How to Know Egg Donation is Right For You?
Knowing if fertility treatment is right for you can be challenging, especially with the amount of information you receive during the research process. What is more, there’s also the emotional struggles we can experience when coming to terms with needing assistance in the first place. Even though fertility treatment is often successful, it’s still a tense process.
If you’re in a position where you need to decide how to proceed, it can be overwhelming to know what’s best. We’ve been taught that we should continue our genetics through having children, so when we can’t include both or one half of our DNA, we can feel that the child isn’t ours. Although arguably a natural reaction, choosing to use another persons’ sperm and/or egg is a brilliant means of allowing you to experience childbearing and birth for yourself.
Taking a look at egg donation specifically, it’s vital to identify the pros and cons of choosing this method. When it comes to any form of medical procedure, thorough research is necessary. However, when it comes to the future of your potential family, it becomes even more vital to understand what you’re agreeing to.
Pros of Egg Donation
The most obvious positive of using an egg donor is that you’re able to experience pregnancy firsthand. For some individuals, carrying a baby full term isn’t an important part of becoming a parent, while for others, it’s the only way they can foresee having a family. By choosing to childbear, you’re able to have an effect on your child before it’s even born, an element of parenting you don’t get when you adopt a child.
In addition to the physical sensations that go into becoming pregnant, egg donation also allows you to pass on your partners’ genetics. For some individuals, they prefer the idea of continuing their partners’ biological line over their own; you’re still both involved all the way, but you’ve been able to tailor the genetic impact you have on your unborn child.
Cons of Egg Donation
Keeping in mind the use of your partners’ sperm, we come to a potential con of using an egg donor: your genetics aren’t passed on in the same way. For some childbearers, this idea is an incredibly difficult one to process and come to terms with, which is likely where reservations stem from. In female same sex couples where you donate your egg to your partner, one of you will have a biological connection greater than the other, which again can cause friction.
Alongside the above, there’s also the chance that you won’t get pregnant first time. This is a risk for anyone during fertility treatment, so it’s important to remind yourself that despite using healthy donors and fulfilling all the fertility treatment needs, you can still experience disappointment. As a result, you need to be mentally and physically prepared to spend time and money on trying to make childbearing a reality for you.
The pros and cons discussed here are by no means the only ones to consider, however, they’re arguably the most important to talk through before making a decision.
*This is a collaborative post*
