In Search of the Perfect Egg Donor
How do you find the perfect egg donor?
Donor Concierge's founder, Gail Sexton Anderson, has spent decades helping hopeful parents find egg donors, sperm donors and surrogates. "When intended parents come to me with a wishlist of criteria they desire for their egg donor," Gail says, "My response is always: You can find just about anything you want in a donor, but you can’t find everything you want."
There are thousands of amazing young women deciding to donate their eggs, and it's important to begin the process knowing what factors are key to choosing the best egg donor. Some hopeful parents try to find egg donors who are just like them: a supermodel egg donor who was a division one athlete, is musically gifted, 5’10” tall, attended an Ivy league university with scores in the 90th percentile, and is now working on her Ph.D. in biochemistry. If such a woman existed, she would also need to be between the ages of 21 and 30, have good ovarian reserve, pass a psych evaluation, have excellent health, and most importantly: be willing to be an egg donor and travel to your clinic.
At Donor Concierge, we specialize in helping our clients throughout the egg donation process. We specialize in highly educated egg donors and hard to find egg donors so that hopeful parents of all backgrounds can find the best egg donor for their unique family. As part of that process, we have to start with the most important factors to consider when looking for your perfect egg donor:
• Ovarian reserve
• Health history
• Willingness to be a donor
• Availability to travel to your clinic
As we move through your desired criteria for choosing your egg donor, these factors would come next:
• No mental health issues
• No addiction issues
• Resembles to your family
• Reasonably intelligent
• Seems like a good person
These things can be hard to find on their own, especially for hopeful parents searching for specific ethnic backgrounds or cultural heritage. The last-priority factors can often be the ones that hopeful parents are aware of, but not sure how to look for or quantify as they search for their egg donor. These egg donor qualities are "nice to haves" on the search that are completely subjective and different for every person. These include:
• Education
• Beauty
• Athletic ability
• Creativity
Finding the “right,” egg donor for your family is different from finding the “perfect” egg donor. It’s a balancing act of making sure she has health and fertility, looks and feels like she could fit into your family. It’s not possible to control every factor. No matter how you build your family, your child will be who they are meant to be. This is true even if you are not using an egg donor. Every child inherits characteristics from both sides of the equation, but the outcome is wonderfully unpredictable. Genetics is a roll of the dice, but once your child is born, you will know you made the right choice. Your perfect egg donor is the egg donor who is happy to donate, healthy, and helps you have the family of your dreams.
Interested in building your family with Donor Concierge? Schedule your free consultation today.