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‘I’m not using them – I’m literally just flushing them away,’ says Katie Higgins, when asked why she chose to donate her eggs.
It was by chance that Katie, who was then 28, first considered egg donation when she glanced up at a billboard and saw an advert for the London Egg Bank.
‘I’ve always felt enthusiastic about helping people,’ she says. At the time, Katie was working as a primary school teacher. ‘I’d spent a lot of my life around children and I wasn’t sure about the thought of becoming a mother, and coming home to more.’
The process of egg donation is similar to the initial stages of IVF. Donors self-administer hormone injections for around 10 to 14 days to prepare for egg retrieval, stimulating the ovaries to produce multiple eggs instead of just one.
The donor then undergoes a surgical procedure to collect the eggs from the ovaries.
It takes around two to three months from initial contact with a fertility specialist to collection, involving consultations, screenings, counselling sessions and scans.
Egg donation is nothing new of course, but as IVF advances and becomes more successful, the number of those donating is on the rise – although there is still a shortage of Black and ethnic minority donors.
Egg donor registrations tripled from around 500 in the early 1990s to around 1,500 in the late 2010s, according to a 2022 report by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
You can only be an egg donor between the ages of 18 to 35, before natural fertility and egg quality starts to decline. Despite this, many young women say they face mixed reactions when choosing to donate.
The stigma of being a young egg donor
Katie has donated her eggs twice. During her first donation cycle, she says she faced judgement and a lack of support from her workplace.
‘They told me it was something that I shouldn’t have done and that they weren’t even going to give me the time off to have the procedure,’ she says.
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‘It really upset me, to be honest. All I was trying to do was help people, it wasn’t for my own benefit.’
Her colleagues were also shocked by her decision. ‘They couldn’t believe I was giving them away,’ she says. ‘But I’m not giving away my children. It’s just a bit of DNA.’
Katie even describes her family as ‘baffled’ by her decision. ‘A lot of people were quite shocked,’ she adds, in particular concerned by the age at which she’s want to donate. ‘I have a lot of people saying that I’d change my mind about wanting my own children, as i that would affect whether I’d want to donate my eggs anyway.’
Fellow egg donor, Bethany Meakings, first donated her eggs aged 22, after seeing an advert from the London Egg Bank on social media. It was an easy decision for her – but not everyone saw it that way.
‘I often joke that my eggs are wasted on me,’ she says. ‘I’ve never wanted kids of my own. I don’t want or need my eggs. So, the idea that it could help someone make a loving family was really important to me.’
Like Katie, Bethany also faced judgement from others. ‘I had a few people tell me that I’d “change my mind in a few years” and that any possible donor conceived children would have biological siblings,’ she explains.
And her boyfriend simply couldn’t understand. She recalls him asking her, ‘Why are you doing this’, to which she responded: ‘It’s to help other women, why wouldn’t I?’. Ultimately, it led to the break up of their relationship.
However, Bethany doesn’t worry about telling future partners and wouldn’t hide it from them. She says: ‘It’s nothing to do with them. It’s my body. My choice.’
Looking to the future
All donors are made aware that egg donation is not an anonymous process. Any future children are able to discover the identity of their biological mother once they turn 18.
Donors are asked to write letters to any future children born, sharing as much as they would like. While egg donors are not legally responsible for any children conceived, it remains a significant consideration in decision-making and raises ethical questions about parental responsibility.
Samantha Mann, from Newcastle, is a single parent to two boys. She was 28 when she donated her eggs for the first time last year, and again in October of this year.
‘I knew for a fact that I didn’t want any more kids,’ she says. ‘I thought instead of wasting them I might as well help people that can’t conceive by themselves,’ she explains. ‘I wanted to give other families what I’ve got.’
But Samantha admits she might struggle with her decision in the future, saying it would be ‘hard’ to imagine a child existing that she has no attachment to.
‘I try to keep it at the back of my mind,’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted a little girl. The thought of having a girl out there, it’s hard to think about.’
Samantha knows she’ll also need to consider her two sons’ feelings too, given they could have half siblings.
