Megan comes from a single-parent household with four siblings and a mother who makes less than $20,000 a year. She’s a Medill senior who works three jobs. As she nears graduation with around $2000 in credit card debt, Megan — which is not, by the way, her real name — is considering egg donation as a means to obtain a financial cushion for herself in the future.

If you’ve ever thought, “Sure, I could use an extra $10,000,” Megan’s potential solution to her financial dilemma may not come as a shock to you. Egg donation is a growing industry in the United States and college women, especially well-educated girls like those at Northwestern, are highly sought-after donors. Women can receive thousands of dollars for undergoing the procedure just one time, which is a powerful incentive to cash-strapped college students and those worried about their financial stability.

“It gets tiring, living from paycheck to paycheck,” Megan says of her desire for financial security.

Megan first learned about egg donation from a friend at work. The friend, a DePaul student, earned $7000 and was able to take her sister on a trip to Europe and pay for Lasik eye surgery.

If Megan decides to donate, she plans to use the money to pay off bills and help family members, like her sister, who moved home to help support her family. “She is working more than 40 hours a week and is a full time student…it’s not just about the cold hard cash, it’s more what I would be able to do for her,” says Megan.

Ads around Chicago appeal to both the financial and emotional incentives for egg donation. “The few, the proud, the egg donors,” reads an ad on the Chicago El. A Facebook advertisement available to Northwestern women and sponsored by the Chicago donor matching service Conceivablities reads, “We can compensate you but never repay you. Earn up to $10,000 for your participation. Make a donation. Make a difference.”

Improvements in egg donor services in recent years may ease the decision for some women. Many services are striving to better meet the physical, emotional and legal needs of donors. Nazca Fontes founded Conceiveabilities, a Chicago-based egg donor matching agency, 13 years ago after recognizing room for improvement in the growing infertility industry. Fontes began her career working in the labs of infertility clinics and later donated eggs herself, yet saw plenty of room for improvement in the system. “I have licensed mental health professionals on staff offering support, I make sure that each of our donors gets independent legal representation, I take out independent insurance policies to protect them in case of complications…I offer a lot of safety nets for my donors,” Fontes says.

Despite these tempting offers, many women, like Megan, still feel uncertain about the egg donation process.

So who is the ideal egg donor?

Women ages 18-24 are the most sought-after age group, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), because they are considered the most physically and mentally prepared to undergo the donation procedure. While it is legal to donate at 18 in many states, the ASRM recommends waiting until age 21 to “ensure that the donor is mature enough to provide true informed consent,” according to the ASRM’s “Third Party Reproduction” booklet.

In addition to being of a certain age, women must be both physically and mentally fit. Donors all pass a thorough FDA-regulated physical health check before they are approved. Extensive mental health screening is also required by many agencies, although this is not regulated by the FDA and varies from practice to practice.

The ASRM recommends that all potential donors go through an in-person interview with a trained mental health professional in addition to basic psychological testing. Being mentally prepared to donate is crucial, according to Susan Klock, Ph.D and professor of obstetrics, gynecology and psychiatry at Northwestern’s Feinberg Medical School.

After passing the physical tests, any woman should be careful to make sure she is emotionally ready to donate as well. “This is a very medical process and anyone who has gone through any in-depth medical procedure knows that it can be lacking in emotional support,” Fontes says.

Many infertility professionals recommends that women do plenty of research before committing to an egg donor matching agency because of the lack of regulation in some areas of the egg donation process, such as mental health screening.

“We always say to both donors and recipients, know the practices you are working with and do what you are comfortable with and work with people that you trust. There is quite a bit of activity that goes on in the margins of the established fertility world,” warns Klock.

“We think it’s very safe and doesn’t affect future fertility.”

Once a woman passes through physical and mental screening processes, and decides she is emotionally prepared to donate eggs, she is eventually matched with a recipient family. This is when the demanding physical process of harvesting eggs begins.

After a donor and recipient are matched, each begin to take birth control pills for three weeks to sync their menstrual cycles. After this, the donor begins to take oral pills and then administers self-injections for two weeks in order to stimulate egg production. During this two-week period, the donor makes regular visits to the doctor for brief check-ups to monitor her health and the level of egg production in the ovaries. Women experience side effects such as fluid retention, breast tenderness and moodiness but serious health side effects resulting from this process are rare.

From initial screening to the final egg retrieval, the entire egg donation process typically takes two to three months. Women usually recover quickly from egg donation. The donor may experience some discomfort and cramping on the day of the procedure, but most resume their normal routines the next day, according to Dr. Eve Feinberg, of the Fertility Centers of Illinois. Furthermore, there appear to be no long term risks to egg donation. Women can even donate up to six times throughout their lives. “We think it’s very safe and we don’t think it affects future fertility,” says Feinberg.

