Why is blood type so hard to obtain?
For many hopeful parents, egg donor blood type is top of their list of criteria for choosing their perfect egg donor.
Unfortunately, many egg donor profiles, even from the best egg donor agencies, don't always list blood type. It seems that the majority of the general public has know idea what their blood type is. That is especially true of young woman who are interested in becoming egg donors. I wish there was a quick and easy test for finding out an egg donors blood type but it seems there is not. I would love to have someone tell me I'm wrong and then spread the word among egg donor agencies so that we can get those blood types filled in.
Of course it is not entirely true that there is no way of finding out. In most cases all a person should have to do is to call her physician. Her blood type should be on record. Another possibility is to ask the donor to donate blood. Donating blood is certainly far easier than donating eggs and would let them know what their blood type is. Having donated blood also indicates that the egg donor is not new to doing altruistic acts.
For most couples blood type is not important but...for some it is extremely important. When you are working with a couple who is part of a culture where third party fertility is considered forbidden having a child with a blood type that does not match with either parent can be a huge issue with devastating effects. I urge egg donor agencies to take the extra time to push their egg donors to find out their blood type. Once again it may make the difference between making a match or not making a match. I know that when I am conducting a search for an intended parent who considers blood type important, for what ever reason, if I don't see a blood type I move on to the next profile.
At Donor Concierge, we scan hundreds of egg donor profiles and we can't call the agencies for the blood type for each egg donor who doesn't answer that question. I'm sure that same thing happens when intended parents are searching on their own. There are hundreds of possibilities available these days for any intended parent so why wast time on incomplete profiles. Meaning, there are dozens of matches that are not being made due to not having a blood type listed. For an agency that's a lot of lost revenue for possible recipients that's a lot of wasted time.
I welcome any suggestions anyone has for making it quicker and easier to obtain egg donor blood types.
