In April 2019, I saw an advertisement on Facebook for a clinic focusing on egg donation. The caption on the advertising poster stated, “Do you lead a healthy lifestyle and are your age between 20 and 31? Become an egg donor! All candidates receive a thorough health check-up free of charge and a reward of 700€!” Under the post were the hashtags: #lovehelping; #myfertility; #femaledonation
When I decided to become a donor, I had to stop taking my antidepressants for the duration of the donation. This way each time I was able to test whether I could live without pills and each time after the donation I went back on them.
I participated in the donation process three times — In May 2020; in September 2020 and in January 2021.
On 18.05.20, 4 days after the first donation operation, I wrote a letter to my family doctor.
“I would like to start taking antidepressants again. I still feel bad, I haven’t been getting better all these months, I cry almost every day and when I’m not crying I just feel stiff and bad. I don’t want to get out of bed, I am depressed 99% of the time since February.
I get very angry, nervous, mad — my emotions are all on edge, but at the same time it’s like they are gone. I’m really sick of it. I want to feel stable, to be able to have a normal life, not cry every day, not break things, etc.”
On 21.09.20, a week after the second donor operation, I wrote a letter to the regional psychiatric hospital, but I never sent it, it stayed in drafts.
“Hello!
I have a question, can I stay in hospital for a few days, I feel very unwell and I think I might kill myself.
Tatiana”
On 02.02.21, a week after the third and last donation operation, I texted the family doctor again. Every time I stopped taking the pills during the donation process, my emotional state worsened for the sake of getting money.
“Lately I have been feeling an acute deterioration in my emotional state, it is literally impossible for me to even do everyday things, getting out of bed seems impossible, I don’t drink or eat and it’s like I forget about myself. I’m sure I’m not just depressed, but this condition is part of something bigger, because the antidepressants, even though I take the dose twice, it helps me only partially. I suspect I have PTSD due to <..>. I am aggressive, over-emotional and destructive and the psychiatrist appointment is only in 1.5 months. I wanted to ask for your advice.”
I had big plans for the money I received from egg donation. Mainly, I wanted to use it to travel, I thought it would cure my depression. But each time it was used for the necessities of life, and after the second donation the money helped me pay the deposit on my rented flat.
The deposit for the flat was worth exactly 700 euros, a kind of exchange.
Being young and poor, 700 euros seemed like a very large sum of money that I could get very quickly and “conveniently”.
“I’ve decided to become an egg donor, I hope I’ll be accepted! I’ve already filled in all the details on a special form. I’m waiting for an answer like a nightingale waiting for summer. I’m always afraid that convenient things like this will slip through my fingers.” (17.04.19)
Before my donation period I worked in an office where a lot of social skills were required. Depression and anxiety made it difficult for me to work with pleasure and I wanted to find an extra ‘passive income’ that would allow me to be on my own more.
In donating I was on my own and perceived it as a passive income, but was it passive and was I really ‘on my own’?
Passive income is any money earned in a manner that does not require too much effort. (Corporate Finance Institute, 2022)
In order to arrange this “convenient” income, I have lied in some сases.
In others, on the contrary, I highlighted traits that I considered unique and essential to my personality. I liked that I had a clear political stance and that people around me respected me and thought I was smart, so I tried to convey that to the counsellor in every possible way.
“I have been asked many times if I know anything about my father and his family. I’ve been asked to ask my mum if she knows anything, I’ve assured сounsellor I will, but I will never do that in my life lol
When she asked me what I do for a living and if I am working somewhere, I lied saying that I get money from the university not because I have a poor family, but because it is a scholarship for good students 😉
I’m a little ashamed of that, especially because I understood later that I’m still physically unable to receive this scholarship because I’ve only passed one semester. And I think she gets it too, but we’re both just going to live with that lie. I also told her about taking exams and papers for other students in my course. I could tell by the look on her face that it was hardly appropriate to say that.” (29.04.19)
The information sheets and consent documents of all three clinics I contacted contained information about the nature and purpose of the treatment, but all in different amounts and using different connotations of words.
