The Perfect Donor

"Is there a perfect donor? I think young. Physically healthy with a good family history and also motivated to be a donor. Because, donors do get paid but it comes with a huge dose of altruism because it’s not like donating sperm. Women have to go through not only the screening as a sperm donor does, but they have to go through injections and a medical procedure under anesthesia. So it’s not, not an easy process."

"I was fascinated with how babies formed that’s what got me into obgyn. And the very beginning was very mysterious. It still remains the most mysterious. So…building a life is such an essential and plus one of the happier areas of medicine when it works, and also the most interesting."

"In many countries egg donation has to be altruistic, so the donors are not allowed to be paid, or sometimes they’re allowed to be paid for reasonable expenses but if people are honest about that it’s not very much. So if people essentially have to volunteer to do this, there’s a really short list of strangers who are willing to step up and go through this process for some other stranger without some type of remuneration."

"We specialize in shared egg donation. And shared egg donation is, instead of one-on-one cycle where I would receive all of your eggs, multiple recipients are linked to one egg donor. So instead of an intended parent taking on the entire cost of all of that cycle, the costs are shared between two or three intended parents."

"Paige and I started Genesis group 9 years ago. At first we specialized in Asian donors. But we couldn’t pigeonhole ourselves into one ethnic group so now we have East Indian donors, Jewish donors, and Japanese donors, Ivy league donors--donors that are hard to come by. We have a subdivision that is for high profile clients who are looking for very specific traits."

"When I started Gifted Journeys I wanted to start agency that was a little different than the way things were currently running in California. I wanted agencies to come together, be friends, and create sort of a consensus on how we all run."

"America is the only country in the world that doesn’t regulate how much you can pay a donor. So even in Canada, it’s very limited, like 1200 to 1500 dollars. South Africa used to be $300. And the doctors are capped at how much they can charge. It’s a much better system. When the pressure of many thousands of dollars is taken away, they aren’t pressured to get more and more eggs. They really follow the safety standards."

So the perfect donor is that person who kind of allows you to move forward in a way that you can embrace and in a way that you can really feel like a parent—like a full parent—and that child is truly your child."

"I think most people, even when you explain to them what genetic counseling is, most people still don’t understand what it is, or what the value might be. I find that after the genetics consult happens most people find it valuable."