Donor Decisions

Considering Donor Egg & Sperm

By Michele St. Martin

For infertile couples and single or lesbian women who want to have a child, donor egg and donor sperm programs offer an alternative to options such as surrogacy and adoption. Why choose donor egg or donor sperm? For some people, the experience of pregnancy and giving birth is important. Others want to have as much control as possible over the mother's prenatal care.

While couples often move rapidly from infertility to donor egg or sperm, they should "take the time to grieve and to consider the alternatives not just of donation but also adoption and not having children," says Mary Casey Jacob, Ph.D., of the University of Connecticut's infertility program. "Donor programs are legitimate and wonderful ways to build families, but they are not infertility treatments per se. Consideration of using a donor belongs in the alternative family building conversation, not the infertility treatment conversation."

Donor sperm has been around for many years. In the 1950s, technology to test a man's sperm and to collect and preserve donor sperm became available. The first commercial sperm bank opened in the early 1970s.

Donor ovum, or eggs, are a much more recent breakthrough in alternative reproductive technology of the early 1990s. From their inception, they have been more controversial than donor sperm. Recently, the controversy has centered around large sums of money offered for egg donors whose personal characteristics fit very specific profiles.

These situations are sensationalistic and far from the norm. According to Len Brooks, director ofMid-Atlantic Center for Surrogacy in The Cherry Hill, N.J.,most women who donate their eggs do so for altruistic reasons. Egg donors in Brooks' program receive a payment of $2,500 to compensate for their time and the discomfort of shots and egg retrieval. Men who donate their sperm to commercial sperm banks receive several hundred dollars. Most known donors (generally friends or relatives of the couple or woman receiving the egg or sperm donation) accept no payment.

Allison, 26, of Winter Park, Fla., is an egg donor for her cousin and her cousin's husband. Allison has two children of her own and has been married for 5 1/2 years. "I am not being paid...and I don't intend to ask for money," she says. "My cousin and her husband have been trying to have a baby for over 10 years. If this works, that will be payment enough."

Want to see more?

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• Adoption: Where Do I Start?
• Embryo Adoption
• Talk about it!