By Kanina Foss
Egg and sperm; the two essentials for the creation of human life. The ingredients cannot be altered, there are no clever substitutes.
For couples who are missing one of the ingredients, donors help to make their dreams of creating life possible.
They do it for people they'll never meet, and bring about happiness they'll never share. They, says Jenny Currie, founder of egg donation agency, baby2mom, are angels.
Using donor eggs is one of the options available to women with early menopause, or poor ovarian reserves; women who are not falling pregnant despite repeated in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments; or women whose ovaries have been removed, or damaged by chemotherapy.
Eggs from a healthy woman also enable a couple to have a healthy baby where there may be a risk of passing on a genetically-transferred disease.
The first successful egg donation was done in Australia in 1984. In South Africa, the procedure was first performed in 1986.
Donors and recipients are matched by their physical characteristics, so couples have the choice to keep the story of their child's conception secret. Because the male partner's sperm is used to fertilise the egg, the child born has half the parents' genetic material.
But despite the advantages, the decision to have a child using a donor egg is not an easy one.
Jean* faced a high risk of an abnormal pregnancy so egg donation seemed the logical step.
"Pregnancy was an experience I did not want to miss out on and carrying the baby to term was important."
But the idea of using someone else's DNA to create her child, was a psychological hurdle. She said she had to weigh the desire to have a healthy, successful pregnancy against the knowledge that her child would not be a combination of her and her husband.
"Both people in the relationship should be accepting and supportive of this choice, and secure in the knowledge that their child will be loved unconditionally, no matter whose genes, looks or mannerisms they may have," she says.
Currie says couples who accept egg donations see it as a gift "once it is given, it becomes yours".
But, for donors, it can be difficult to divorce themselves emotionally from what they may see as a potential baby, says Mbali Mkhize, founder of egg donation agency, Egg Donation South Africa.
They need to be screened to ensure they will be able to cope with psychological aspects of what they are doing, and to minimise the risk that they'll change their minds halfway through the procedure.
"We don't want a donor to pull out in the middle of a cycle. Each procedure costs between R30 000 and R60 000 so it's a huge financial burden for the recipient. We want donors who know what they're getting into," says Mkhize.
Some donors do it for money (by law, donors receive at least R5 000 compensation). Others just want to help. "They feel honoured to be able to help in such a special way," says Currie.
Sarah* has donated eggs twice for the same couple.
"The thought of giving someone else the opportunity of having children was my motivation, and the money was just an added bonus," says Sarah, who has two children of her own.
"The first time it was a bit scary, but second time I knew what to expect, and didn't find it painful or difficult. The end result is a great feeling.?
Sarah said she had found it easy to separate herself emotionally. "It was just my eggs; they are not my children, I did not give birth to them," she says.
Before a donor is accepted they have to have a medical evaluation and sign a consent form giving up any rights or responsibility for a child which may be born.
Currie says the donor may know the profile of the couple she is donating to, and they may know hers, but names are never exchanged.
The menstrual cycles of the donor and recipient are aligned, and the donor is given injections to stimulate egg production. Not all eggs will be fertilised, and not all fertilised eggs will continue to grow, so it is necessary to stimulate egg production to give the recipient the best possible chance of pregnancy.
Mkhize said the most memorable case her agency had handled was of a woman who had had 15 unsuccessful IVF treatments using her own eggs, before she finally fell pregnant using an egg donation.
Many of the agency's clients come from countries overseas including the US, UK and Germany because the procedure is much cheaper here.
Also, egg donation is illegal in Germany, and in the UK, a law has been passed giving children over the age of 18 a legal right to find their genetic mothers.
This is unacceptable to some parents who don?t want to have to disclose to their children that they were conceived through egg donation, Mkhize said.
For Sarah, the most important thing is that the child is loved. If she were to meet the couple she helped to become parents she would say to them: "Love your baby like you have never loved before, and thank you for letting me be a part of giving you the most precious gift in the world."
For more information go to: baby2momor eggdonationsouthafrica
* Not their real names