fully recovered.
Are There Side Effects?
For some, they are lucky enough to have no side effects after the donation (some have gone for even more than five egg donations without reporting any side effects). However, some donors have reported feeling bloated, moodiness, pelvic discomfort, and weight gain. In some cases, others have developed OHSS (Ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome) caused by too much of hormones in your body. There is no threat to your fertility, as a matter of fact, the donor is more fertile in the next week after donation but after some time it goes back to normal.
Conclusion
For those doing it solely for the money, it is important to do a thorough research before going for the process. Reason being, if any side effects are developed after the donation, you might end up spending more on treatment than you got from the donation. Do a thorough research and consult as much as you can from sincere sources before making the final decision.