One of the clinic described the motivation for donation quite extensively: “The reasons for donating are different, some women want to donate their eggs because they feel guilty about, for example, terminating their pregnancy, some want to do something good and help others, some know how important it is for a woman to be a mother.”
The mention of motivation because of the “guilt” that female donors may feel makes it look as if the person who takes a donor egg is not only taking an egg from the donor, but is actually helping the donor herself to free herself from guilt, from a kind of viciousness.
“Becoming an egg donor is a primary opportunity to help another person — to do someone good, to make a difference in the life of an unknown person in need (Donare (Latin) – word for donation, gift, charity). The donor has the power to give the gift of a new life.”
The use of the Latin word in this sentence is as if trying to show that donation is something eternal, respected, authoritative, like the Latin language itself. Such technique seems like an artificial creation of greatness.
Each donation process began with a visit to the gynaecologist and the health nurse, who checked the condition of my ovaries via ultrasound.
They asked me questions regarding my health habits. After that, I was given medication to inject into the fat in my stomach every morning and evening. On the evening prior to the operation I had to get a special and more painful injection with a needle that was twice as long as the previous ones.
“The gynaecologist explained everything to me today, but I was so embarrassed that Estonian language is not my first language that when she asked me if I understood everything, I just decided I’d Google it later.
I was given all the materials for the donation, I can’t believe that after almost a year the case has progressed. The nurse gave me antiseptic and shots in my stomach for the morning, evening and last day. On the last day the needle is about five centimetres long, I have no idea how I dare puncture my stomach with it. The afternoon and evening ones are two centimetres, still a lot.
The nurse very bravely grabbed my belly fat to show me exactly how to stab into the fat. I just sat there smiling and she grabbed my belly with all her might, it was hilarious.” (12.03.20)
On average, the medication had to be injected for about two weeks. The longest round was the first time, I injected myself for 18 days. The last time lasted only 12 days.
During the donation process, I usually visited the gynaecologist once, around the tenth day of injections.
“I got my period and just had my first shot for donation. It was terribly scary, I put on a funny interview with the kids in the background so it wasn’t so bad
At first, I just cried for about five minutes. I brought the needle up, leaned against my stomach, felt the pain and got scared.
When I finally did puncture myself, I did it at the wrong angle and now I have bruises in that area on my stomach. I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong and I’m hyperstimulating my ovaries. I don’t know if I’m doing it right.” (28.04.20)
For the operation, I arrived early in the morning and changed into hospital pyjamas, a medical cap, and shoe covers.
A nurse inserted a cannula, drew blood for tests, and administered an antibiotic through an IV. All of these preparations took about half an hour. Afterwards, I was taken to the operating room.
The room looked like a large medical office, about 25 square meters big. It had no windows — just a gynaecological chair, tables with instruments, and around five different doctors.
Each time, I was operated on by the same doctor, the same hours in the morning and in the same room. The whole process was set up like a routine — almost automatic.
When I sat in the gynecological chair, I was put under full anaesthesia at some point. It usually happened without a warning: they would be talking to me, and I’d suddenly fall asleep. After about an hour, I would wake up in bed in my hospital room.
When I woke up, they brought me tea and biscuits and briefly told me how successful the operation had been.
After that I was left alone, had breakfast, ordered a taxi and left.
Before I left they always gave me a small gift bag with some care products and a reflector with “Munarakudoonor” (Estonian: egg donor) written on it.
On the last, third time of donation, I was informed that my ovaries had become worse and were not producing as many eggs anymore. The clinic terminated the contract with me.
At that moment, I was very frightened and asked for an ovarian reserve test to find out how many eggs I had left. This test includes a gynaecological examination, hormone tests, and an ultrasound and it is also possible to check the permeability of the fallopian tubes. However, in the end it never happened because I was assured that “everything will be fine”, but if I still want to have this test, I can pay for it myself. I didn’t have the money for it, so I never found out what condition my eggs were in.
With each donation, the diary entries about it became fewer and fewer. It seemed to be a habitual method of earning money.
On 14.09.20, the day of my second donation surgery, I wrote a list of what I had done during the day. The donation was written in between my daily activities and as something quite ordinary. However, it is still written using the strong word ‘survived’.
