Hello!

I thought that I would reply to your question since I just donated some eggs for the first time this past Monday. The above response is exactly what'll happen. I just want to warn anybody who's considering it that there are a few things to be aware of. The doctors doing the retrieval probably won't tell you just how bad the after effects are because they probably don't want to scare you out of doing it. The self-injections weren't so bad, not even the retrieval itself. But afterward you'll experience some bad cramping, which in my case vicoden didn't even help. The next day my bloating was so bad that I looked 4 months pregnant. That night I ended up in the ER because I was freaked out about the symptoms since the doctors didn't explain how extreme they could be. Everything ended up fine, but morphine didn't even help me with the pain I was dealing with. I was told that this is a relatively new field in the medical world, so there isn't an explanation for everything. Your body does go through a lot of stress during this process, and it does take a few months. Also keep in mind that women are born with a set number of eggs, so if you want to have kids of your own one day, you should take that into consideration. Oh yeah, one more thing. You might get extremely constipated, to the point that you are in such pain it gets a little harder to breathe. I can't tell you how many laxatives I took, none of which helped. I think that was one of the more painful experiences I've dealt with in my life... worse than the dislocated rib I had for two weeks. Make sure you ask the doctors about every little detail, including what you should and should not eat, and also consider the laxatives before the process so that you don't get stopped up later on. One more thing and then I'm done: You might have misread the compensation amount for egg donation, because $25,000 is usually what surrogate moms get. Egg donation gets you anywhere from $3,000-$8,000.

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Hi Alice,

As a 3rd time egg donor. I have to say for me the hardest part is after the retrieval. Having very healthy ovaries I often "hyper extend" or hyper stimulate, which leaves me severally bloated, nauseated and due to all the swelling, short of breath. It takes me at least 4 to 5 days to feel normal. I feel this topic should be discussed more often so if women happen to experience this they are not afraid or caught off guard.