I have been wanting to be an egg donor for some time now... It is something I thought about a lot before conceiving my second and final child and it is something that I think about now.

I want to do it but feel hesitant about taking The Next Step.

I wonder:

To the women who are looking for a egg donor, do you prefer to process to be annonymous or would you prefer to remain "friends" with your donor?

I feel that this is the issue that is holding me back at the moment. I would prefer to be known to my recipient, but it seems that is NZ (where I am) the process is annonymous. I am not asking for gratitude or eternal friendship but I have an interest as to what happens 'after'... Is this an unreasonable expectation?

QuinnAriki - I think what you are thinking of doing is one of the most precious gifts a woman can give to another.

As an eternally grateful recipient of eggs from a work colleague I'm sure you will find a recipient who will gel with how you want the relationship to be. It is not unreasonable to want to know how successful your gift was, but I am unsure of the rules in NZ, as I reside in Aussie.

Good luck in finding your perfect match - as I said before it's a wonderful thing you are thinking of doing.

I'm with Jlydia,

I am a member of Aussie Egg donors and there have been lots of known donations. There are also quite a few NZ members who are looking for someone to donate.

Bless you for considering going down this path.

Thank you all for your replies...

I was once a memebr of Aussie egg donors but at that time was trying to concieve my second so I think my membership has lapsed.

I think the thing I am scared of is approaching a potential recipient and then letting them down. I want it to be a known process and I feel it is important for me to feel comfortable with the process. I am just scared of getting anyones hopes up!

Treedestiny - how did you approach your donor or vice versa? Was there any point you were unsure? Were you both completely open about what you wanted?

Thank you both jlydia and bobbin, I appreciate you taking the time to answer. It helps to be able to 'discuss' this with others!

QuinnAriki - in answer to your question regarding my egg donor, I didn't actually ask for her help. We were having a general discussion about my lack of success on IVF and told her that my next option was to seek an egg donor and she basically offered on the spot, an amazing spontaneous and generous offer that she followed through on.

In Victoria it is compulsory to have counselling for both donors and recipients through their IVF clinic to make sure that everybody (DHs included) are comfortable with the decision to move forward. Either party can pull out at any time if they feel uncomfortable.

If I was in your situation I would probably PM one of the posts on this forum that appealed to me and offer to go to the next step, and then take it from there. Alternativley, you could contact a fertility clinic near you and indicate that you're a potential egg donor and I'm sure they would welcome you with open arms and match you with a potential recipeint (however if you haven't had to go down an IVF path yourself you probably don't know any fertility clinics so it may be easier just to contact somebody directly and see what happens). In general the recipients will cover all medical and travel costs incurred by the egg donor.

Hope this helps and again what you're thinking of doing is a wonderful thing.