Topic: An Unexpected Guest

Sometime in the spring of 1994 I donated a bunch of eggs.  I'm not talking about eggs like bacon and eggs, but of human eggs, the stuff of life.  I was working full time as a licensed practical nurse in a locked Alzheimer's unit at a nursing home and finishing up coursework to become a registered nurse.  My kids, Ali and Aaron were ages 7 and 5 respectively.  And I had just remarried their dad about a year prior to my egg donation.  My first and second husband, the father of my children and I had always had a difficult relationship.  We eloped in 1987, divorced in 1992 and remarried in 1993.  He had promised he had changed and that it would be different this time.  So what do you do when you have a difficult marriage that it isn't working much better the second time around?  You buy a house in the suburbs. 

We had rented through both of our marriages and even lived in a mobile home.  Well actually it was a trailer, not even a double wide and certainly not worthy of being dressed up by the name "mobile home."  Maybe if we had a home, a real house with a yard and a patio and a basement things would get better.  Maybe if he had more space, maybe if our little family of four had more space he'd be nicer to me.  But where would we get the money to make a down payment?  We needed about three grand.  He worked as an office manager and we were paying private school tuition for both kids. We weren't on food stamps anymore like we had been while I was in LPN school, but money was still pretty damn tight. 

I saw an ad in a local newspaper for a fertility clinic out of Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio looking for egg "donors".  They wanted healthy women of proven fertility to donate eggs and the compensation they were offering was in the thousands.  When I went to be screened I asked how we could be considered donors when we were being compensated so handsomely.  They told me that I was not being paid for my eggs but for my time, that it was illegal to sell human body parts, that human eggs were the stuff of life and were not, could not be for sale.  But after intense screening I was selected to become a donor.  I had to a complete history and physical, took the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and a standard IQ test.  I was interviewed by a psychologist who wanted to ensure that I was donating my eggs freely, that I understand I had no claim on them or on any children that might be born from these eggs I was giving up.  I eagerly signed.  I had two kids and didn't want anymore.  At least I had enough sense to know that bringing more kids into my troubled marriage or should I say, troubled marriages, would have just made things more complicated. 

I completed two cycles of egg donation and went for two "harvests" at the hospital in 1994.  Yes, that's what they call it when they surgically remove the eggs from your body, a harvest.  It was unpleasant.  I had an IV and some drugs but they didn't give me the good stuff.  The eggs are harvested intra-vaginally, and the procedures felt like someone was pinching my insides.  Not as bad as childbirth I consoled myself and tried to focus on the fact that I was making money and would be helping a nameless infertile couple or couples. 

I vaguely remember getting a call from the clinic it seemed like a year or so after the procedure.  They just wanted to let me know that a child had been conceived and born from my eggs, a healthy child.  They didn't tell me if this child was male or female or where the sperm came from, just that this couple wanted to make sure I was thanked for my donation.  I appreciated the call but I felt really thanked when I got my check for $3000 and used it for a down payment on a 3 bedroom cape cod house.  After that call life moved on and I rarely thought of my egg donation experience.  The new house didn't save my marriage and we divorced again in 1998. 

But 24 years later I was in line at Kings' Island on a Friday evening when my sister called and asked, "Did you ever donate eggs?"  I told her briefly about my story.  She told me that a 22 year old young man from Paintsville, Kentucky had just called her. He found her through DNA matching on Ancestry.com.  My sister and my father were listed as close personal relatives of his.  The young man told her he was the product of an egg donation.  His parents had gotten eggs from Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio.  All of the details fit.  He had been looking for his egg donor for years by this point. 

The young man, Coltt and I talked on the phone for over an hour the next day.  I tried to answer all his questions.  I was nervous at first but quickly became at ease.  It was like I'd known him all his life.  Two weeks later he came to visit me.  It was a four hour drive so he and his boyfriend ended up staying the night. 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how much he resembles my son Aaron both in appearance and mannerisms.  And it kind of feels like I found my long lost son but not quite.  I can't take away from his mom who carried him and raised him.  He did ask why I did it, why I donated the eggs.  And I had to be honest.  I did it for the money. I wanted a house.  But I got more than that.  My unexpected houseguest has become a friend, a second son of sorts and that is worth way more than $3000.