Moving Forward with Donor Eggs
If you are reading this blog post, you are likely at the place in your journey to parenthood where you just heard that you will need donor eggs. For a few women, this news doesn’t come as a surprise and she can quickly move forward with the process of selecting a donor and going through a donor cycle. For most of you, this news came as a complete surprise and probably tears as you sat across the desk from your doctor trying to concentrate on the words coming out of their mouth.
Almost every Intended Mother I have ever worked with had gone through similar, and expected, emotions when learning she would need donor eggs; grief, frustration, jealousy, anger, self-pity, feeling like less of a woman, and ultimately, a mourning period of her own genetics. If you are experiencing these stages of grief, you are not alone! But I have good news once you process each one of those feelings….
Almost every Intended Mother I have ever worked with has also gone through a similar, and unexpected, emotion when learning she would need donor eggs; RELIEF.
After wading through the first set of emotions, a sense of relief settles in. If you are in the early part of this new found knowledge, you might be rolling your eyes right now that I could possibly suggest relief as a possibility but this is where your mindset begins to change as you start to accept the need for donor eggs.
Relief that you have a plan...relief that you don’t have to fight against the low chances of your own eggs. You will finally begin to feel some control over the process and for the first time, you will realize that the odds will be in your favor towards becoming a mom. You will get to look at donor profiles and CHOOSE exactly who will be the genetic piece needed to create your family. You get to decide what wonderful qualities in a donor you would like to hopefully pass along to your baby. You will get to take control of your family making in a way that you haven’t previously been able to. You will start to feel hope again because your chances of success drastically increase. You will hopefully get to carry your baby and nourish your baby….but even if you need a surrogate, you get to CHOOSE her too! As a mother, you get to be the one who decides who you will trust with YOUR precious embryo.
As your baby grows over 40 weeks and you fall in love, the genetic component matters less as you realize this little human is your baby and will only know you as “mommy”. Your desire to be a mother has outweighed your desire to have a genetic link and that alone is a sign that you were meant to be a mom. The sense of relief that comes with these choices, with the hope that donor eggs provides, far surpasses the small percentage chance you were facing with own eggs. You can begin to go in to transfer and pregnancy testing with excitement and a new sense of hope.
One thing I have learned is that women struggling with infertility are some of the strongest ladies I have ever met and that when all is said and done and you are sitting there at night rocking your baby in your arms, you will look down and realize that this is YOUR baby….the very baby you were always meant to have.
If you are looking for support, community, and/or other people’s experiences with donor eggs, I highly recommend PVED - Parents Via Egg Donation (www.pved.org)
Nikki Wehmeir,
Egg Donation Program Director
Nikki Wehmeir is a Texas transplant living in California. She has dedicated over 10 years of her life to assisting and supporting Intended Parents during what can often be one of the most difficult times of their lives.
