Yesterday I wrote about my appearance on The Surrogacy Lawyer,  which is a radio show hosted by Theresa Erickson Esq.  The show centers around building families the “non-traditional” way – whether through IVF, egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation, or surrogacy.

What I like about “The Surrogacy Lawyer” is that the show focus’s on all parties that may be involved – whether you are an egg donor, sperm donor, surrogate, embryo donor or a prospective parent.

It was really fun participating yesterday – when we took on the issue of the rights of egg donors, and explored the new documentary “Eggsploitation”.  I was really flattered that the segment was inspired by a series of blogs that I did on the subject that inspired a very vibrant Facebook debate!

If you missed the broadcast yesterday – you can listen now via the pod cast! Don’t you love technology?  Click Here To Listen To The Pod Cast “Who Is Looking Out For The Egg Donor”

Are you interested in the blogs that inspired the debate?

Gird Your Loins and Hold Onto Your Ovaries!

Egg Donation From a Different Perspective

What’s Your Egg Donation Agenda

Do you want to join in on the conversation? You can leave a comment here – but I encourage you to “friend me” on Facebook at PamelaMadsen – or just click the Facebook icon on the page to get connected to me! Inside Facebook – we are are having lots of ongoing conversations about this and so much more! Looking forward to talking with you on line!!!

Posted under "Eggsploitation", Egg Donation, Egg Donor Compensation, IVF, In Vitro Fertilization, Infertility, egg donors

The Surrogacy Lawyer Radio

Program- Thursdays at 11am PDT or

2pm EST

Amy Demma, Prospective Families; Andrea Bryman, LMFT; and Pamela Madsen, The Fertility Advocate: The Eggsploitation Controversy

The filmmakers promote it as “the fertility industry’s dirty little secret.” In the trailer, several former egg donors describe horrific experiences resulting in permanent health damages and how they were lured into making poor decisions with offers of hard to resist compensation. The music, ironically scored by the group Thieves and Liars, is dark and foreboding, reminiscent of a horror film. And the name of the documentary – Eggsploitation – implies its intentions, which is to let the world know about the “trade” in human eggs and “older women with money targeting younger women.”
So is this documentary a wake-up call for the infertility field or is it a narrow-minded attempt to push an agenda, with the truth lying somewhere between the hyperbole and the criticism? The Surrogacy Lawyer Theresa Erickson will explore these issues on Thursday, September 2.

Ms. Erickson will be interviewing three leading infertility and collaborative reproductive specialists, including Andrea Bryman, LMFT, a marriage and family therapist specializing in egg donation and surrogate assessment and support; Amy Demma, a New York attorney and founder of Prospective Families Egg Donation Agency; and Pamela Madsen, infertility blogger and patient advocate who wrote several posts about the movie on her blog The Fertility Advocate that steamrolled into a lively Facebook discussion.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to move the robust discussion that started on Facebook into the real-time, interactive realm of radio, “ says attorney Erickson. “As a former egg donor during college and now as a third party reproduction professional who has dedicated my career to this field, I want to insure that the absolute best practices are established for the welfare of both egg donors and parents via egg donation. So regardless of the public’s or field’s perceptions of the documentary, I am glad we have this chance to move the discussion forward.

CLICK HERE TO TUNE IN:

Posted under "Eggsploitation", Egg Donation

It has been an interesting few days in the world of social media and fertility.  Inside the pages of Facebook, we have continued our discussions about egg donation – focusing on the education of the egg donor and the documentary “Eggsploitation: The Fertility Industry Has a Dirty Little Secret”.

Everyone seems to agree that we have a huge void in egg donor education – with conversations running from what is truly informed consent, to the lack of support that is given to books that try to educate the consumer on egg donation. There seems to be lots of information for the couple who needs egg donation – so why not the egg donor?

And then the question becomes who is the best qualified and the most unbiased when it comes to  egg donor education and information? Does anybody not have a horse in this race? Let’s break down all of the stake holders and my list is not a ranking!

1. Infertile couples who need donor eggs to build their families (which by the way includes people of all races and ethnicity, plus every  social economic group.  Women who need egg donation are not simply rich women looking to exploit poor women as Eggsploitation’s expert on the trailer which  is show cased on their website  says with conviction (Yes – that really raised the feathers on the back of my neck!).

2. Egg donors

3. Reproductive Endocrinologists and other  fertility medical experts such nurses, therapists and embryologists  who supply the services that make donor egg a possibility.

4. Pharmaceutical companies who supply the medications that produce the abundance of eggs needed for egg donation.

5. Egg Donation Agencies who are often chosen by the infertile couples over IVF Centers as a source for donor eggs.

6. Reproductive Medicine Attorney’s who help with contracts, legal issues, and sometimes are in the egg donation business.

7. Patient Associations who represent not only the consumer – but are often supported by stake holders in the fertility field.

8. Professional Associations – Whose membership consist of many of the stakeholders.

9.  Right to Life Groups who don’t want embryos created and possibly discarded. These groups often view outlawing any form of IVF as an important bridge to outlawing abortion.

