Having Your Baby Through Egg Donation. Evelina Weidman Sterling
ten years ago but whose wise perspective on family building (and everything else) remains ever with me.
I (Evelina) want to thank my family—Dan, Ben and Ellie—who supported me throughout this process by giving me the time and flexibility to write.
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Some Introductions
Most of us grow up expecting that we can and eventually will become parents. We know how it is done—you find a partner you love, make love, get pregnant and nine months later you have a baby. Few people give any thought, initially, to the possibility that their own experience of family building may not be quite that simple. But things happen. Life intervenes. And, if you are reading this book, you have already come to understand that becoming a parent will not be as simple and straightforward as you once thought it would be.
You are not alone in finding that your journey to parenthood—and subsequently, your parenting experience—is different from what you expected it to be. We are keenly aware of how disappointed you may be feeling as you read this. You had hopes, dreams, and expectations and now it seems that they are being dismantled or even shattered. We hope that in the course of reading this book, you will come to a different perspective: that your experience is different but it is not “less than” or “second best.” We have known countless women and men struggle as they decide to pursue a second choice path to parenthood, only to land in what they feel is the best place imaginable. This includes many mothers through egg donation who say, once their baby arrives, “I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I couldn’t love any other baby as much.” Several have turned to the words of philosopher Joseph Campbell to capture their experience, “You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”
Introducing us—Ellen and Evelina
Before we introduce you to other people whose personal and/or professional lives have been touched by egg donation, we want to introduce ourselves and to say something about how we came to write this book together…
Ellen is a clinical social worker and writer who has been helping people build families for over 30 years. She has a private practice in Newton, Massachusetts, where she focuses on adoption, pregnancy loss, donor conception, surrogacy and parenting after infertility. She is the author of two books, The Long Awaited Stork: A Guide to Parenting after Infertility and Experiencing Infertility: Stories to Inform and Inspire, and the co-author, with Dr. Susan Cooper, of Choosing Assisted Reproduction: Social, Emotional and Ethical Considerations. In addition to her clinical practice and professional writing, Ellen is an essayist and freelance writer.
Evelina is a public health researcher and educator with over 20 years’ experience working in the field of reproductive and women’s health. She completed her doctorate in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Her research interests include issues related to gender and sexuality, as well as the long-term impacts of infertility. She is the co-author of several other books, including Living with PCOS—Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Budgeting for Infertility: How to Bring Home a Baby Without Breaking the Bank, and Before Your Time: Living Well with Early Menopause. She has also written several articles specifically addressing family building and infertility.
We are writing this book together and will most often speak as “we.” That is not to say that we agree on everything, but, for the most part, we have tried to present material from a shared perspective. However, since we come from different professional backgrounds—clinical social work and public health—there are times when we do bring different perspectives. At those times, when we feel we must say “I” and not “we,” we follow the “I” with the speaker’s first name (Ellen or Evelina).
The purpose of this book
Not long ago it was unimaginable—the idea that eggs could be transferred from one woman to another. Today it is common. Throughout the world thousands of women have become—and are becoming—mothers through egg donation. Perhaps one day you will be among them.
Egg donation is one of several paths to parenthood that require the use of a third party’s reproductive capabilities. These collaborative reproductions include using donated sperm, using donated eggs, surrogacy, using a gestational carrier and embryo placement. For some time these options have been lumped together in both consumer and professional thinking as extensions of medical treatment. In this book we are endorsing a change in perspective. While it is true that medical techniques—insemination, in vitro fertilization (IVF) or perhaps other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs)—are required for conception in collaborative reproduction, conception is far from the end of the journey when families are built by collaborative reproductive options. We believe that it is vital that families making these choices not consider them extensions of treatment, but that they understand that, in choosing a collaborative reproductive option, they are embarking on a psychosocial and emotional journey with lifelong consequences for all involved—would-be parents, third-party participants and, most of all, the children brought into the world as a result of collaborative reproduction. We believe that collaborative reproduction should be thought of as a psychosocial as well as a medical issue.
Unlike many books about the infertility experience, this is not a book centered on medicine and treatment. While we will offer limited medical information that would-be parents need to have to make informed decisions, our basic focus in Having Your Baby Through Egg Donation is on the psychosocial ramifications of having and parenting a baby using the eggs of a donor. While the book presents many facts, it does not claim to be objective. Our book contains the strong, experientially informed opinions of its authors.
We have written this book as a guide to your journey toward making decisions about whether or not to use donated eggs. Whatever brings you to consider egg donation, we assume that the experience has not been easy. We hope that this book will offer you comfort, guidance, information and support as you make your way. We hope, also, that it will remind you that you are not alone. Others have traveled this path before you, and many women and men traverse it now.
Here, in the introduction, we introduce you to one family—the Gordons. We have selected them for our introduction because their story and their perspective cover the central themes in this book. As with all the families who have shared their stories with us, we have changed their names, geographical location and occupations in order to respect their privacy. We have not changed key facts central to their story.
Meet Carla, Rob, Rebecca, Jennifer, Jake and Matt
A visitor arriving at Carla and Rob Gordon’s home has an immediate reaction: KIDS! The Gordons’ spacious front porch is filled with bikes, sporting equipment, a double stroller. A glance to the back yard reveals a swing set and a trampoline. This is a busy family, one thinks. This is a home filled with kids.
And indeed it is, but it was not always this way. Fifteen years ago, when Carla and Rob bought an old colonial farmhouse in what was then a quiet, rural town about 65 miles north of Boston, they were looking forward to having a child. Then another. They were 26 years old, recently married, newly minted master’s-trained teachers who chose to buy in “Rutherford” (we are changing all names to protect privacy) because it was affordable, had good schools and seemed to be an all-round fine place to raise a family. First came love, then came marriage, then came the house and now for the baby carriage.
Like many couples who come upon infertility unexpectedly, Carla and Rob were initially baffled when Carla did not conceive. After all, they were young, led very healthy lives, had no family history of infertility and had been dutifully using birth control since first they met. Who us? they thought. Not us. We were made to have babies.
And they certainly were, but not yet. When they had been trying to for a year, Carla sought medical attention, assuming that the problem was hers. Fortunately, her physician did not make the same mistake and told her that before he did any testing on her, he wanted Rob to do a semen analysis. “After all,” Carla’s physician said, “it is the man about half the time.”
And indeed it was, but not entirely. Rob was tested and the couple was told that he