“Today I:
– Slept and ate a lot. A hell of a lot.
– Did some Japanese homework.
– I asked Igor to send me an outline and he did.
– Sold a white sheepskin coat, +13.50 to the budget.
– Watched stupid videos a little bit.
– Survived an egg surgery.
– Looked for a job and a flat for rent.”
My contract expired around four years ago, but two years ago I received another letter from the clinic asking for my parents’ personal data, namely their full names, mentioning that without these data the recipient will not be able to buy my eggs. Thus asking me to disclose data that I do not intend to disclose.
When I received a letter asking about the use of my parents’ names, I immediately refused, because I did not want to give anything else to clinic.
But after my refusal they wrote to me again:
“I have to write again because the partner clinic in Austria, which received your cells, cannot use them without information about your parents. Your data is perfect for the patient, but it is impossible to start the cycle without all the necessary information about the donor. I know that when you started the process, we did not ask for information about your parents. Time passes, the rules of handling biomaterial change, the list of co-operation partners is updated. Just in case, I would like to remind you that the names of the parents are required for internal use in ID-release, meaning that this information will never be disclosed to the recipient (patient) or future child.”
I felt it was unfair that they were making a lot of money off my eggs by charging patients outrageous amounts of money. I felt like I was being robbed of the altruism of it all, because at some point I actually got into the mindset that I was doing something good.
I had to be altruistic to be a donor, but the personal motivation of those who recruited me were not altruistic at all, even though they tried to pass themselves off as caring doctors-intermediaries too.
At that moment, I was terribly angry about the letter. I felt a direct attack on my freedom. My response was quite blunt and filled with all the complicated feelings I was experiencing.
“No, I don’t want to provide additional information about my parents even for the clinic’s internal use. Then that clinic shouldn’t have offered my eggs if they weren’t sure they could sell them. Because now you are putting me in a position where I am depriving a woman to whom my data is “perfect”. That’s not my responsibility, that’s the clinic’s responsibility. If a woman really can’t buy eggs because the clinic doesn’t know the name of my father and mother, then that’s some bureaucratic hell. I could lie to you and tell you that my parents’ names are Pavel and Ludmila; Irina and Andrei or whatever my heart desires. It makes no difference to the woman wanting to become a parent and since this data will only be needed for internal use in ID-release, let’s say their names are Irina and Pavel Absurdov.”
This “name bureaucracy” and my refusal to give the parents’ real names cost a certain patient my egg. Such was the clinic’s response: “We are not in any way shifting the responsibility for what is happening, and there is nothing “happening”. The patient will choose another candidate, your cells will be used in a clinic where this information is not requested. I apologise if my letter seems to have been written in an overly pushy tone, it was not my intention.”
However, after this communication, I did not feel that I had protected myself, but on the contrary, I felt devastated. I kept my anonymity, but I was not relieved.
In the end, it wasn’t really about the eggs. It was about the system that made me feel like it was my best option.
I never replied to the last message from the clinic. I did not want to provide my parents’ names. Not because I feared consequences, but because the idea that someone could “buy” something from me only if I disclosed data I had intentionally withheld felt invasive.
Egg donation had been offered to me as an act of help, a passive income, a mutual benefit. In practice, it was neither passive nor entirely mine. It affected everything: my body, my memory, my financial anxiety, my sense of identity, and my idea of future motherhood.
Each time, I gave a part of myself — not just physiologically, but also narratively. I had to write and rewrite who I was to make the donation make sense. I wanted to be smart, healthy, unique, and desirable. I wanted to feel in control. But at the same time, I was hurting, lonely, and poor.
Egg donation is often sold as a beautiful gift. A selfless gesture. But most donors are not women with extra time, money and care to spare. Most are like I was — young, uncertain, looking for ways to stay afloat.
That doesn’t make us victims. But it does mean that our choices exist within systems of class, of medicine, of silence.
This is not a universal story. I don’t speak for every donor.
But I speak for the version of myself who lived through it and needed words.
This is my way of holding her hand.
Tania
