CN8 News – Egg Donation

With offices in Short Hills, Somerset, Freehold, and Hamilton, New Jersey, IVF New Jersey is a premier fertility center using the latest techniques for egg donation to help patients overcome infertility. Our donor coordinator, Helane Rosenberg, matches egg donors with recipients. To date, our egg donation program has matched donors to 14,000 recipients.

Welcome back to CN8 News at 7, I am Kevin Walsh and I am Arthur Fennell and we continue this half hour with an indepth report on the bussiness of babies. Earlier this year, we brought you a special report on in vitro fertilization. Well now we are take a look at the often controversial subject of egg donation that is when a young woman provides eggs to help an infertile couple concieve. CN8 Emily Ryan has this candid report on one woman story. Doctor visits have become routine for this 22-year-old college student. She is not sick. In fact, her health is so good she is in demand as an egg donor helping couples conceive. “A lot of people look at it and be like it is just about the money, like you are just selling eggs, and I hate to think of it that way.” Lisa takes home $7000 each time she undergones the rigorous hormone preparation and surgery to retreive her eggs. “I have always said that it is so much money and I would do it for so much less because it is really about the people and I do not know that I would go into surgery for absolutely no money because you never know what is going to happen.” Which is why critics worrry what if any longterm effects young women may experience as more infertile couples turn to egg donation. “Essentially the father is a genetic father of these children. The mother although not the genetic mother of this child is pregnant from the moment of conception in either her embroys.” This woman who asked we can seal her identifty came to IVF New Jersey desparte for a second child using egg donation at age 47. She gave birth to a boy. “We have this little soul running around who is just so absolutely amazing who absolutely completes our family and I cannot even begin to image a life without him.” Helane Rosenberg not only matches donors and recipients but became the first ever egg recipient in New Jersey. Her twins now 13 years old. “To judge people without knowing it, really inferiorates me. I think it is very important to know that we are very careful. I wouldn’t have wanted my donor to be in it only for the money and I would never match somebody with that kind of donor. It just wouldn’t be the right thing to do, be immoral and unethilical.” Practices vary, some clincs allow donors and recipients to meet but at the IVF New Jersey, patient see only written profiles and pictures of the donors when they were kids. It is strictly anonymous. “It is definitely a sacrifice and really have incredible gratitude to the donor.” As for this donor, she wants a child of her own some day meantime. “It makes me really happy to think about that there could someone potentially be having their child now because of something I was able to do for them but aside from that aspect I don’t wonder what they are like or what they look like or if they look me. They are not my child, there is just some of my DNA.” In New Jersey Emily Ryan, CN8 News. IVF New Jersey launched its egg donation program back in 1992 and since then he has had 14000 recipients.