Donor eggs. vs. adoption

[Anonymous]

I was told I have a very low chance of ever getting pregnant with my own eggs due to decreased ovarian reserve.

I am dealing with secondary infertility and have a biological child already (who I got pregnant with easily). However, my fertility has declined precipitiously since having my daughter and now I have few normal eggs left/very few eggs left with a less than 5% chance of ever getting pregnant with my own eggs (have been trying for a year and a half already). Since we've been TTC for over a year already and I'm 40 I have decided we need to move on.

So my options are donor eggs vs. adoption. We can afford to do one or the other.

How would/did you decide on one of these paths? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Also wanted to add that in terms of pregnancy, I have no interest in going through pregnancy again just to go through pregnancy. I felt awful every day of my pregnancy due to morning sickness that lasted the entire pregnancy, but other than that I had an uneventful pregnancy and delivery.

[Anonymous]

I found donor eggs a lot simpler than the adoption process. We had two failed adoptions and the emotional turmoil was unbearable.

[Anonymous]

We went the DE route. My husband wasn't open to adoption, but I was open to DE. I had an easy pregnancy for the most part, but I hit my wall at 35 weeks. Last month was rough. DE worked on the second round. We did SG's shared risk.

[Anonymous]

It's a very tough call. I would do donor eggs if my last ditch attempt with OE doesn't work. For me (and I am being very candid here since this is an anonymous board), there are 3 factors that make adoption a no go: 1) cost 2) logistics and 3) I am not interested in raising someone else's child after going though 1) and 2).

For DE I would go outside of the US in part to minimize the costs and I would feel better knowing that the child is my husband's, since he is the reason I want to have children to begin with. I would also feel better being able to learn about the donor (education, hobbies, photos).

I admire people who adopt, but I know I am not cut out for that. I realize all this may make me sound like a bit of an ass, but this is honestly how I feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a very tough call. I would do donor eggs if my last ditch attempt with OE doesn't work. For me (and I am being very candid here since this is an anonymous board), there are 3 factors that make adoption a no go: 1) cost 2) logistics and 3) I am not interested in raising someone else's child after going though 1) and 2).

For DE I would go outside of the US in part to minimize the costs and I would feel better knowing that the child is my husband's, since he is the reason I want to have children to begin with. I would also feel better being able to learn about the donor (education, hobbies, photos).

I admire people who adopt, but I know I am not cut out for that. I realize all this may make me sound like a bit of an ass, but this is honestly how I feel.

OP, I've never met an adoptive parent (and I'm one, too) who, once they and the child came together, felt like they were "raising someone else's child."

[Anonymous]

Adoption is very difficult and expensive. You can get lucky, or not. It took us 6 years, lots of money and grief. Finally as we gave up it happened. I'd never go through the process again nor would I recommend it at this point. Our child is a joy and meant to be our child so I am glad we did it, no regrets but not a chance even though I would love a second, I'd do it again. The industry is very shady and corrupt.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Also wanted to add that another consideration is that I have an own egg daughter already. If I do DE and have another girl I feel like that would be a challenging dynamic--would the DE daughter say that I'm not her real mom and feel negatively toward OE daughter? I feel like the dynamic would be much easier if DE baby was the other gender, though there's a 50% chance it would be a girl. I feel like being adopted would be easier for a child to digest than coming from DE. I wouldn't be so hesitant about DE if I didn't already have an own egg child, but my daughter looks exactly like me and the DE daughter wouldn't.

[Anonymous]

I've done both. If you want an infant, I would do DE. If you are open to an older child, pursue adoption. There are a zillion potential adoptive families for every infant available for adoption.

[Anonymous]

For that concern, you might want to speak with a therapist who works with donor patents. SGF works with many therapist, so call them for a list (even if you aren't using SGF).

How would you feel the if you had a bio child that didn't look like you? Do you think they would love each other less if they were 100% bio, but looked different? Do you think half siblings love each other less or are less bonded?

