For people who used an anonymous donor. Did you get her a gift? What was it?

[Anonymous]

We are doing our first anonymous DE IVF cycle right now and I am trying to figure out if we should get the donor a small gift. On the one hand, I don't want to make the donor uncomfortable by making a connection that she doesn't want. Any gift, even a note, makes us real to her in a way that she may not want us to be. (I would never include any information by which she could identify us. That would not be fair to her.) But, I would like to say thank you and I don't want her to think that we don't understand how much her decision is helping us.

In her profile, she said that she really likes to cook. I was thinking of getting her a really nice cookbook (maybe a new one or maybe trying to find a first edition of one of the more famous old cookbooks.) Would that be something that she would not want hanging around reminding her of the donation?

[Anonymous]

I think that would make me uncomfortable.

[Anonymous]

What do you think would make you comfortable if you were a donor? Or is doing nothing the best way to go?

[Anonymous]

If I were a donor I'd probably want a heartfelt thank you letter/card that I could stow away and pull out if/when I felt sentimental. I wouldn't want something I'd feel obligated to display or use on a regular basis.

I say this, though, as a person who wouldn't be an egg donor because I would always be wondering about "my" child, so take my opinion with a big grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

We're planning on it. But, I am going to check with my nurse to make sure there aren't any rules against it. There are a lot of ethical issues surrounding donations.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't want anything if i was a donor, not even a note.

[Anonymous]

And how do you intend to give the gift to her? When we had an anonymous donor, we were never even in the clinic at the same time. She had an appointment before mine and she went in, they harvested her eggs and I went in slightly after her and the clinic did its test tube work. Then 5 days later, we had blastocysts ready for implantation. I believe that she had left the building before I got there. The point was she was anonymous and that we would not meet. There would have been no opportunity for us to have given her any sort of gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And how do you intend to give the gift to her? When we had an anonymous donor, we were never even in the clinic at the same time. She had an appointment before mine and she went in, they harvested her eggs and I went in slightly after her and the clinic did its test tube work. Then 5 days later, we had blastocysts ready for implantation. I believe that she had left the building before I got there. The point was she was anonymous and that we would not meet. There would have been no opportunity for us to have given her any sort of gift.

We asked the agency to use the money in our escrow account to send her flowers. When our twins were born, we sent a note via the agency to let her know that we had given birth to healthy twins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And how do you intend to give the gift to her? When we had an anonymous donor, we were never even in the clinic at the same time. She had an appointment before mine and she went in, they harvested her eggs and I went in slightly after her and the clinic did its test tube work. Then 5 days later, we had blastocysts ready for implantation. I believe that she had left the building before I got there. The point was she was anonymous and that we would not meet. There would have been no opportunity for us to have given her any sort of gift.

Our clinic said that they were happy to pass a gift on to the donor for us. Of course you wouldn't do this in person. That would undermine the idea of anonymous donation. But, it isn't really that hard to see how an exchange could be carried out by a third party at the clinic. My impression is that this is done all the time.

[Anonymous]

I was a donor 10 years ago before I was married and had kids. My recipients gave me a very nice letter that told me about themselves and the family they hoped to create. I especially appreciated that they told me what we had in common and some of the reasons they picked me (above and beyond physical traits). They also gave me a generous gift certificate to a spa which I also appreciated. The clinic gave me the letter after my retrieval.

[Anonymous]

I think it's a good idea to check in with your nurse or donor coordinator about what is usually done.

At the out of state clinic I went to, they gave us gift guidelines (of course gifts were optional). There was a dollar limit. I chose a gift card to a local sporting goods store, as our donor is very outdoorsy.

We are semi-anonymous with our donor. We've exchanged email messages (passed anonymously through the clinic), and our donor has agreed to sign up for the Donor Sibling Registry within a specified period after the clinic informs her of a live birth.

I think that a lot of the responses in this thread are from people who can't imagine being donors themselves because they would have a hard time not seeing the child as their own. I don't think most women who actually donate feel that way. They have to go through psych screening, and I imagine that would weed out those who have issues with the implications of donating their eggs. I definitely got the sense from our donor's messages and her profile that she really wanted to help infertile couples have babies. I feel good about the gift we gave her, and I feel confident that if there were some sensitive issue, the donor coordinators would have intervened.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP about the heartfelt letter. That would mean so much.

[Anonymous]

I'm surprised by all the responses expressing surprise at giving a gift. I thought it was standard practice these days. At my out-of-state clinic they also facilitated the gift giving, gave some suggestions and required the gift to be unwrapped (they recommended using a gift bag) and any letter/card unsealed.

[Anonymous]

For those of you who have given, or will, when will you do it? Retrieval? When she agrees to donate? Our donor will have a major life event the month before we cycle and we'd like to send her a gift for that. But, will it seem weird since she won't have donated yet? Don't want to pressure.

[Anonymous]

At retrieval. You give it to the clinic so they have it waiting for her. Or, if you're like me and can't get your act together, after retrieval when they might possibly have to ship it to her if she is from out of town. If she is traveling, I've also heard of people sending flowers for her hotel room, but I like the idea of something lasting.