Earlier this year, we at Beverly Hills Egg Donation launched Ask Kate (www.askaneggdonor.com) – a forum that allows current and prospective donors and recipients to submit questions about egg donation and dialogue directly with Kate Lee, a donor who completed six successful cycles with BHED. Amidst all of the, mostly technical, questions that Kate has received, we keep coming back to the following question and find it (and her response) particularly relevant.
Q: I just graduated from college and the main reason I am looking into this is for help with paying student loans. I know that the act of donating will leave a much bigger impact than any “paycheck” I may get, but I am still curious about the financial aspect and process. Did you have to put up any finances to get started? Were you ever charged during the process for any of the tests that were run? And were you paid along the way or was it all done at the end?
I am confident that this is something I want to do, but need to make sure it is a process I can afford. At this point I have just started a new job and am curious if this can become a part of my schedule smoothly. Did you have a difficult time balancing work and donating?
A: I have never been asked this question. I mean, like, out in the open. It’s the easiest one there is: The money is a magical byproduct of this process. Whether it’s the reason you’re here, the reason you keep coming back or the reason you inconspicuously pay for group dinners ever now and then, the fact remains: It’s good money.
Money is not why I started with BHED, but that’s certainly what made it so easy to fall in love with this process. There is one thing that I paid for with every cycle –and only one thing: Parking when I’d go to the doctor’s office, and I found out on the last day of my last cycle at my last appointment that USC validates for donors – last appointment of my last cycle…I’d been paying $6 a visit and got 2 parking tickets along the way. But that’s beside the point. One thing you MAY be asked to pay out of pocked it birth control — you will be reimbursed for this, however. I have insurance, so it was $40 per cycle, and if you play it right, you can save BC and not always have to fill your prescription – all doctors put me on the same BC. Oooh, also, if for whatever reason you’re taking birth control longer than 28 days, you’ll need to refill and even if you do have insurance, insurance companies only allow you to refill BC every 30 days, so you have to pay full price. Interesting, right? So make sure you “rollover” your birth control to avoid more out of pocket expenses than you need.
And as for the terms of payment, I believe that will depend on your agency – the amounts are controlled by some important institution like the ASRM, or someone all-powerful, so that’s standard across the board – and if an agency is offering more than $10k for any one cycle, you should be wary. But how it’s paid out may be different. I received a little bit once I started medication – not birth control, but injections. And I was then paid the balance with my retrieval. The money is in a trust, so it’s guaranteed, and the check comes from your agency (not any individual). My checks were not taxed, so my agency 1099′d me at tax time as if I were a contracted employee. And my agency pays more to donors who are from a top-tier school. I went to NYU, so my stipend was higher.
All this said, the money is amazing. And to deny that, or pretend like people aren’t dying to ask you about it, is like really thinking no one knows your breasts are fake and you pretending like they’re not. It is what it is. Before I started down this path, I was a single girl, living in what I thought was a brilliant apartment in a glorious part of town, but I couldn’t really enjoy any of that because I was working my tail off and I was only ever around this very expensive, very amazing part of my life to sleep. During my donations, I was able to afford to come into my own. I put a lot of money in savings and made all my parents’ dreams come true. And some of it (a lot of it) I spent. I could finally afford to quit one of my two jobs. I could afford to fly home for Christmas for the first time in two years – and you best believe I flew first class. I could afford to say yes when my friends asked me to go to dinner at a restaurant with cloth napkins. I could afford to ask someone else to do my nails. I could afford that freaky cat that I saw in Austin Powers and had been saving for since – and now, Smalls is my life. Whatever you do with your paychecks is your own thing, and I feel like to assume the burden of guilt…maybe shame – is that the word I’m looking for?… is counterproductive.
I didn’t have any trouble with work, no. That said, I have a completely “unrealistic” job. I walked into my HR department (luckily for you, most HR departments are headed by women), I sat down, I told her that I was having a procedure on my ovaries in a few weeks and, leading up to that, I’ll be late several times so I can go for my routine appointments, and once those are finished I’ll have the procedure and need one week to recover. That’s exactly what I said to her. She looked at me and said, “whatever you need.” I did that 6 times. Not a second of what I said was untrue and, had I not done it, I never could have donated. The population of the office teased me about being an addict, because you have blood drawn at every visit and you come in with a bandage on your arm. And eventually people ask what’s going on (and they will) you say “it’s a girly thing” and then the conversation will be over. It sounds kinda weird, but you really have to commit to this. It’s not a minor thing, and it needs to be important to you. Unless you embrace it, it’s not just the unease with the money aspect, you’ll also have an uneasiness about something else along the way. I assure you. You need to be okay with ALL of this.
Do not be ashamed, be so grateful and appreciative and feel so blessed that it really, truly fulfills you all the way around.
This can lead to the following issue that I am constantly debating with friends and colleagues: if these guidelines exist, why are some donors offered twelve, fifteen, or twenty thousand dollars (or more) for their donations? If you have an “elite” fee or an “elite” program, where fees are higher based on education, talent, appearance, or IQ and test scores, aren’t you in fact paying for “superior” eggs? And doesn’t that completely contradict what the ASRM report has stated? If the ASRM guidelines are all we in this industry have to go by, I think that anyone in the field owes it to the integrity of the field in general, and the the individuals involved specifically, to maintain the guidelines to the best of their ability.
Egg / Ova / Oocyte Donation* offers a viable option to women who have been told that they cannot or should not attempt to achieve a pregnancy using their own egg(s). This can be, and generally is, an extremely emotional step for any individual or couple to take. It is also one that can be costly. With the current state of our economy, the expenses related to any infertility treatment are being more closely examined by those that find themselves in need of such treatment, and the compensation provided to donors is just one of these expenses to consider. With more young women applying to become donors, because of the financial incentive that does exist, many of us in the field (and those that are thrust into this world because of their own fertility situation) are constantly wondering “how much is too much?”
