By my mid 20's I had gotten my Master’s Degree, started my first career job,married and settled in Edmonton, Alberta, where I thought we would begin our family. One year later, I was still trying to get pregnant. Frustrated and confused, we went to a fertility specialist for help.My husband checked out fine, but the doctors weren’t sure why I was unable to conceive. Test after test in search of fibroids or endometriosis or some kind of explanation left me questioning myself all the time. I would wonder, should I stand on my head after sex? I’m healthy and young, so why is this happening to me? After 3 years of invasive testing and attempts at conception, the fertility treatments and my marriage of ten years failed.
A few years later, I met my second husband and we, too, had a desire to start a family. Once again, we were unable to conceive. But at least this time I was better prepared for the doctor visits and the emotional rollercoaster. I was starting to feel like something of a fertility patient veteran. I remember sitting in the waiting room time after time, talking to other women and relating to their silent pain, frustration, worry, loss and sense of isolation.
My husband and I tried intrauterine insemination (artificial insemination) and that failed. We tried in vitro fertilization (IVF) with my own eggs and that failed, too. Then we tried IVF a second time, and, again failure. Finally, I received an unexpected inheritance of $7,000 from a wonderful neighbor I had known while living in Canada and decided to try IVF just one more time.
When the embryologist told me that once again my eggs were not viable, I just couldn’t even breathe. All the money, the time, the energy, and most of all the hope I had put into pregnancy over the last 14 years was just too much. I was emotionally and financially exhausted, and still without children.
My husband and I finally decided to move on. We considered adoption, but I had a strong biological drive to carry a child. I also wanted my husband to have the opportunity to have a biological child. I had to let go of the idea that my child would have a nose like my mother’s or that he would be three quarters Irish. I decided to use another woman’s eggs because I felt very strongly that I would love the child no matter what.
Choosing to use donor’s eggs was still a very emotional process for me. I had to let go of the idea that I was looking for someone to replace myself. But when it came to choosing a donor, I didn’t get much of a choice at all. My doctor handed me two profiles and told me to pick one. I realized that the process didn’t acknowledge the emotional side of using an egg donor, nor the need for me to find a comfort level with an egg donor that allowed me to move on.
So I kept going even further. At that time, I was at the forefront of this new technology, using donor eggs, and there were only a small handful of donor agencies in the entire US. None in Arizona. I asked my doctor if I could search for a donor myself. She said yes.
I placed an ad in the Arizona State University student newspaper that read “Would you like to help a couple have a child? I’m looking for an egg donor. Can we meet?”
I received responses from six young women, and met with each of them at the local coffee house. I connected instantly with a student named Nicole, who shared my coloring and asked smart, serious questions. I agreed to pay her, we undertook the process of preparing her eggs for donation, and a year later my first son was born.
Soon thereafter, I got a call from my doctor. She was working with another couple who were desperate to choose their own egg donor and thought I might be able to help find someone. It began to resonate with me that there was something I could do to make someone else’s path easier than my own.
When I was looking for an egg donor, I wanted to have a number of donors to choose from, so I could find some peace in knowing she was something like me, even if just in spirit. My primary motive in founding an egg donor agency in 1996 was to give those seeking donor eggs that choice. I also wanted to give them comfort. By the time a couple is thinking about donor eggs, they are weary. I wanted The World Egg Bank to be a place where donor egg recipients could feel welcome, understood and informed. I wanted women to benefit from the 14 years of experience I had recruiting and matching couples and egg donors.
As I continued to expand my work with egg donors and recipients, I knew the obstacles inherent in the process and removed as many as I could. However, there are many uncertainties present from donor screening to retrieval, and the process requires much resolve and trust in the experience of the company you choose to work with. In 2002, I attended a conference that raised the possibility of actually freezing a donor egg. I was excited to know that egg freezing would eliminate so much of the risk and uncertainty of fresh donor cycles, and eliminate the need to directly accommodate a third person in their reproductive life.
Soon after, Dr. Jeffrey Boldt published a research paper in which he demonstrated a 46% pregnancy success rate using cryopreserved eggs. Drs. James Akin and Jeffrey Boldt asked to meet with me to form the world’s first egg bank.
In 2005, the first baby was born with frozen eggs from The World Egg Bank. The World Egg Bank improved it’s cryopreservation, or frozen egg technology, and we began assuming a position as an international leader in donor egg banking.
Today, I am the proud mother of three children conceived with donor eggs, and since 2005, The World Egg Bank has made over 2,000 donor egg matches. We have made it possible for recipients to choose the donor right for them, and we are considered pioneers in egg banking technology. I wish I could have used The World Egg Bank years ago when I first began my own journey . Today, it gives me great pleasure to know that The World Egg Bank now gives today’s recipients the choice and support that I did not have.