Per the article below if you’re Ivy league material we’re talking some serious cash int he neighborhood of $50,000!. Why don’t more women do this? You could buy a Lexus or pay off medical school with a smidgen of your bio-material! I mean even if you’re not Ivy League some decent state school eggs ought to be worth a few thousand dollars, or community college eggs at least a few hundred.
A month of self-injections of hormones, followed by the big nasty needle to retrieve the eggs? :shudders:
Some women may be distraught over giving up eggs - it’s not like we’ve got an unlimited supply of them (I think the article addressed that in passing). Personally it wouldn’t bother me. I don’t have any plans to use them. 50k is rather tempting (or whatever the going rate for UCLA students is - I think I’ve seen 30k in the Daily Bruin), but I think I’d feel weird giving them to any one but a relative, although I’m the only non-fertile-Myrtle in the family. Just my personal opinion.
It’s a royal pain in the butt. And 50k is a super-model Ivy Legue sum. 15k is more realistic.
The screen process is odious, with tons of paperwork. And few people are entirely 100% healthy- even being a little short or having glasses can screw you on this. Then you drug your body to the hilt. There are countless doctors visits, daily injections you have to give yourselves, and a general havoc-wreaking on your hormones. We arn’t talking a little bit of drugs- we are talking artificially reworking your body’s hormones. It’s unpleasent, and a little freaky if you think about it to much. Then comes the somewhat invasive surgery.
My college paper had an article by two broke students that decided to give this and sperm donation a shot. Neither one went all the way through with it.
I wrote an article on the subject and talked to a few doctors and a few people who went through the process.
First of all, as previously stated, it’s a very involved undertaking. There’s an extensive pyschological screening done even before you get to the donation. This means a lot people even with fancy degrees get weeded out. And once you’ve gone through the process you may not be chosen to be a donor for while. You name just might go into a database and you never get anyone who wants your eggs.
Second, once you do get there you’re facing needles and ultrasounds and doctor’s appointments and minor surgery to retrieve the eggs.
Third of all pay is not as much as you might think. I was quoted 4K for Florida and up to about 8k for Chicago or NYC.
So it doesn’t surprise me that more women don’t. It’s not an especially easy to make money. Those who do it tend to do so out of altruistic reasons as much as any other.
I wonder if you would mix the Ivy League sperm and Ivy League eggs for your own little designer kids.
Ivy League woman’s egg $50,000. Ivy League man’s sperm, $1200
I would guess that some women would prefer to keep their eggs for themselves, just as some men would not want to donate sperm.
This reminds me of my old family doctor (he was a cool guy) who told me he paid for medical school by selling his sperm. I wonder if he minds having 500 kids running around.
We also really have little idea what those fertility drugs do to you. I did them to try and concieve (unsucessfully, then spontaneously conceived later), and not the heavy stuff. But that was to try and have children I would raise . Not sure if I’d risk ovarian cancer for $4k (or even $50k) for someone else to have children, particularly when there are plenty of children available for adoption, that don’t have ivy league pedigrees.
Oh, and the drugs turned me into a psychotic raving bitch. PMS on steriods. Not pleasant.
Men may not be donating sperm, but I bet there aren’t many that are “keeping it for themselves”…
That article is so medically incorect, it’s almost farcical.
IANAD, but
is completely incorrect.
Lupron is a gonal-agonist. IIRC the first condition it was approved for was endometriosis. They are correct in stating that it is now also used to treat prostate cancer.
Some of the reasons women might not wish to be an egg donor include:
The psychological screening is very rigorous, from what I understand.
The “treatment” doesn’t always last a month. When we went for retrival (as part of IVF) we were on a 6 week protocol that turned into an eight week protocol when I developed a very large cyst on one ovary.
There is a huge time commitment that may not be compatible with their class/work schedule. You will report to the RE (reproductive endocrinologist) office every other morning for an ultrasound.
