Asian Egg Donors

The LA Times recently wrote an article about egg donation. As many articles on egg donation that were written by people that are not in the position of an infertile couple it focuses on the rare accordance is off well for the couples that are willing to shell out a whole lot of money for a perfect egg donor. In 1999 that was a fashion photographer who was selling donor egg from fashion models for 150,000 US dollar.

The desire to conceive a healthy and genetically well equipped child is nothing that should he morally judged. It is indeed a natural instinct in human beings. Today’s technology just makes possible more advanced methods of scientifically enhancing the probabilities of a healthy child. Think about it. People spend huge amounts of money on baby care products. They won’t their children to grow up to be healthy happy and successful part of our society. Paid egg donation just starts a little earlier — kind of pre-conceptiv child care.

Of course there are also strange variations of that. An example is where their walks to requests from a couple for an egg donor that resembles a certain fashion and runway model.

An egg donor supermarket where you can choose Naomi Campbell, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein or Bill Gates eggs is a funny idea for a cartoon, but doesn’t help to raise awareness and understanding for the desire of couples to grow their family. It also doesn’t help in building a more centralized database off all available egg donors and requests for egg donors that match certain criteria.

Such a central database would not only help to facilitate faster matchmaking between egg donors and infertile couples and us reduce the waiting time enormously, it would also render unnecessary the huge amounts of money that can be consumed by the process of finding a befitting egg donor.

However, currently there is no such central database in the making. In fact in the US there isn’t even a centralized register or some kind of legislation when it comes to previous egg donations. In many European countries there are laws that egg donation agencies and egg donation clinics have to tear too. For example they have to keep records off who was in the egg donor of a certain child. This is important for medical reasons. Sometimes medical conditions arise that might be linked to a genetic predisposition. In these cases and with the advancement of science is knowing the medical history off an egg donor, even the medical history off grid estimation has taken place [keep in mind that most egg donors are very young - usually between 21 to 35 years old, and most medical conditions arise later in life].

Infertile couples looking for a perfect egg donors offering huge amounts of money — $50,000 to $100,000 — are not unusual to find these days.


If you open a student magazine or newspaper from an Ivy League university, and have a look at the classifieds section you can find advertisements like these quite easily.

The donor must meet all the perfect requirements. The egg donor should be a student off an Ivy League university or be a previous student of the Ivy League university.

The woman who donates her eggs should optimally have given birth in the past. Or she should have donated eggs in the past that resulted in a successful and healthy birth. Because egg donor agencies and infertile couples are looking for a woman that has a proven track record off fertile eggs.

They egg donor is required to be off certain stature including height and weight and body mass index.

Hair and eye color should match the infertile couples hair and eye color.

Racial properties also are off major importance. For example, an Asian couple would want an Asian egg donor. A Chinese infertile couple would want a Chinese egg donor, and Indian infertile couple would want and Indian egg donor, a Japanese infertile couple would want a Japanese chose five. I think you get the gist of it.

While some of these requirements are totally valid critics like to point out that this might be the beginning of genetic engineering. Because selecting genetic properties off and egg donor is actually manipulating the genetic pool that the children of a parent will pass on to their child. People are concerned about genetic engineering want to make sure that a scenario which Aldous Huxley draw in Brave New World won’t came in reality where rich people can afford to have superior genetic genes and poor people have to accept a poor or riskier genetic pool.

However from our perspective this is not a valid argument. Rich people can go for better health care, healthier food, and better living conditions which all are beneficial for healthy children. The impact paid egg donation has is just a part of the big picture.

Is there a flaw in the US egg donation system?

The Chicago Tribute pointed out that documentation at egg donor agencies is often suboptimal. Many European egg donor agencies have to report to an egg donation registry that makes sure that all data is stored savely, but in the US this is not happening currently. But there are cases where medical reasons make this necessary, at least morally advisable.

There was the case of the mother of a daughter that died from cancer. The daughter donated her eggs in the past, and the mother now wanted to inform the parents that her daughter donated her eggs for. But the egg donor agency did not store the records and thus there is no way of tracing this family.

Some donor agencies also won’t disclose the information, because of privacy issues.

Three large fertility clinics in the US have committed themselves to a registry comparable to these in Europen states and Australia – but on a voluntary basis. Because privacy is a major selling point of egg donor agencies, and many donors and recieving couples want a 100% guarantee of privacy.

At least 8,000 babies are born each year in the U.S. from donated eggs or embryos, according to reports from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another reason for a registry is that women should not donate their eggs more than 6 times – but since there is no registry of donors, there is no way of ensuring this, other than trusting the donors to be honest about disclosing previous egg donations.

