A Big Decision

We've talked about this before, but as money is a bit tight we never really thought we'd be able to go ahead with it.  However, when I was speaking to my Mum a few days ago she offered us some money toward treatment.  It now looks as though egg-sharing will be an option for us to enable us to go ahead with treatment asap.


What Is Egg-Sharing?

Egg sharing is a process whereby patients with a normal egg reserve can undergo IVF and share their eggs with a woman who cannot produce their own good quality eggs. By sharing their eggs the donor is helping a couple and there is a reduction in the cost of standard treatment, as the person receiving the eggs (the ‘recipient’) undertakes to pay most of the expenses involved.

Who Can Be An Egg-Sharing Donor?

Egg sharing donors must:

have body mass index of <28 Kg/m2
be a non-smoker
be negative for various infectious diseaseshave a normal genetic analysis approved
be less than 34 years of age (i.e. before the 34th birthday)
have an AMH value of at least 16 pmol/L (showing a good ovarian reserve).


I won't lie, the main reason for us to take part in egg-sharing is that it would reduce the cost a great deal for us which means we can start treatment a lot sooner than if we were paying the full costs (IVF costs roughly £4.5k per cycle)  I spoke at length about it with mum and the idea of helping someone who is struggling with infertility is also a major plus in going ahead with treatment this way.  I know how devasting I've found the whole process of not being able to get pregnant, and can only imagine how much worse I would feel if I were having to rely on a donor for either eggs or sperm as there is such a shortage. 

Mum and hubby both asked how I would feel about someone else having (what would in effect be) my child and that at some point in future I could be contacted by that child as the UK no longer has anonimity regarding donors.  My answer for that is that I don't know - how can I possibly know how I would feel until it happened?  I'm not sure how much of a possibility it even is that A) the parents would tell the child that I donated eggs, or B) that the child would care/try and find me.  In my opinion, all I would be donating would be cells as it's not an embryo/baby until it is fertilised with sperm.  In my mind, it's equivilent to donating blood - which I also do - and in that case you don't become the person who donated the blood you receive do you?  That's my reasoning anyway, no matter how flawed others may think it is.  I would prepare any children we had by telling them (when they were old enough of course) that I donated eggs to allow another couple to become parents when otherwise they could not.  I know that if my mum had told me that I would be very proud of her, and can only hope that would be the case if we were in the same situation.

The other issue to consider is what if our treatment isn't successful (ie we don't get pregnant) and the recipient does?  With that one I don't think I would ask how their treatment went as it would no doubt be very painful to think it had worked for them and not us.  I know that if we go for egg collection and there aren't enough eggs to share that it'll break my heart, and I'm not sure what I would do.  The options are to keep all the eggs myself and pay in full for the treatment, or give all the eggs to the recipient and receive another round of treatment free (excluding drug costs)  On one hand it would be so hard to go through all the drugs etc then have no eggs to go back, but on the other hand I would feel so guilty and sad for the other woman as she would be feeling exactly the same way.  That is a decision I hope we don't have to make - and if we do then we'll deal with it then and do what we think is best.

So, armed with a list of the tests we need carried out I'm going to phone our GP tomorrow.  I know I've had most of them done, and obtaining the results will reduce the costs for us further as they won't need to be repeated.  I'm hoping that if we are missing any the GP will perform them for us - I can but hope!!  I also need to contact the clinic tomorrow (god thats scaring me to actually make the phonecall) and arrange our initial consultation and fertility assessment (to see if we can proceed with donating)  Following that we need to book a "consents" appointment (which according to the girl I e-mailed today is booking into early June) then we'll be ready to start treatment. 

All being well we should be starting treatment in mid June this year!!!