Asian Egg Donors

Asian egg donors make it in the headlines these days.  Tom Travers wrote an article that got featured in Medill Report Chicago.

It’s titled ‘Culture may play a role in lack of Asian egg donors.‘

And it’s very much true.  It talks about how Asian immigrant women often face a harder time and are much less likely to donate their eggs.

This is because they have usually strong bonds with their families and parents.  In order to make such a decision as whether to donate their eggs or not they often seek approval from their parents.

The parents off possible Asian egg donors however aren’t usually not familiar with the egg donation procedure.

In fact in some cultures like the Chinese donating one’s eggs might even be considered selling one’s body — which is highly frowned upon, as you can imagine.

However, children of Asian immigrants who are born in America are much more likely to donate their eggs because they are more Americanized and adapted to the American culture.

They are also more aware of the medical and scientific parts off the egg donation process.  Plus there are less concerns about moral, ethical, or religious topics.

Americanized Asians tend to view egg donation more as a way of helping an infertile couple to conceive a child and launch a happy family. And it really is just that — a way of helping and reaching out to other people.  It’s not that different from donating bone marrow  or blood to help a fellow human being in need.

Some people think that paid egg donation is not morally justifiable.  However, donating one’s eggs is a much bigger procedure then donating blood or donating bone marrow or sperm for that matter and without compensation very few people would be willing to undergo the egg donation procedure.

Another reason why it’s difficult to match and Asian infertile couple with a right agent egg donor is that they are usually not satisfied by just having SOME Asian egg donor.

They usually an egg donor that is off the same nationality.

Dr. Richard Sherbahn, founder of the Advanced Fertility Center off Chicago, talked about one case where a Chinese couple was looking for a neck donor.  The agency had both the Japanese and Korean woman on their list of available egg doors.  However, the Chinese couple ended up going to another egg donor agency located in Los Angeles to find a Chinese egg donor for them.

Asian egg donors get better of financial compensation.  While the American Society of reproductive medicine recommends that egg donors should receive no more than $10,000 in compensation the reality of the market is different.  Some highly specialized egg donor agencies, and private couples, are often willing to pay huge extras for a perfectly matching egg donor.

Not every agency though, pays extra for high in demand Asian egg donors.

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.