Eight years ago, when I was a twenty-one year old university student, I was on a study break at Robarts library when I saw a curious notice; Egg Donor Wanted. Caucasian, University Educated, and Bilingual- I had never really considered becoming an egg donor prior to that moment in time.

I donated about twenty eggs, twenty were harvested, and a number were implanted into the anonymous recipient. I found out that they conceived a baby. During the eight months of negotiations, doctors’ appointments, social worker meetings, and self-injecting hormones the Federal government passed a legislation that made it illegal for a woman or man to sell their eggs or sperm. This legal decision had great ramifications on my experience as a donor since I went from being able to openly discuss compensation with professionals to not being able to discuss it at all. A certain, secret shame was then attached to my decision to donate. In exchange for donating I was being paid large sums of money in secret. I felt silenced and ashamed.

Whenever I see little boys his age I wonder if they might be him. He haunts me a little bit. I have no regrets about becoming an egg donor but I have lots of questions. Hatched came out of one particularly curious notion: What if I try to have children but can’t? What if I snap and try to kidnap the one child that I know is biologically linked to me? What if?

Broader Social Impact of Dialogue

If you imagine that the fertility community has different sub groups; LGBT parents, health workers, surrogates, infertile couples, sperm donors, children born of sperm or egg donation or through IVF, and that as the technology improves and the reach of IVF expands to serve more of the population (One in every Six couples struggles with infertility) the more pull there is from within the community to network between the sub-groups and to have all voices count towards the general discussion and growth of the industry. However, due to the illegal nature of selling one’s eggs the majority of egg donors remain suspiciously quiet and the community as a result makes policy choices based on a dearth of information.

I hope that Hatched will serve as a jumping off point to opening dialogue between egg donors and the rest of the infertility community. I recently attended a Law and Ethics conference hosted by the University of Toronto where I spoke as an egg donor during a panel discussion on the Fertility Trade; I was approached by many re-known legal professionals and academics after the event who lauded me for coming forward and telling my story. If only there were more donors that felt that they could come forward and discuss their experiences, then perhaps the veil of secrecy could be lifted and these policy makers would be able to make increasingly educated decisions about donations, ethical ramifications and IVF.

I have had an incredible response from the infertility community about the necessity of Hatched as a jumping off point for conversation. I am also an outspoken, de-facto representative of egg donors in the eyes of the media and the infertility network. I believe that, because of the nature of my blog and the media attention that Hatched has received, we should be able to open some doors with networking and conversing through talkbacks and interviews.

Hatched will also serve as a way to introduce the concept of egg donation and IVF to a younger generation who might be warned and made aware of some of the possible social and personal ramifications of infertility technology.