A way of balancing between privacy and responsability would a registry that kept the donors identity private while disclosing as much medical information as necessary.

But there are other factors that come into play to that are more nitty-gritty. For example who will be responsible of alerting families about medical conditions the donors had years after they donated eggs. And how should the egg donor agency keep track of these? This would definitely cost substantial amounts of money, require some legal paperwork and then the risk of legal liability for egg donors or egg donor agencies might arise.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-donor-registry_27mar27,0,1537338.story

Egg donation is an increasingly popular choice for older women who have trouble conceiving a child. This is because even for totally healthy women, the older a woman gets the harder it is to conceive for her. Biology designed women to give birth at a young age, but the changes of modern society often prevent that.

That’s also the reason why only younger women can donate eggs. Different egg donation clinics and egg donor agencies have different criteria for qualifying as an egg donor. But in general age 21 is considered optimum, and egg donors older than 35 are not accepted. Women less than 21 years old simply are not accepted because of legal reasons (they have to agree to a contract). Women older than 35 years generally can’t supply eggs that have the same kind of quality and they tend to not be as responsive to fertility drugs that are used in the process of egg donation.

Becoming an egg donor is something that many women would like to do. The amount of money they can get for an egg donation is extremely high, specially if they meet the criteria that a certain couple is looking for. Asian couples of course want an Asian woman to donate her egg – so they’d be willing to pay a premium price for the egg donor just to be Asian.
Then the donor should also be a YOUNG Asian woman of perfect health. Since specially in America many Asians who are looking for egg donors are high-achievers they want to have the best genes possible. So often times for high-quality Asian egg donors IQ tests will be beneficial (and scoring high too!), or if the young Asian egg donor is in a ivy-league university.

If you want to become an Asian egg donor then you should do some research – there are thousands of options out there, but the first consideration for you should be safety and how reputable an egg donation clinic or agency is.
If you just go to your local hospital you will probably not get the most amount of money for your egg donation.

Some people say if you donate your eggs you should not care about the money, you should care about the Asian couple that you can make happy by giving them the possibility to give birth to a child and raise a happy family.
I don’t necessarily agree with this. Yes – there IS a strong compassionate element involved in donating your egg. You are giving a truely unique gift to an infertile Asian couple if you give them the chance to raise a baby that the woman itself actually gave birth to and carried around in her stomach for a full nine month.
But don’t make the mistake to think that somehow by donating an egg you will “have a child”, or “give them your child”. This child will not be yours. I’d say that 95% of the time the egg donor and the child never get to meet, talk or even know each others names. Some recent studies suggest that just a bit more than 50% of the parents who used the services of an egg donor ever tell their kids – the other half don’t even tell their kids that there was a woman who donated the eggs. I think specially in the case of Asian egg donors this holds true, because in Asian culture there is more of an emphasis on “saving face” and keeping things in harmony when it comes to family issues, rather than risking a possible upset.
It’s very likely that when you donate an egg you won’t even be informed whether the implantation of the egg was a failure or a success. So you should not attach in any way to that child that might come into existence from “your egg”. If that is hard for you to accept, my only advice is: don’t become an egg donor.

As an Asian egg donor you can command a premium price for your donation, but you really should make the effort to research which Asian egg donor agency or clinic is best for your particular case. All the serious egg donor clinics and agencies have information materials that you can request, and a person to talk to is just a phonecall away.
If you need any help in locating an Asian egg donor agency or an Asian egg donor clinic, just comment on this post and I’ll help you.

Before you can become an Asian egg donor, you have to go through a meticulous screening process.

Asian egg donors have to be of perfect health and depending on the criteria of the couple that searches for an Asian egg donor either both or at least one parent of the Asian egg donor has to be of Asian origin.

Of Asian origin in this case could also mean that you are born in America or a European country, but your parents are of Asian origin or your grandparents are of Asian origin.

Sometimes the criteria can be even stricter than that – like when couples are looking for a Japanese egg donor, a Korean egg donor or a Chinese egg donor. So being Asian in this case would not be enough, but you’d even have to be of a certain nationality to qualify. However, these are exceptions in most cases. Most of the time it’s enough if you are of Asian descendant and obviously look Asian.

You must be between 19 and 36 years old. Some places I read you must be 21 because of legal reasons – if you’re younger it’s not possible, simply for legal reasons. Because when you become an egg donor, you have to agree to a serious contract and the law allows you to do that only once your 21 years old. Even though I’m not an attorney, I doub’t whether that statement is true, as some reputable agencies do accept donors younger than 21. If you’re older than 36 years the quality of your eggs will already have dimished compared to what they were when you were younger. I’ve seen some egg donor agencies that also accept younger donors (starting at age 19) in the US.

