Donors are Only Donating for the Financial Compensation
While the donors we work with appreciate the compensation they get from participating in a cycle, in most cases money is not the primary driving force behind their decision to donate. Through conducting one-on-one interviews with all of the donors in our program, we’ve found that most of them come to us with some sort of personal connection to infertility. Often they’ve seen a family member, close friend or colleague struggle to conceive and want to help someone else in the same position. Others are parents themselves and feel compelled to help others experience the joy of starting a family. Regardless of a particular donor’s situation, money is rarely the only motivating factor in her decision. Successful donors with our program understand the gravity of their decision and are invested in the donation process.
All Potential Donors who Apply to Participate are Accepted
Not so! Most candidates who apply to our egg donor program do not make it onto our database, for a variety of reasons. For starters, only a small percentage of those who apply are even suitable candidates for donation. Even to be initially considered for our program, applicants must fall within the appropriate age range (21-29), have the flexibility to accommodate the demands of an IVF cycle, have a clean personal and family health record (free of infectious diseases and genetic conditions), and have completed or are completing some form of higher education. Even then, BHED’s donor application process is rigorous, and many potential candidates are weeded out before they are added to our site because they haven’t met one or more of our requirements. A potential donor is asked to not only fill out a lengthy application, but must meet with a BHED donor representative for a personal interview (in person or via webcam), submit a wide range of photos for her profile (including family and childhood pictures), provide transcripts and other relevant education documentation as appropriate, and respond to emails and phone calls from our office in a timely manner. If we feel that a donor does not have the time or dedication to see a cycle through, we won’t add her to our program.
A Donor Might Drop Out of a Cycle at Any Time
Donors do occasionally drop out of cycles. It’s rare, but it happens. For this reason, we have a number of checks and balances in place to ensure that all of our donors actually ARE committed to participating in a cycle at any given time. We call them regularly to check in, request updates, and confirm their availability and willingness to donate. In the rare instance that a donor does drop out after being matched, it almost always happens very early on in the process. In particular, it’s extremely unlikely that a donor won’t follow through with a cycle after she’s started medication. At that point, she’s attended several doctor’s appointments, coordinated with an attorney, and done psychological and genetic evaluation – all without any compensation. As with most egg donor agencies, our donors receive a small portion of their fee once they start medication (in our case, $750) and then get the remainder of their balance after the retrieval. It’s unusual for a donor to drop out of a cycle in the first place, but almost completely unlikely for her to call it quits “late in the game.”
Donors Lie on Their Applications
In general, the vast majority of donors are not inclined to lie on their applications because most are well-meaning candidates who are donation for very personal reasons. However, this is another reason why we find it beneficial to have a system in place to substantiate the information that donors provide. We review every applicant’s profile during her interview and, if the donor claims high academic achievements, ask that she provide documentation from her school to back up her claims. Impartial professionals also gather additional information through the psychological evaluation, genetic counseling, and medical screening which can be crosschecked for inconsistencies. It’s important to restate that it’s very unlikely for a donor to deliberately submit inaccurate information, but we hope that the steps we’ve put in place to weed out those that do give our clients added peace of mind.