10. Angry former patients – this group includes former and current egg donors, and individuals who used donor egg -  who feel that they were not given informed consent or where things just went sour. Regret is a powerful emotion.

11. Politicians who want to appeal to certain voting demographics.

12. The Media – who love a good story to tell.

13. Centers or Committees on Ethics and Public Policy,  Certified Health educators, and Government offices – These groups are often filled with folks who think they need to keep the rest of us “safe”.

14. Parents, friends  and advocates of the children created through donor egg.

15. Parents, friends and advocates of egg donors.

16. Fertility Consultants: people who have made a career out of guiding people who are trying to conceive and work with all the stake holders.

17. Happy, and Satisfied Patients who have often have nothing but good things to say about their experiences. This group also includes egg donors and recipient individuals.

I don’t know about you – but to me it looks like there are a lot of horses in this race – and every one has an agenda. That is simply a reality.  Does that make the points of view that come through each lens invalid?  I don’t think so – but I think it is good to know where your information is coming from and to take the information in knowing each agenda.

What’s my agenda? I would like for this conversation around the education of egg donors to continue. I think it is past time. The fact sheet that I wanted to develop is ancient history (yeah, I am still angry).

Perhaps the answer is not to look for unbiased information – because perhaps that simply does not exist.  Right now – I just would vote for information to be created and for folks to know who is supplying it! If “Eggsploitation” does one thing for this community filled with passionate, caring people from every corner – it may be to get all of us to wake up, load our horses into the gate and go!

Posted under "Eggsploitation", "Google Baby", Donor Egg, Egg Donation, Egg Donor Compensation, Facebook, Fertility, Fertility Blogs, Fertility Coach, IVF, Infertility, Infertility Consultants, Infertility Funding, Long Awaited Children, egg donors, eggs

A colleague of mine sent me a link to “Eggsploitation: The Fertility Industry Has a Dirty Little Secret” late last night – her email simply had the link – and word “WOW”.

I sat watching with my mouth looking like a bass fish  – open and gaping – as several young women told their horrifying story of being an egg donor in the United States. They spoke of feeling enticed by the money into donating their eggs – the poor explanations of what they could experience – and the tragedy of the complications that they unexpectedly faced as egg donors. The trailers on the website are riveting – and appalling.

It is certainly not a view – that recipient couples, egg donor coordinators, fertility specialists, and egg donor agencies will likely be comfortable seeing. But does that make it any less valid an exploration?

That is the struggle that those of us who live inside the fertility “industry” really have to grapple with.  So often – when these types of images of the fertility field are presented – we shout “foul play”! We pound our chests – and blog our hearts out about how unfair the media is to our field. You can hear us shout that
the entire story is never told – that the world of infertility is highly sensationalized  and distorted in order to sell magazines – or this evening news story.

Quite frankly – there is a great deal of truth in that opinion and outrage.  Frankly – even in the title of the documentary – calling the experience of egg donors a “dirty little secret’ is beyond over of the top. But the producers of the film  are marketing a documentary! If there is no dirty little secret – why buy a ticket?

And there will be people who will watch the clips – and perhaps even go see the documentary – who will come out drawing an analogy of these young women to aviation safety records – “You know – airplanes land safely every day across the country – thousands of them – and you never hear about that! But if ONE plane goes down – boy does that make the news!”  That’s because there is tragedy when even one airplane goes down – and we need to hear about it.

That is how I feel about “Eggsploitation” even where it fails in it’s own sensationalism. I am still wanting to hear the stories of these young women. It’s that important.  Look -  I didn’t like the trailer featuring the “experts” who said that egg donation is about rich older women taking advantage of younger women with good eggs. That is really horse shit – and shows a complete lack of understanding about the women who need donor egg.  I have never met a woman who needs donor eggs who is anything but grateful to donors. And the majority of the women who need donor egg are not rich.  That characterization was frankly wrong and horrifying – and in my mind brings down the messages that perhaps “Eggsploitation” is trying to get out.

We have to be very, very careful – with the young women who step up to donate their eggs.  We need to be careful about donor compensation being so high that young women feel enticed. We have to do a better job educating donors about the risks of egg donation – no matter how good everyone in the fertility field feels they are already doing it – we will have to do it better. These young women are making what I call “life time decisions” when they decide to donate their eggs. Even when their cycles go perfectly well (and most of them do) – these young women are giving up their genetic material forever – and exposing their bodies to a lot of unknowns in the process at a very young age.  That is simply real.

And we all have to cop to the fact – that no matter how careful we are – no matter how much time is spent – and how carefully these young women are consented and educated in the best of circumstances – people make all kinds of informed  decisions – for all kinds of reasons.

And sometimes – things just don’t go as planned.  And all we are left with is regret, pain and anger.

Posted under Egg Donation, Egg Donor Compensation, Fertility, egg donors, eggs, infertiity