She says: ‘I will tell them about it once I feel they are old enough to process the information. I don’t think they would mind, they’re very easy going and laid-back kids.’
Katie also has mixed feelings about the future. ‘I don’t feel any obligation or strong attachment to any children that might be born,’ she says. ‘But then I don’t know what my emotions could be at that moment. I think it’s something that I’d have to think about at the time.’
While Bethany firmly says that donating her eggs doesn’t make her a parent. She adds: ‘Being a mother is about nurture and love. I’m not doing that – I’m doing this so people can have a loving family.’
Physical and emotional turmoil
The impact of egg donation on the mind and body is not to be underestimated.
A long process ensures donors are both physically and mentally prepared for what’s to come. But after Katie’s first donation cycle, she learnt half of her eggs weren’t viable. She remembers waking up from the procedure crying. ‘I felt like I’d let everyone down,’ she recalls.
Samantha also faced a similar situation the second time she donated when less eggs were collected than planned. ‘I just felt my body was rejecting me’ she says.
For Bethany, the physical response to egg retrieval was the most brutal. While she was well looked after by staff, with nurses bringing her water, tea and ensuring she had been to the toilet before she left, the ‘super speedy’ procedure left her feeling ‘really rough’, especially as she was preparing to go home.
‘I could tell I was about to vomit,’ she says. ‘My mouth started getting watery. Before I knew it, I projectile vomited all over the floor. I was so embarrassed. The nurses said it happens all the time, but I felt a bit awkward.’
Why is egg donation still taboo?
Psychologist Emma Kenny explains why egg donation stirs ‘some intense and personal feelings’, in a way that sperm donation does not.
She tells Metro: ‘When we think about a woman donating her eggs, we tend to stumble into an emotional minefield that just doesn’t show up as much with sperm donation.
‘It’s not that sperm donation isn’t important, but culturally, it’s treated as simpler and less complicated, almost like just another medical procedure.
‘For many women, our eggs aren’t just biological cells. They’re closely tied to how we see ourselves, our identity, our sense of womanhood, and our dreams about family. So, when a friend or another woman in our circle decides to donate her eggs, it can feel like she’s giving away something incredibly precious, something that’s almost part of who she is.
‘Men, on the other hand, aren’t typically encouraged to connect their fertility so closely with their sense of self. People tend not to view sperm as a defining characteristic of a man’s identity, so the act of donating it doesn’t usually stir up the same level of concern or soul-searching.’
Emma adds there’s still an unfair load of expectation placed on women regarding motherhood and family. She says: ‘Our culture often portrays women’s fertility as something sacred and central to our worth. So, when another woman chooses to donate her eggs, it can bump up against these expectations and insecurities.
‘None of these reactions mean women don’t want to support each other. It’s just that these feelings come from a much deeper, more complicated place. We’re dealing with centuries of cultural messages, personal hopes and fears, and the sense that motherhood and fertility are delicate, deeply meaningful parts of our identity.
Giving the possibility of life to another less fortunate woman, is an incredible gift which demonstrates an immense generosity, but it is not for every woman and therefore will always be an action that causes debate.’
Should egg donors be paid?
Egg donation is closely regulated in the UK to ensure it remains an altruistic act. As such, compensation for egg donors is limited to covering expenses, such as travel costs, accommodation and children. It is illegal to sell eggs in the UK.
This year, the compensation for egg donors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland increased for the first time in over a decade.
After being set at £750 for 13 years, the payment rose to £985 per cycle in October.
The HFEA does not advertise for donors and UK law and their Code of Practice state that licensed clinics should not refer to financial gain when advertising. However, Bethany says that money did factor into her decision to donate. ‘If I hadn’t had the money and had that time off without getting paid, I would’ve been screwed,’ she says.
Still, the compensation is less than half the UK’s median monthly earnings. This modest amount pales in comparison to the US market, where egg donation has been described as the ‘wild west’ of fertility, due to fewer rules governing egg and sperm donation.
Egg donors can earn up to $12,000 (£9,400) per cycle and repeat donors can reportedly rake in up to $70,000 (£55,000) for multiple rounds.
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