In September 2015, Allison Layton was sentenced to 18 months in a federal prison for defrauding her clients, surrogates, and egg donors. This is an interview with a 10-time egg donor who worked with her.

When my body was pumped full of hormones to stimulate my ovarian follicles — matured for the purpose of giving another woman a chance to be a mother — part of me changed as well.  For the first time in my life, I had a desire to be pregnant.  I started to think about carrying a child and being a mother in a very different way.  Dialogue began between my wife and I and our plans for future parenthood took a different path. 

Recently, I made what some would call a “bold choice” by trying to find the families who received my donated eggs. I wrote an article titled “To the Parents Raising My Eggs,” which was meant to reach out to those families and hopefully encourage them to contact me.

Martene is a South African egg donor and a member of We Are Egg Donors. She is an active egg donor who has traveled internationally for her egg donations. While the recent cycles have been smooth and positive, her first cycle was a different story

I live in the UK, where egg donation is completely altruistic — meaning an act done purely to help another person with no financial reward.

When I stuck to my guns about my compensation, my agency said “We’re not in the business of trying to just take money from parents.” It was a subtle accusation, but I couldn’t shake the idea that that’s exactly the business they were in. My agency would be making a lot of money off my body from a couple who could afford to pay the fee.

JoLana Talbot donated eggs anonymously because she was not offered any other option. One thing we’ve learned since starting We Are Egg Donors is that this is a pretty common experience.  What is uncommon about JoLana’s story is that she got the chance to connect with her ‘donor daughter,’ Brittan, 16 years after donating eggs. Even more unusual, JoLana and Brittan met in person for the very first time on Katie Couric’s daytime television show. The episode will air Wednesday, June 11 (find your local station here). JoLana filled us in on what it was like to meet a child produced from her donations. Check it out!

I spent years abusing cocaine and marijuana to deal with severe depression, anxiety, and anorexia. I spent a month in a psychiatric hospital ten years ago, and I still take prescription mood stabilizers twice a day. My family history includes ovarian cancer, schizophrenia, autism, substance use, and obesity.  But last year I was struggling to make ends meet and support a household with a salary of $30,000 in New York City.  So I lied my ass off to become an egg donor.

This interview is about stigma, being queer, and navigating a heteronormative medical landscape. While egg donation is presented as a simple clinical procedure, there is a lot of room for reducing stigma and acknowledging a fuller scope of, you know, how people actually feel about it. To some of us,  our narratives are more complex than “wham, bam, thank you for your huevos, good job, here’s a check, you’ll be fine, good bye.”

I’ve wanted to write this article for such a long time.

Egg donation tends to be a sensitive subject for many different reasons. I’m going to share my story here in all aspects – the good, the bad, and the things I wish I knew before I started.

Skyping with the Australian clinic felt contradictory. I felt extremely confused during the interview because my interviewer kept referring to my egg donation as “altruistic.” To me, “altruism” means giving a gift, in this case it would be my eggs, but I wasn’t exactly altruistic because I would be getting paid.

Communicating with my doctor was a challenge; even though he really did try his best, he didn’t understand everything I was saying. I had never donated before and I had a lot of questions. But because of the language barrier, I had a really hard time getting answers. In retrospect, it would be a lot safer for egg donors if there were a translator who could make sure that pertinent medical information is being communicated, both ways.

Kylee* is an American egg donor who flew to Canada four times to donate her eggs. On her fourth trip, she was unexpectedly held up in customs, accused of illegal egg selling.

I will never forget the day my case manager called me last year and told me: “The family wants to let you know that they had a beautiful baby girl in November and are over the moon. She is absolutely beautiful.” I cried. Unknowingly, this family pushed me to be the best that I could be.