Lack of transparency from fertility clinics prompts egg donors to share stories

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What will a young woman do for $8,000 dollars? Eight grand is the going rate on a healthy woman’s eggs, paid to her in a lump sum by fertility clinics. We Are Egg Donors is a website that serves as a repository of stories about the strange hell women put themselves through to receive that lump sum.

Ultimately, the site offers women considering going through a rather extreme medical process a little more transparency than most fertility clinics are willing to give. It’s that transparency that’s made We Are Egg Donors (WAED) a nasty thorn in the side of the fertility industry.

WAED also offers a unique view into the less than tasteful recruiting tactics of the fertility agencies (who recruit for the clinics). Sonja O’Hara became a regular egg donor after coming across an advertisement for an egg donation agency.

“After my first egg donation,” she writes, “I was approached by another agency that offered substantially higher compensation because they specialized in having ‘exceptional girls’. [The clinic recruiter] made me fill out a questionnaire which asked what celebrity I was most often compared to. She proceeded to spend ten minutes discussing whether I looked more like Emma Stone or Amy Adams and then took me out onto Park Avenue to take flattering ‘spontaneous’ photos of me where she coached me into more flattering angles.”

During one egg donation cycle, O’Hara developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a painful and potentially dangerous condition which can also make a woman look several months pregnant. Anxious, she emailed her clinic, begging them to give her an ultrasound to make sure she was okay.

Read full, original post: The Strange Hell Women Go Through to Donate Their Eggs

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