Whilst I have been rather vocal about surrogacy, a lot of people don’t know that around two years ago I was going to donate my eggs. I had researched different clinics and requested a consultation but didn’t go through with it in the end; I felt as though it was best to wait until my family was complete.

Now that I know that I don’t want anymore children, egg donation is something that is definitely back on the cards once my surrogacy journey is complete, so hopefully next year.

So, if you don’t know what egg donation is, it is pretty self explanatory – it is when a woman donates her eggs to a patient in order for her to become pregnant. In most cases this is done anonymously but women can donate their eggs to people that they know too. This is then known as a “known donor”.

Once the eggs have been donated, they are then fertilised with the recipient’s partners sperm (or donated sperm if required) via IVF or ICSI, and then transferred to the patient for pregnancy.

There are so many reasons as to why a woman may require an egg donor;

She is not able to produce enough eggs of her own.
Premature menopause.
Cancer treatment.
The woman may be at risk of passing on a genetic disorder to any children she has from her own eggs.
I actually know of a few women now who have used donor eggs; some have been successful and others have not.

There are some things that women should consider if they are looking into egg donation; the main one being that if any children are born from your eggs, once they reach the age of eighteen they will be able to contact the woman who donated; it is up to the donor if they wish to then have a relationship with the child.

The way I see it is that I probably have thousands of eggs left over, of which are no longer of any use to me. Why not pass them on to someone who needs them? That one egg could literally change a families life forever.