Though painless and quick, the 45-minute procedure was life threatening, she says. She was weak and could not stand on her own. She was given antibiotics.
Third day after the surgery, she felt her body was rejecting everything she tried to put into it.
She had developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and needed to have a procedure to drain all the excess fluid from her abdominal cavity.
She went back to the hospital and the fluid was drained; a suction cup was inserted into her vagina that sucked the liquid out.
“I felt better and, from then, I swore never to do it again. I think my body can only survive one egg donation and I would never do it again because of money. That was physically painful,” she says.
The same case applied to Monica Nyasukuta (not her real name). Last year, she had no one to turn to when she needed a bailout, fortunately, or unfortunately, when she sought help from her gynaecologist friend, she was advised to go and donate eggs.
Since she was clutching at straws, she had no option but to sign up to donate eggs. It was such a risky and top-secret experience that she only confided in her closest friend.
“She doesn’t like to talk about it,” her friend recounts.
She had a series of tests to confirm her viability to donate eggs. She made the cut and the process began. It earned her Sh80,000 that temporarily put a smile on her face.
“She signed a few legal documents that bound her never to go back to the clinic asking for her egg, and she left.”
The hospital only keeps tabs when complications related to the procedure arise. If not, it lets go of the girl with “it was nice doing business with you” written on their faces.
“Egg donors still take on medical risks: Women can suffer subsequent health problems, most commonly ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), in which the ovaries swell too much, causing fluid to leak into the abdomen and chest. This can be fatal,” says Dr Paul Mitei, a gynaecologist and obstetrician.
Other symptoms include bloating, weight gain, nausea and, in rare severe cases, blood clots and kidney failure.
He says that before retrieval is done, a donor is first given an oral birth control pill for 21 days to stabilise the egg donor’s (ED) hormones and make it possible to time other medications. This causes breast tenderness, temporary weight gain, mood changes, missed periods and decreased libido.
She is then placed on steroids to suppress some hormones in donors with polycystic ovaries (PCO) for a week. Then they are later placed on follicle-stimulating hormones to stimulate and mature the eggs that will be donated. “The hormones have serious side-effects to the young girls including headache, temporary weight gain, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (rare), multiple gestations (rare), ectopic (tubal) pregnancy (rare), ovarian twisting and injection site skin reactions. If done continuously, it might interfere with their fertility,” he said
The donors are then given injections of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone antagonist to prevent premature release of hormones during the cycle; prevents ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and human chorionic gonadotrophin, a trigger shot to (36-40 hours before retrieval) fully mature the eggs before they are retrieved
Finally, before retrieval, they are given two small injections of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone agonists to stop the production of some fertility hormones — this allows the donor to donate a good number of high-quality eggs.
This is followed by antibiotics to decrease the risk of infection during egg retrieval.
“Egg retrieval is always performed under ultrasound guidance. However, there is always a risk that a needle may puncture surrounding tissue or organs causing injury, bleeding and/or infection. Some of the hormones given to the young women are too strong for them and might [not] be necessary at their age,” he said.
“No one can say exactly what will happen if you donate your eggs because there’s not much research into the long-term health risks egg donors may face,” says Dr Diane Tober, who studied egg donors.
There have been reported cases of OHSS (which can be life-threatening), ovarian torsion, blood clots, development of long-term health problems, infertility and, according to some researchers, even cancer.
In October, arguing that egg donation “carries the same risks as other surgical procedures involving anaesthesia,” the San Francisco civil-rights lawyer MonaLisa Wallace petitioned the US Justice Department to crack down on “the illegal egg-trafficking industry.”
In a website of support and advocacy groups known as We Are Egg Donors, donors have found the donation process to be physically painful, emotionally jarring or both.
Some donors find the experience, which involves hormone injections for 10 days or more until a doctor pierces the vaginal wall with thick needles to suck out the extra eggs, produced differs greatly from the marketing.
“There’s a huge lack of data there to help women to make informed decisions. This is a big problem, simply because, people are making decisions that could affect their future health, well-being, and their ability to have children,” Dr Tober said.
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