When the eggs are ready, they are retrieved during an anaesthetized surgical procedure. The donor relinquishes all legal rights to the eggs once they are removed from her body and control of the egg is in the hands of the recipient. The recipient typically then fertilizes the egg with sperm to create an embryo, but it is also possible that the eggs could be frozen or discarded.

If the donor recipient chooses to fertilize and implant the egg, typically more than one embryo is transferred to increase the chances that a pregnancy will result from the procedure. Egg donation has a 40 percent success rate, according to data collected in 2000 from the Center for Disease Control.

Financial pay and “designer babies”

For many college women, including Megan, the significant financial compensation for egg donation is one of its biggest draws. “The main reason that I would do this would be because it is financially beneficial to me,” says Megan, noting that while helping an infertile family is important, it isn’t her main motivation. However, the parameters of what is considered appropriate in terms of compensation are often fuzzy.

According to the ASRM, payments ranging from $5,000 – $10,000 are reasonable, depending on the circumstances of the donation.

“Going up past that is coercion and has ethical considerations,” says Sean Tipton, Director of Public Affairs for the ASRM. “The compensation is based on the time taken for the donation and shouldn’t vary based on traits or how many eggs they receive.”

However, since there are no regulations on compensation, offers for eggs that carry specific genetic traits can be significantly higher. The Web site elitedonors.com is currently conducting a search for a donor with these qualities:

• 5’6” or taller
• Caucasian
• Very attractive (modeling experience is listed as a plus)
• 18-30 years old
• Demonstrates proven intelligence (preferably attending or graduated from a top 100 college)
• Athletic ability, preferably at a college or professional level
• No genetic medical issues

The compensation for this donor is listed as $100,000.

Michelle White, the program director of Elitedonors.com, says that their compensation rates are set by what individual clients are willing to pay. “Of course, most clients want a donor who is not solely motivated by monetary compensation so weeding those applicants out can be a bit tricky, but in general, our clients feel that offering a larger compensation is beneficial to the search and deserved by the donor,” stated White.

However, offering high sums of money for offspring with certain genetic traits brings up issues for potential donors regarding the ethics of eugenics and efforts to create what some call “designer babies”.

Conceiveabilities follows the guidelines for compensation set by the ASRM. However, Fontes dismisses the idea that some parents are trying to create perfect children. “We certainly don’t see people trying to seek a donor that isn’t like them…A select portion of our client base is very high achieving and they want a donor that is the same,” says Fontes, explaining the reasoning behind clients seeking donors with specific traits.

Despite this, Fontes warns that agencies offering prices above ASRM standards should be regarded with suspicion. Furthermore, there is little data or evidence regarding whether these high rates are actually paid or just used to lure in donors. “It’s not clear what’s going on with some of those ads…we think they use that to induce people to come in and don’t end up paying that,” said Tipton, of matching services that offer higher pay.

“If I do this, I can’t tell my mom.”

The reactions of family members, fear of regret and other personal concerns, are weighed carefully by donors. Megan has told most of her friends that she is considering donating eggs and they have been very understanding of the situation. However, she chose to remain anonymous in this article because of uncertainty as to how future employers or family members might perceive her decision.

“If I do this, I can’t tell my mom, she would be incredibly upset because she’s always felt like less of a mother because she hasn’t been able to financially support me. If she found out I did it she would be really devastated,” Megan says.

Many women face similar emotional and ethical questions as they contemplate undergoing egg donation. “This can be a very emotional process, not only for the recipient, but for the donor,” says Fontes, adding that Conceiveabilities offers additional support and counseling for donors.

Klock advises women considering egg donation to think through every aspect of the process, physically and emotionally, before making a final decision.

“Think about how you feel about the prospect of being a parent and how you would feel knowing you will potentially have a child in the world that you will not know,” Klock said. “Does that feel okay to you and can you imagine how that might feel years from now? Also think about people that you know who have suffered from infertility and if that would make you feel good to know they are helping a couple have a child who otherwise wouldn’t be able to.”

Megan says she will continue to contemplate becoming a donor over the course of her senior year: “The more I started looking at people looking for donors, the more I feel for these people who wanted to have a child and couldn’t.”

Yet, she’s still uncertain whether egg donation is for her. She has visited the Web sites of donor matching services many times, and has even started filling out an application. But she always leaves it unfinished.