If you already have children of your own and are breastfeeding them you will have to stop that. Lactation (just another fancy word for breastfeeding) can reduce the effects of certain drugs that are used in the egg donation process. (These are called “fertility drugs”). At least for several month before the egg donation you will not be allowed to breastfeed.

You need to be in good condition – that means not just your physical condition but also your psychological condition. Stable mental health is a must and if you ever suffered from depression that’S going to stand in the way of you becoming an Asian egg donor. But I’m not talking about feeling sad or down as everybody does once in a while – I’m talking about a real, medically diagnosed depression that got treated with psychopharmaca. Because some of the medications that are used to treat depression can be detrimental to the egg donation process.

Common requirement is also that you have a pretty regular monthly period, as this is a good indicator of good health.

In most cases you should be non-smoking and not using drugs. Some parents also don’t want an Asian egg donor that drinks alcohol, but no egg donor agency or egg donor clinic will accept a donor that is an alcoholic. Any kind of mood-stabilizing medication or tranquilizer is also a minus.

Genetic disorders are a big no-no. Any kind of genetic disease will immediately disqualify you as an Asian egg donor.

Most agencies also don’t accept prisoners, women who had sex in exchange for money, women who had sex with persons that might have hepatitis or HIV in the last 12 months,

If all of this is you – no genetic diseases, stable mental health, between 21 and 36 years old then you are ready for the next step: contact an egg donation agency or an egg donation clinic. Another option would be to just go to your local hospital and talk to them.

And by the way: If you ever gave birth to a child already, that is a good thing for becoming an egg donor!

Yes. When you become an Asian egg donor (or any kind of egg donor for that matter) the fact that you are donating eggs doesn’t mean that you are loosing eggs that you could otherwise keep.

In fact you are only donating those eggs that you would loose anyway if you don’t become pregnant. Because every month you are loosing eggs, your body is designed that way. Every woman is born with around 2 million eggs (ova). Most of them get lost until adolescence, about 1,8 million eggs. The remaining 200,000 eggs last you for your whole fertile life. Naturally with every menstrual circle you lose some eggs.

Usually in one egg donation treatment you only donate around 8 to 20 eggs – again, these are eggs that your body would otherwise have dispensed of anyway if you would not get pregnant.

So if you are considering to become an Asian egg donor (or any kind of egg donor for that matter) but are concerned about the long term effects of it, and whether or not it affects your capability to conceive a child later in life yourself – go ahead confident and talk to your doctors.

This is a really interesting question, and one that is crucial for couples to become clear about.

Patricia Wen wrote a great article about parents who recieved an egg donation that points out that only only about half of these parents decide to tell their child about their “genetic origins”. In the particular study that is mentioned in the article, it’s 56% you opt to tell their kids, vs 44% who decided to keep it a secret.

Experience shows that kids can feel betrayed if they later in life find out that there was another woman involved in their coming into being. Whereas if communication is open from the very beginning (of course always appropriate to the age of the child) a child can be completely cool about it.

There’s also another side factoring in: just medically it could be relevant in certain cases to know about the genetic characteristics of the mother of the egg.

I highly encourage you to read this excellent article in the Boston Globe called “To Tell The Truth”.

No. An egg donation is a surgical procedure, but according to current medical knowledge no part of becoming an egg donor (whether it’s the surgery or the medications) affects your own fertility in any direct way.

In fact experience has shown that most women who donated eggs actually later in live give good birth – just because the medical screening that they went through prior to becoming an egg donor assured that they are already pretty good candidates.

So Asian egg donors can be confident that they can donate their eggs without risking infertility themselves.

Usually egg donation (also known as oocyte donation) has a high rate of success for infertile couples that have tried other ways. However, there are some cases where egg donation is not an option. Of course you should talk about this with your doctor and this website is just to inform you about the egg donation process in general.

Egg donation is no option for infertile couples if the problem is caused by medical issues with the uterus of the woman. If a woman has severe intrauterine adhesions, severe uterine fibroids, a tilted uterus or growths in the wall of the uterus it makes no sense to try to give birth to a child by getting an egg donated. This is because every uterus is really mainly designed to accept a fertilized egg (ovum) which becomes implanted into the endometrium. So if there is a serious problem with the uterus it makes no sense to find “a better egg”.

If a woman is not mentally stable and has serious psychological problems a reputable egg donation agency won’t accept her as a egg donation reciever. Part of an egg donation process should also always be to screen not only the egg donor, but also the egg reciever. Usually this is done by a psychiatrist.

But most women qualify to recieve an egg donation since it’s in only a few cases where there exists a medical contraindication to pregnancy.