The drug protocol is not just Lupron (this is a very small amount of Lupron that is injected either in the upper thigh or belly just below the skin. It’s called SQ or subcutaneous) It is a gonal-agonist. The short explaination is that the woman no longer makes her own follicle stimulating hormone. She must then take “stimms”, another injection. Sometimes these are SQ, sometimes IM (intra-muscular). I was on 250 iu Reprosux…uh…Repronex IM every 24 hours. And the doctor means every 24 hours on the dot. Then the woman needs 10,000 hCG IM (in the butt) to trigger. The next day, she has to go to the RE’s office for retrieval. This includes general anesthesia, which carries its own concerns. Then the RE extracts the eggs using a device that looks alot like an amnio needle. It’s really scary looking.
The drugs are not without their side effects and some can land her in the hospital or even kill her (hyper ovarian stimulation syndrome). Also, her future fertility is not guaranteed, since so many eggs are produced. Women are born with a finite number of gametes, unlike men.
There are emotional factors, also. What if a woman were to donate eggs before she is ready to start her family, then when the time comes, she is unable to conceive on her own?
Jeez, I hardly ever post, because I feel that I don’t have much to say. Guess I had more to say than I thought.
Dangerosa I feel for ya. Clomid turned me into a raving loony, too. And, as you suggested, the link between some of the Big Guns and ovarian cancer is still being researched. There are conflicting studies on this. Another thing that I’m sure some potential donors think about are the conflicting studies (I can dig up a cite if anyone is interested) about Lupron protocol.
For a buck fitty I’d donate both ovaries to anyone interested.
Notre Dame, though, not Ivy League.
Why didn’t the one go through with the sperm donation?
Speaking of which, would donating sperm or eggs potentially put you in a legal mess later where you could be asked to provide child support or something when a DNA dispute between people ends up showing you’re a parent?
I’m fairly sure that being a donor (egg or sperm) relieves you of any parental responsibility.
I know the MIT paper has adds soliciting egg donors in it all the time (no idea what hte going rate is). My egg-donor aged daughters think it’s creepy.
Second the health screening bit - I actually thought about it for a bit, back in college when there were the ads everywhere - most people get more like 30K, and most people when you really think about your genes aren’t so great. My dad’s colorblind, also has heart problems. I had braces and glasses and have been depressed. If you can pick from a wide range of eggs, you wouldn’t want mine, although I’m pretty smart and people think I’m attractive.
When I looked into this about fifteen to twenty years ago, they were only offering $3,000. Of course, I went to state college. On the other hand, I have some pretty enticing genes.
I made the mistake of telling them my grandfather had been an alcoholic and that by itself was a dealbreaker, for some reason. Also, they mentioned that they really want women who have recently had a healthy pregnancy, and not that many women fit into that category. Virgins need not apply. At least that was my understanding.
:eek:
Obviously this is terminology that I am not familiar with.
Are you kidding? I’d do just about anything legal and most things that aren’t, four times over, for 30,000 clams. Or 3,000. Even the latter figure is a couple of times bigger than my current worth. Unfortunately, I don’t have eggs. I’ll have to look into sperm donation.
After reading through this thread it looks like another way to look at is that they HAVE to pay $50k to get anyone to consider it. It sounds like they are exceedingly picky about whose eggs they really want. Guess 2.5 million years of evolution still hasn’t produced “perfection,” whatever that means. Anyone here see “Gattaca”?
Lizard, who is fat, bald and myopic, with an alcoholic father AND grandfather.
Why not sell my eggs?
Because it’s not legal for me to receive payment for donated eggs in Canada. And I’m not going through all that just for the fun of it. Maybe for a family member or very close friend who couldn’t conceive… but even then, I’d need to think about it.
There was an article about this in our school paper recently, I think.
Yes, they tell you that you can get $50,000, but once they screen you, they say that yours are only worth, say, $2,000 -$3,000.