Medpedia

A colleague of mine sent me a link to “Eggsploitation: The Fertility Industry Has a Dirty Little Secret” late last night – her email simply had the link – and word “WOW”.

I sat watching with my mouth looking like a bass fish  – open and gaping – as several young women told their horrifying story of being an egg donor in the United States. They spoke of feeling enticed by the money into donating their eggs – the poor explanations of what they could experience – and the tragedy of the complications that they unexpectedly faced as egg donors. The trailers on the website are riveting – and appalling.

It is certainly not a view – that recipient couples, egg donor coordinators, fertility specialists, and egg donor agencies will likely be comfortable seeing. But does that make it any less valid an exploration?

That is the struggle that those of us who live inside the fertility “industry” really have to grapple with.  So often – when these types of images of the fertility field are presented – we shout “foul play”! We pound our chests – and blog our hearts out about how unfair the media is to our field. You can hear us shout that
the entire story is never told – that the world of infertility is highly sensationalized  and distorted in order to sell magazines – or this evening news story.

Quite frankly – there is a great deal of truth in that opinion and outrage.  Frankly – even in the title of the documentary – calling the experience of egg donors a “dirty little secret’ is beyond over of the top. But the producers of the film  are marketing a documentary! If there is no dirty little secret – why buy a ticket?

And there will be people who will watch the clips – and perhaps even go see the documentary – who will come out drawing an analogy of these young women to aviation safety records – “You know – airplanes land safely every day across the country – thousands of them – and you never hear about that! But if ONE plane goes down – boy does that make the news!”  That’s because there is tragedy when even one airplane goes down – and we need to hear about it.

That is how I feel about “Eggsploitation” even where it fails in it’s own sensationalism. I am still wanting to hear the stories of these young women. It’s that important.  Look -  I didn’t like the trailer featuring the “experts” who said that egg donation is about rich older women taking advantage of younger women with good eggs. That is really horse shit – and shows a complete lack of understanding about the women who need donor egg.  I have never met a woman who needs donor eggs who is anything but grateful to donors. And the majority of the women who need donor egg are not rich.  That characterization was frankly wrong and horrifying – and in my mind brings down the messages that perhaps “Eggsploitation” is trying to get out.

We have to be very, very careful – with the young women who step up to donate their eggs.  We need to be careful about donor compensation being so high that young women feel enticed. We have to do a better job educating donors about the risks of egg donation – no matter how good everyone in the fertility field feels they are already doing it – we will have to do it better. These young women are making what I call “life time decisions” when they decide to donate their eggs. Even when their cycles go perfectly well (and most of them do) – these young women are giving up their genetic material forever – and exposing their bodies to a lot of unknowns in the process at a very young age.  That is simply real.

And we all have to cop to the fact – that no matter how careful we are – no matter how much time is spent – and how carefully these young women are consented and educated in the best of circumstances – people make all kinds of informed  decisions – for all kinds of reasons.

And sometimes – things just don’t go as planned.  And all we are left with is regret, pain and anger.