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Why nothing’s as subtly sexy as going backless

Katy, Donna and Emma did just that. Here they explain the very personal reasons behind their selflessness

By Jill Foster

THERE is a letter, written last year, that Katy Bond will treasure for ever. She doesn’t know the author’s name or address but gets a warm, fuzzy feeling reading it. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve read,’ says Katy, a 34-year-old nurse from Eastbourne. ‘The woman said no matter the outcome, I’d given her a gift of hope.

‘She said she would always be able to carry that hope forward, and simply knowing that there were women like me who were willing to help other women had restored her faith in humanity. Every now and again I read it and know I’ve done the right thing. In fact, that’s why I’m doing it again.’

It’s hardly surprising the anonymous woman felt compelled to write. For Katy had given her the greatest gift of all: the chance to have a baby.

A month before, in February 2020, Katy had donated her eggs to the stranger, for no other reason than to help another woman experience the joys of motherhood.

Egg donation — the retrieval of a woman’s eggs to be fertilised with sperm and create an embryo for another woman to get

‘I wanted to help women who longed for a child but couldn’t afford IVF’

pregnant — was pioneered in the early 1980s in America. Men can donate sperm easily, but the process is much more complex for women, involving fertility drugs and a retrieval procedure under sedation.

While some consider it an act of admirable selflessness, others raise concerns about possible health risks — in very rare cases, women develop ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a serious and potentially dangerous reaction to fertility drugs.

Then there is the future impact of never knowing the biological children produced from your eggs unless they choose to track you down after the age of 18, when they are legally entitled to do so.

And there is the ethical issue of private clinics benefiting financially from the self-sacrifice of donors.

Yet egg donation is increasingly popular. At least 1,877 egg donor registrations were made in 2019, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. That figure is almost a third higher than a decade ago.

According to a report from De Montfort University, across Europe about 7 per cent of all IVF treatment cycles now involve egg donation. This equates to 70,000 IVF treatment cycles, resulting in around 21,000 births a year.

Some of those women will have donated to someone they know, such as a friend or family member. Others do so through schemes offering cut-price infertility treatment in return for donating eggs.

In some countries, including America, women can be paid thousands of pounds for their eggs, particularly if they have desirable traits such as good looks and a high IQ. But in the UK it is illegal to be paid for donating your eggs: women receive no more than £750 in expenses for travel and time off work for each donation.

Katy is one of hundreds who donate to strangers they will never meet, for no personal gain.

Now specialist agencies such as Altrui, which Katy used, help recipients find a perfect donor, giving them exclusive use of that donation so they can have genetic siblings for the baby if they wish.

Katy is married to Thom, 34, a theatre technician, and they have three children: Paige, eight; Arthur, six; and Toby, four. She first inquired about donating eggs before she became a mother herself.

‘I was haunted by a fear of infertility, so I wanted to do something to help someone in that situation,’ she says. ‘I rang the clinic but back then it was harder to donate your eggs. I kept having to chase them up. They never got back to me.’

Once she’d had her own children, ten years later she contacted Altrui, inspired by a relative who was struggling with infertility.

‘I couldn’t help her as her eggs were fine,’ says Katy. ‘But I mentioned donating eggs to Thom. He was supportive and we went to counselling [clinics are required by law to offer this]. The counsellor asked us to think about how Thom would feel if a half-sibling of our children showed up one day.’

Altrui finds donors, through advertising, to match the specific requirements of recipients. They collect 16 eggs on average, with any additional frozen embryos providing the later opportunity for genetically related siblings.

The service costs the recipient £3,300, which covers finding a donor, initial screening, the matching process, provision of detailed non-identifying information about the donor and ongoing support of the donor through treatment.

Katy undertook various blood and genetic tests, provided childhood pictures and filled in profile forms about her sense of humour, temperament and hobbies. She was then matched with a single woman in her 40s.

‘She apparently looks like me,’ says Katy. ‘But that’s all I know.’

The process can take three to four weeks, as the donor has to have daily injections for ten to 14 days to stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs.

Dr Raj Mathur, chair of the British Fertility Society and spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says: ‘Before donating their eggs, each person will go through health tests, and counselling to ensure they are completely comfortable with their decision.

‘There is a risk someone will react excessively to the fertility drugs used, which in rare cases can lead to women developing

ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Every potential donor will have an ovarian reserve test, which helps to determine the correct dose of medication and minimise the risk of OHSS.’

For the egg extraction, a sterile needle is inserted into the vagina wall to reach the ovary, guided by ultrasound. The eggs are removed, then placed in a petri dish in special fluid. They are manipulated with live sperm to create an embryo.

Luca Sabatini, consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician and chief medical officer for Altrui, says: ‘We normally have around 70 per cent chance of fertilising the eggs, and after day five we assess them for viability.’

