In vitro fertilization (IVF) today is perceived rather habitually, fertilization with the help of an anonymous donor of sperm is less common, but it is not surprising.
But a similar direction in reproductive medicine – when a woman needs an egg for an IVF procedure, still looks quite exotic. Who might need other people’s cells for conception and how healthy female donors make this procedure, the correspondent of SHE explained.
Every third pair, coming to the IVF procedure, needs a donor program, doctors say sad statistics from the threshold. “One third of women who applied to the clinic for IVF program are over 35 years old, and for many of them the donor egg is the only chance to give birth,” Irina Aizikovich, the head of the reproductive department of the Avicenna clinic, admits. According to her, there are four main reasons why women’s eggs are unsuitable for conception.
Indication number one – age. Someone’s ovaries are exhausted as early as 35 years, and the genetically engineered program of the ability to give an oocyte ends. This program can not be changed, because doctors who are familiar with this diagnosis, can not accept fashion for late delivery. The second reason – surgical interventions on the ovaries (for example, if a woman was treated for infertility), such operations deplete their own stock of follicles.
The third – diseases in which it is contraindicated to stimulate the ovaries (and without this stimulation of IVF is impossible), – primarily oncology. Finally, in case a woman does not want to give a child a serious hereditary disease on the female line, the donor egg becomes the only chance to give birth to a healthy child.
ECO in our city conducts three clinics (Avicenna, Professor Pasman and CNMT in Akademgorodok), female egg donors are invited so far in the first two. For the fact that a woman becomes a donor, she receives a reward – about 30 thousand rubles. But getting into donors is rather difficult: you must be at least 35 years old, have your child and have iron health.
As Irina Aizikovich said, only one out of a hundred willing women (they all consider themselves completely healthy) is suitable for this role. The same, incidentally, concerns men – quality sperm is found only in one percent of men.
Having one child, the donor confirms that her genetic progeny have no hidden pathologies, and the woman herself has already performed her reproductive program: the fact is that stimulation of the ovaries carries certain risks. As Natalia Makhotina told Natalia Makhotina’s department of reproductive medicine, not every organism tolerates stimulation with hormonal drugs without a trace. There is a possibility of disruption of ovarian function, development of hyperstimulation syndrome.
That is, a woman runs the risk of her future offspring, although the risk is small. By the way, on average, a female donor donates cells up to 5 times, more doctors do not recommend.
If the donor has come to the clinic, she is obliged to sign the contract, that she will not have any claims to the future parents of the child. Cells are equated with genetic material. By the way, it will not be possible to save some of the eggs for themselves “for the future”. Rather, for this you have to pay out of your pocket: if the egg goes not to the bank, the woman is wasted on all manipulations, making, in fact, a truncated version of IVF (without embedding the embryo in the mother’s body). Such a whim will cost along with the drugs in about 100 thousand rubles. By the way, freezing male sperm costs ten times cheaper (in some countries, this procedure is paid by the state to military men).
Despite all the difficulties, there is no shortage of women donors today. On the contrary, on specialized sites offering donor services, women openly post their photos with children and boast of diplomas and good heredity. “Heredity is good. A family of lawyers. The pope has a red diploma and a gold medal, his grandfather is a scientist, “the future donor lists his dignity. Funny fact: male donors upload their photos very rarely, preferring anonymity.
In general, the standard portrait of a donor girl in Russian is a young, often lonely, pretty girl with a child who needs money, for example, for training.
“Of course, while this is being done for money, the main motive will be to earn money,” admits Liza donor.
Margarita, who just wants to be a donor, thinks differently: “I really love children, and I do not see the meaning of the family without them. Several of my friends can not get pregnant, are treated systematically and meticulously, but alas … I only recently realized that I am ideally suited for oocyte donation, and could help people become happy parents. I decided to think about it as if I were donating blood or bone marrow – in the name of a person’s life, well, here for happiness. ”
The Messianic idea (“I contribute to the gene pool of humanity”), the psychotherapist of the Insight clinic, Igor Lyakh, placed second among the motives of women to become a donor of such an unusual material. The main motive is usually a complex projection of the instinct of procreation:
if a man, when he surrenders, clearly feels like an inseminator of “all the earth”, then the woman, realizing the “cuckoo’s instinct” (“tossing” the children to strangers), hopes that their life will develop better than hers own.
In general, the maternal instinct plays a positive role in this whole story: a donor woman gives away the cells quite easily, there are no problems with surrogate motherhood. A woman, due to circumstances wearing a seemingly “strange” child, on the way out is already fully “her” baby. “The maternal instinct is launched during pregnancy, at the time of prenatal dialogue, according to the sensations, it will be completely her child,” summarizes Igor Lyakh.
