Contract Lenses

Working on the first draft of our legal contract was both fun and thought-provoking. Fun because I'm a geek, and thought-provoking because you have to anticipate every possible future scenario of your kid's life, health, and curiosity and then build an agreement that allows for every single bit of it.

You have to be careful when it comes to the legal stuff. What I learned is that you can always do more than what a contract states, but you can't do less. This means that any requirements on either yourself or the donor should be the minimum that's necessary; for example, does she really need to give you medical updates every 6 months? That's quite a lot to ask, especially when everyone's healthy.

Another feature of the contract is that you can't require meetings. This one kind of bummed me out because if my kid wants to meet his Gen-Mom, then I want my kid to meet his Gen-Mom. The most you can ask is that she "consider" meeting with you. Kind of annoying, but what can you do?

Anyhow, a lot of thought went into writing the Future Contact portion of the agreement, and here's what we're proposing:

• An exchange of full names and contact information
• She agrees to consider meeting with us before her egg retrieval
• She agrees to consider meeting with the kid and at least one parent at a time deemed appropriate by the parents (not necessarily when the child reaches 18)
• She provides us with medical updates every 30 months, with serious health issues communicated within 3 months; this applies to her, her parents, her siblings, and her kids
• We give her the same courtesy with regard to the kid (in anticipation that the information would be relevant for her children)
• No direct communication with the kid; all correspondence goes through a parent

I should be clear that, like all attorneys, ours had a standard first draft that we just built on. Aside from all the future contact stuff, several other small changes were made, but there's only one worth mentioning:

One of the standard stipulations in these contracts is that the parents have sole decision-making powers when determining the outcome of any leftover embryos after the parents have completed building their family. The main choices are:

• Disposal
• Donation to science
• Donation to another woman or couple for transfer

It's this last option that bugged me. Being that I'm fairly opposed to anonymous donations, there's no way I would give the donor's genes to someone else without having her be involved in the decision, so I revised the contract to say that I would notify her before doing so. That way, if she's opposed to it or doesn't want to be involved in the selection of the recipient, we would choose another option. But to tell you the truth, it's all pretty moot, since we'll probably just end up donating to science anyhow.

The most ridiculous part of this entire thing is that none of it is unenforceable. I mean, if she doesn't email me with a 30-month health update, what can I do? Sue her for emotional damages? Truth is that after the part of the agreement where I pay her, it's all just a farce.

It took me a little while to realize this, and so I'm hoping our donor doesn't catch on either. I won't tell if you won't.

PVED is the Answer

If your questions are:

1. Can someone advise me on choosing a donor?
2. Will I love a donor egg kid as much as I would a biological one?
3. Should I transfer one or two embryos?
4. How do I deal with disclosing to friends and family?

The answer is PVED. Or more specifically, the PVED forum, which you can only access if you have eggs as dysfunctional as mine.

It's seriously the most insightful, knowledgeable, and supportive group I've ever come across, and I'm not even being sarcastic, because I'm never sarcastic! (Except for that last bit.)

PVED (pronounced "PEE-ved") stands for Parents via Egg Donation, and it was started by a DE mom named Marna Gatlin who wanted a community of other DE moms. A decade later, the site is visited by thousands of folks from all over the world.

Now, I'm not going to say that Marna is the most daintily mannered soul on the planet, because she isn't, but blech, who would want that? I need guidance and advice, and I want it from someone who's direct. But she is endlessly caring, generous, thoughtful, insightful, and reflective. She's a hardcore advocate for everything she thinks you and your family deserve based on her dozen years in the field - and she gives the best hugs!

This isn't my first uterine support group. They're all over the web, as you might imagine. But they're ... how should I put this ... OK, so I was a part of one on Facebook, and it was kinda supportive, but mostly it was bitter. Look, bitter is understandable. I was there, so I know bitter. But what I learned from bitter is that it's the armor you put on to protect yourself against sadness and grief. Bitter makes sense, but it's also not what's really going on. And it's ugly.

PVED makes you deal with your shit. Especially Marna. For example, I'd like to think that if Marna met the lady on Facebook who's still trying to conceive after 23 years and 37 miscarriages (yes, really), Marna would have a sit-down that woman. Personally, my hope is that the chat would include some sense-slapping, but that's just me.

So, I'm kind of addicted to this forum, mostly checking out people's responses to questions like Will I love a donor egg kid as much as I would a biological one? and Can someone advise me on choosing a donor?

PVED has answers, and they're really good.

Quotable Quotes: Anonymous Donor Sperm Daughter

A young woman who was the product of a sperm donation was interviewed about her experience researching her anonymous genetic father. When she was asked why she was pursing the search, she said something that struck me:

Parents grieve their genetic connection to their kids when they use sperm donors, and that's a natural part of the process. I think it's hypocritical for people to think that I won't also grieve my genetic loss, and looking for my biological father is a part of the process for me.

My commitment to doing an open donation is officially fortified.

Vegas Baby! Vegas!!

We've chosen a new donor, and she's so great. I love her.

Yes, it's probably early to use the L word, but she's my future children's genetic parent, so I can't help myself.

She's from Las Vegas and has Mexican heritage with strong features that give her a sort of Middle Eastern look similar to mine. She's worked her way through junior college, is bright, and is very driven in her career.

Most importantly, she's available and interested in being an open donor. She's even asked to see a photo of us, which was deeply validating to me. I feel like we're on the same page with what we're looking for and that she's as into this as we are.

In terms of her personality, I have to admit, I'm not 100% confident that she'll make the absolute best role model for my kids. She has a massive boob job and dresses a little like a stripper, but you don't inherit silicone or spandex, and her genes look good to me. Plus my kids will probably only meet her once in their lives, so I'm not worried.

I'm trying hard not to bond to her too much, because I know these things have a tendency to fall through at any step of the process, but I'm still excited.

Vegas Baby! Vegas!!

A Gene Pool 1400 People Deep

Out of the 60 or so in-house donors available through my clinic, there was 1 that I wanted to make babies with, but she fell through. Now there's none.

Part of the problem is that, while I had a lot of criteria to begin with, turns out there's a new priority that tops them all: she has to be available to doing an open donation, and this is uncommon at my clinic.

Which means I have to find an egg donor agency. Somehow, I didn't realize that egg donor agencies existed, which in hindsight, should have been obvious. I mean, there are sperm banks, so it makes sense. But even if I'd guessed about donor agencies, I don't think I would have guessed that there are hundreds of them.

It took a little sifting, but there was only one with all of the following:

• A navigable website with a user-friendly search engine
• A contact person who was responsive and whom I liked
• A minimum of 5 back-up donors that I'd be willing to use if one fell through (once you pay the agency, you don't get your money back, so you kinda have to use them)
• A high percentage of women who were willing to being known to the recipient couple

With a donor pool 1400 women deep, The Donor Source was the place. Except for the fact that using an outside agency is costing us a few thousand extra dollars (lalalala, I'm not thinking about that), I'm pretty happy that the first one didn't work out.

But my favorite thing about this place is that well over half their donors are willing to do an open donation, which makes me wonder what it is about their intake process that promotes that philosophy. It also gives me hope that the future of ED will move more toward open donations and away from anonymous. It's possible. But that's a whole other thing.

Alright, now that that's settled, off to choose a donor.