Is Egg Donation Painful?

There have always been differing opinions on egg donation. Some think that egg donation is quite painful and causes great damage to a woman’s health, but some online ads recruiting egg donors claim that donation is like a win-win situation, with donors giving the gift of life to another family and getting plenty of money for it.

However, most people are still unclear whether the process of egg donation is painful or not. This article will talk about the main steps in egg donation, and include a real story about an egg donor.

Four steps in the egg-donation process

Basically, egg donation can be divided into four steps: Matching, Injections, Ultrasound, and Retrieval Procedure and Recovery.

Matching

Not every woman can be an egg donor, since there are lots of strict requirements for donating eggs.

Age is the one of the most important factors. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine recommends that donors’ ages must be between 21 and 34, since women’s fertility starts to decline after age 34. Also, egg donors must go through screening for HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. Once a woman meets all the health requirements, she may become an egg donor.

Injection

Egg donors have to take lots of injections during the donation process, including getting blood work done during medical screening, and receiving injections every day in her cycle. Egg donors usually take injections for roughly 21 days, with the injections given in the abdomen, upper thigh, or buttocks.

Ultrasound

While women get their daily injections, they also have to have vaginal ultrasounds, which can measure follicle size and count. The clinic can find out the number of eggs available and how many of them are mature. This is a critical step during the donation and can help keep hormone levels at a certain level to help donors produce eggs of high quality and quantity.

Retrieval Procedure and Recovery

The egg-retrieval procedure is the quickest part of the process and takes only 15-25 minutes. The whole process is under general anesthesia, so donors don’t feel a thing during the retrieval.

Many people think this process is really dangerous. However, although getting eggs out of the body is complicated, it is low-risk, with only a 1% risk of bleeding and infection.

Story of egg donor, Gina Marie

Gina Marie is a four-time egg donor and has always been asked whether the process is painful or not. She tells us her feeling about this special experience.

She says that whether women experience pain or not depends on the woman’s own pain tolerance, her body’s response to the medications, and the dosage of medicine. For example, when she took her injections during the first donation, she had a mild burning sensation. But she had a totally different experience when she took injections during the next three donations.

When it came to the retrieval procedure, she felt quite groggy and had a dull pressure in her lower abdominal area. Although she did not feel much pain, she still got pain medicine. After that, she spent some time in bed to recover from the donation.

In all, egg donation is not pain-free and it quite depends on the individual’s pain tolerance. Most women feel some cramping and bloating, similar to PMS symptoms. The Angel Heart Surrogacy Agency provides guidance and various professional services to each of their egg donors.