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.