The patient will normally return home about an hour and a half after treatment, and is advised to take a couple of days off work. She may experience soreness and a little bleeding.

Within two weeks she should be back to her normal cycle — use of contraception is advised, as she will be highly fertile. It is not thought that egg donation will adversely affect your own fertility.

Katy was sedated for the procedure at a clinic, but says it took only about half an hour. ‘I felt a real buzz to know they had extracted 22 follicles [which contain immature eggs] — a good number — and they ended up with 12 fertilised eggs.

Of the recipient, she says: ‘Sadly, her round of treatment failed and I suspect she hasn’t tried again, perhaps due to the pandemic, her age or the cost of treatment. But if she wants, there are 11 eggs left. If she never uses them, they can be used for research.’

Now, Katy is donating for another couple. If successful, she will have a biological child — or children — somewhere in the world. Donors have no legal claim on those children, as in law what defines you as a ‘mother’ is the act of giving birth.

‘I’d be fine with them tracking me down when they’re adults,’ says Katy. ‘While we might develop a bond, those bonds are different between two adults, rather than an adult and a child. I’ll be honest with my own children. If a baby is born, I’m allowed to know the month and year, so I can say to my kids: “If you meet someone romantically and they’re born in this month and year, it might be worth taking a DNA test, just in case.” ’

But she adds: ‘The chances of that are so slim. I went into this with my eyes open and I’m more than happy to think that, one day, a biological child of mine will be making someone very happy.’

Donna Lambert, 34, feels the same. The stay-at-home mother of two has donated her eggs four times in the past seven years and knows that three babies have been born as a result. Poignantly, it was the loss of her own child that inspired her.

‘I got pregnant with my daughter Madison in February 2011 and at 12 weeks, I discovered there was a genetic problem,’ says Donna, who is now single and lives in Wickford, Essex.

‘I was told the problems she might have could be severe but I didn’t care, I knew I’d love her whatever she had. Then at 18 weeks I went for a scan and Madison’s heart had stopped beating. I was devastated — but that was the driving force behind me wanting to donate my eggs.’

Donna contacted CARE clinic in Nottingham, which offered one-to-one donation. ‘I had no idea if I’d even be eligible after losing a baby, but a genetics consultant confirmed that Madison’s issues were not hereditary.

‘They talked me through the risks, but I knew I’d be so well monitored I wasn’t worried. I wanted to help someone have a family and stop them going through the same pain I did when I had my late miscarriage.

Donna’s first egg collection was in 2014, when the clinic collected 16 eggs. She did it again in 2015, 2017 and 2018, and believes that about 30 eggs in total have been collected. Twin boys were born in 2014 from the first donation. Another boy was born in 2015 — she believes to the same family — from the second collection.

‘The twins were born about a month before my eldest child, Beau. I was so happy,’ she says. ‘I’d have loved twins myself.

‘My daughter Amelie came along in 2016 and I decided to donate twice more. I don’t know if any babies have been born as a result, although I could find out if I wanted. The recipients can find out things about me — my height, weight, etc — but I wasn’t told anything about them.’

Donna says she would be happy to donate again, but the clinic says tests show her egg reserve levels are now too low to be viable. The law states that no more than ten families can be created from one egg donor.

How does she feel about the fact that she has biological children she’s never met?

‘I’d love to know what they look like and if they are similar to me,’ she says. ‘I know there are three children — possibly more — out there who are biologically mine but I don’t think of them as “sons”. They are someone else’s children. I’ll tell my own children when they are old enough to understand.’

For Emma Hore, it was becoming a mum to her own first child, Ellie, that made her want to make another woman as happy.

‘When Ellie was about 18 months old, I saw a programme about infertility and it made me really emotional to think I’d been so lucky while others were struggling,’ says Emma, 24, a student nurse from Saltash, Cornwall.

‘I wanted to help women who longed for a baby, but couldn’t afford to pay thousands to a private specialist clinic. I contacted my local NHS fertility clinic and the nurse said she very rarely got women offering donations.

‘My partner William was supportive. I was a little nervous that the procedure might affect my own fertility, but I was reassured that the risk was very low.’

Emma underwent ten months of tests including blood tests, HIV and STI checks, and mandatory counselling. She underwent the procedure in February 2019, which resulted in 11 fertilised eggs for one recipient. She says she felt bloated but was back to herself ‘within a couple of days’.

Two weeks later, she was told her recipient had received a positive pregnancy test. Unfortunately, the fertility clinic closed down soon afterwards and she has been unable to trace whether it resulted in a live birth.

‘I really hope it did,’ she says. ‘I got pregnant again two months later myself with Emelia, so we may have children of the same age. But I’ll never see her child as my own. I have simply given another woman the tools she needs to be a mother.’

‘I know there are three boys out there who are biologically mine’

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