Welcome to my blog documenting my first cycle of being an egg donor! If you decided to read my blog, the first thing you're probably wondering is how I made my decision to become an egg donor. I heard a discussion on talk radio about the subject, discussing whether egg donors should receive such a high compensation in the thousands of dollars. I had never heard of it before. Many women called into the show who had been egg donors explaining what it takes to complete the process and explain they are not selling their eggs, but are being compensated for the physical and emotional stress they put on their bodies to complete a cycle.

Since this was my first time hearing about it, and coming from a religious Christian background, I didn't know what I should think about it at first. I thought about the first question that came into my mind: If you give away your eggs to someone else, is the child still ethically your child? I didn't have to think long to come to my own conclusion that the egg donor could not be called the child's mother...

1. The recipient will be providing her own blood to nurture the baby in her womb.
2. The recipient will be the one to deliver the baby into this world.
3. The recipient will be the one to love, nurture, and care for this baby.

An egg donor's only role is to provide that one last chance for the recipient to be able to carry a baby on her own. It's not much different from the idea of surrogacy -- in that case, the child may be the recipient's biological child, and the surrogate mother is only the carrier and cannot claim the child as her own. It's not much different from adoption either; the child, even knowing they are adopted, will in almost all cases claim that their adoptive parents who raised them are their true parents. In the case of egg donation, the recipient woman has made her own decision to be a mother to a child who will be created with someone else's DNA. She must have gone though a lot of grieving already before coming to this most difficult decision, so who would I be to deny her that option? My conclusion is that I think that donating your eggs to these women is similar to donating your blood or organs - it provides the recipient with a life-giving source that becomes a part of them.

After all of that, I decided that anyone who participates in egg donation is taking part in something very noble and is doing something where they will never be forgotten in this world. I am helping to create new life, which is such a miracle. That's when and why I decided to become an egg donor.