Can I sell my eggs?

General Questions
#1

No, I don’t have chickens. :slight_smile:

I remember reading/hearing about young women being solicited for their eggs - fertility clinics would feed 'em drugs to make them super-fertile, the woman would monitor her cycle, and when they were ripe the doctors would go in and harvest them.

It can be done - I remember doing the same thing to sows during my internship while in college. But do they still solicit, and can you be paid for this “service”?

I admit, I like the idea of being paid to propogate my own genes without having to deal with children. Since I don’t plan to have children myself, any risk of infertility resulting from the procedure would be considered a side benefit.

Has anyone else ever heard of this?

lovelee

#2

The short answer is yes, and you can get payment is in the thousands.

The catch: you have to be “of proven fertility” in other words, have naturally-occurring kids of your own, before they accept them.

(A friend of mine looked into it as a way of paying for college.)

#3

It also helps if your family has no history of disease (heart problems, diabetes, that sort of thing).

And if you have an Ivy League or Seven Sisters degree.

#4

D’oh! Are you sure about the must-have-kids thing? I figured they could look at the little buggers under the microscope and make sure they have potential. Heck, they fertilize the eggs outside the body anyway, so they’d be able to tell rather quickly.

As far as diseases go, one aunt developed diabetes while she was pregnant, and dad developed asthma after I was born. I like to think it’s my fault. :slight_smile:

lovelee

#5

Are you sure you would want to have a little part of you running around out there…what if it gets parents like the microwave baby got…

Could you handle not being able to see the kid or find ot if it was alive or ok, or happy?

Be sure you think this through.

#6

I don’t mind contributing some DNA in a pretty zona pellucida (sp?) package - an egg is just a specialized cell, IMHO. If I were concerned where my DNA went, I wouldn’t give blood (bound to be some floaters with information in there) or sign my organ donor card.

This isn’t like an adoption - I’m not giving away a baby. Just a cell that some other potential mother can’t provide.

The quality of their parenting isn’t really my concern, anyway - it’s their baby. I can’t see why anyone would fork over so much money for fertility treatments if they weren’t sincerely interested in having a child.

The mother of the microwave child was 19. The father was 17. This isn’t the type of couple able to drop a few grand on in-vitro.

lovelee

#7

Excellent point…I have thought about donating eggs to infertile women too…I just think I would get wierd later, wondering where the kid was, boy or girl, stuff like that. I am projecting my anxiety on you, sorry! If you do it, there will be some very grateful people out there.

#8

I’ve heard tell that they financial payout for eggs is enormous. I’ve also heard that some people solicit specific physical types to take eggs from.

I personally have no objection to egg donation or selling, though.

#9

re: “proven fertility”

That’s what they told my friend. I think the reasoning is: They have to pay you BEFORE they do the extraction, which, as you can imagine is a (relatively simple) surgical procedure. Why would they pay all that $$ without being sure beforehand, that the suckers weren’t duds?

Taking em 'out and checking 'em isn’t so easy, as compared to say, sperm.

#10

Yes, they solicit. I’ve seen ads in the paper. They’re looking for healthy women in their early twenties with medical insurance, but it doesn’t say anything about “proven fertility.” Then again, the qualifications probably vary from one clinic to another.

I’ve thought about donating, but medical procedures in general give me the creeps, and I’m not THAT desperate for cash. (They pay about $5,000, IIRC.)

“Had I been around at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.”

  • Alfonso X
#11

About 3 years ago there was an article in the Detroit News/Free Press about this very issue. Then, A woman, not yet 32 or 33 ( or maybe 30, I forget.) and over 18, in excellent health with a college degree could donate their eggs for the payment of $2,500 a harvest/collection of her eggs. I remember the amount because it would have sqaured away the bills and then some and I was under the cut off age. I figured if I did this twice a year for a couple of years, we’d have the cars paid off. My only area of disqualification was the college stuff. I suppose a Masters from the University of Straight Dope doesn’t mean a thing in the real world.

#12

I’ve heard this one too. But what does a college degree have to do with anything?

#13

lovelee: Having looked into this myself (Hoo boy, was I in debt at the time), you definitely do not have to have children to be considered by most collectors.

However, the procedure is anything but simple, quick and painless. (Of course. No Penthouse and a cup for us, no sir.) This is partially how these companies justify the high payout…it takes a long time to prepare for and harvest eggs. There are a lot of office visits and hormones involved. Ugh!

#14

Cristi: The college degree theoretically means that the egg’s producer has a relatively high IQ, which the adoptee/implantee/whatever hopes will be passed on to the egg/child.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I know PLENTY of folks with college degrees that I wouldn’t take an egg from in a million years.

Maybe they feel that at the very least, degreed person X has enough motivation to finish school…a positive trait to pass to baby egg-bert.*

*Please pardon egregious humor attempt.

#15

I know that it involves hormones and a surgical procedure - I did the same thing with sows, and it certainly didn’t look like a party. But…

… it still appeals. :slight_smile: