Sex Cells by Rene Almeling

Author:Rene Almeling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2011-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

“HELPING OTHERS”

About a fifth of the donors started out with a very different motivation: they were primarily interested in helping recipients have children. In comparison to donors who were “in it for the money,” these donors were at a different point in their lives, more likely to be married, to have children, and to be financially comfortable. All five sperm donors in this category were salaried professionals, and all started donating at older ages. The three egg donors were a little more heterogeneous in terms of employment; one was a music teacher, another was a housewife, and the third occasionally worked in part-time clerical positions.

The donors who signed on to help others were also more likely to be close with someone who had experienced infertility. Lisa, a twenty-six-year-old mother of two young children, decided to become a donor when she learned that her mother was using IVF to start a new family. “I have a tubal ligation, and I don’t want any more kids. I figure I’m young, and I’m making good eggs. I might as well give them to somebody who could use them. I’m just kind of a philanthropic person anyway. I like to donate money or clothes or what have you to different organizations. This is just kind of like the ultimate gift you can give to somebody.”

Two donors had experienced infertility in their own marriages. After having three children with her husband, Rosa had a tubal ligation in her early twenties. However, when he died in a car accident, she remarried and went through almost two years of medical procedures to have a child with her new husband. Rosa described flipping through a magazine while waiting for an optometrist’s appointment with her children when an ad “popped up” at her, asking, “Do you want to help a family that can’t have children?” She called the egg agency, and over the course of the next several years, she twice donated eggs and once served as a surrogate mother.

Evincing a similar empathy, Ryan, a forty-year-old engineer whose wife had difficulty conceiving their daughter, decided to switch from being a regular blood donor to being a regular sperm donor.

We knew that [my wife] had some previous problems and maybe couldn’t get pregnant. She did actually get pregnant shortly after we got married, but it was a miscarriage. We tried later and had a little girl. I just started thinking about it, the joy, the loss of our child, and not being able to have a child. I understand what some of these couples might be going through, but I also understood when a miracle does happen. That’s kind of why I decided to do [sperm donation], just to kind of help others. To be honest, the money from the little donation does help out, and we decided we’d use it toward my daughter’s [education fund]. So every check we get, we deposit it into that account.

Being interested in helping recipients does not preclude appreciating the income from donation. Ryan

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