From a practical standpoint, I liked the money back from SGF's Shared Risk program. Yes, more expensive but the peace of mind was worth it. Heard too many stories about adoption falling through and losing all that money.

Emotionally, I felt like Adoption was like bad online dating. Where we put out a profile in the hopes that someone would choose us. I didn't like the idea of feeling that out of control.

DE was the best decision ever. My DE baby is sleeping on my chest right now.

[Anonymous]

I would also suggest DE. We thought about both, but DE was more something we could plan for and control some aspects of the process. Adoption is so much a matter of luck and chance. We did DE twice to get our two boys. They have different donors so are (very technically) half-siblings. It has never been a problem for us or them. I can't imagine having a more amazing set of kids.

Just FYI, you are much more likely to have a boy with donor eggs than to have a girl. The odds are 1 to 2 ( 1.9 actually, I think) in favor of boys. I am on my phone now, but can post the scientific explanation later if you are interested.

[Anonymous]

I'm not OP but I am interested in the explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Also wanted to add that another consideration is that I have an own egg daughter already. If I do DE and have another girl I feel like that would be a challenging dynamic--would the DE daughter say that I'm not her real mom and feel negatively toward OE daughter? I feel like the dynamic would be much easier if DE baby was the other gender, though there's a 50% chance it would be a girl. I feel like being adopted would be easier for a child to digest than coming from DE. I wouldn't be so hesitant about DE if I didn't already have an own egg child, but my daughter looks exactly like me and the DE daughter wouldn't.

A lot of success -egg donor or adoption has to do with your attitude toward it. With adoption, slim chance your child will look like you. You can choose the egg donor so higher chance if that is important to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not OP but I am interested in the explanation.

The research on sex imbalance in IVF has established that it exists, but is only able to guess at the explanation. For OE IVF, there is a 1 to 1.3 chance of conceiving a boy. For DE IVF, there is a 1 to 1.9 chance of conceiving a boy. The best explanation is that the selection criteria for how embryos are chosen for transfer causes the slight imbalance. The cells of male and female embryos divide at slightly different rates. Since a male embryo has slightly less genetic material to replicate, the cells divide slightly faster. So, by day 5 or 6, when the doctor is deciding which embryo to transfer, it is a little more likely that a male embryo will have the greatest number of cells. Since the cells of younger eggs divide faster in general, the imbalance is a little greater in DE IVF than in the overall OE IVF pool since, in general, the age of a donor is younger than the age of a woman doing IVF with her own eggs. It is also more common to do an eSET (elective single embryo transfer) with DE, so you are often choosing just the fastest doubling embryo instead of the fastest 2 or 3 embryos, increasing the importance of doubling time as a significant factor.

Our genetic counselor gave us the studies when we were doing DE IVF, but I think a Google search will easily pull up the actual studies if you are interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a very tough call. I would do donor eggs if my last ditch attempt with OE doesn't work. For me (and I am being very candid here since this is an anonymous board), there are 3 factors that make adoption a no go: 1) cost 2) logistics and 3) I am not interested in raising someone else's child after going though 1) and 2).

For DE I would go outside of the US in part to minimize the costs and I would feel better knowing that the child is my husband's, since he is the reason I want to have children to begin with. I would also feel better being able to learn about the donor (education, hobbies, photos).

I admire people who adopt, but I know I am not cut out for that. I realize all this may make me sound like a bit of an ass, but this is honestly how I feel.

OP, I've never met an adoptive parent (and I'm one, too) who, once they and the child came together, felt like they were "raising someone else's child."

I understand and appreciate that. But this is a self selected group - people who were open to adoption, wanted to do it, and went trough a rigorous time and resource consuming process. So these are the ones who were really sure of their choice. Those who don't want that choice and are not open to it wouldn't go through with it.

Also, even though it may not apply to your group, but there have been cases when adoptive parents couldn't deal with the child and did regret it and either put their kids for re-adoption/private placement, or sent them to residential facilities for difficult children. These are probably a very small minority, but it's not like it's entirely impossible to ever regret it.