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An Open Letter to My Egg Donor

“5 Things I’d Love to Tell My Egg Donor.”
An Open Letter from SGF Ireland Egg Donor Recipient

At the age of 36, Niamh Mulhall started trying for her first child. After failed rounds of IVF, she was told she would need to use an egg donor. “For me, it was a time of loss and grief. I knew no one in a similar situation and I felt alone.” She tried two cycles of donor egg treatment in Spain and two rounds in Greece, transferring a total of 18 embryos and was still childless. Five years had passed in a haze of disappointments. Niamh then learned of the collaboration between Shady Grove Fertility and Cork Fertility Centre and decided to travel to America for donor egg treatment.

A Letter to Egg Donors from a Donor Egg Recipient

Dear donor,

  1. Thank you a million, million, million times for giving him, and us, life. Thank you for the better life we have being his parents. Thank you for allowing for us to be Santa, have birthday parties, and be called ‘mom and dad.’ Thank you for the opportunity to see life through the eyes of our child; the hugs, the love, the chaos, the crisis over a missing toy and the messy car… we love it all. Honestly, we couldn’t love and cherish him any more than we do. We are proud to be his parents.
  2. We have told him the story of his conception. It is something that he can tell himself now. It goes like this ‘To make a beautiful little boy like me, you need a mommy bit and a daddy bit. But the mommy bit wasn’t working very well. So mom and dad went all the way to America where a very kind lady gave the mommy bit to mix with the daddy bit and made me! She was a very kind lady.’

Read all 5 reasons Niamh is grateful and how her egg donor changed her life.

SGF Egg Donors Help Families from All Over the World

Niamh’s story is not unlike the many stories of our egg donor recipients. They try to have a baby. They try again, and again, and it doesn’t work. They feel as though they have run out of options until they learn they haven’t—that egg donation exists, and in America, and specifically at SGF, recipients can select from a registry of prescreened egg donors and have a guarantee of taking home a baby or they receive a 100% refund. Among a few of the things that make this process truly amazing for so many donor egg recipients:

  1. Donor egg recipients are able to select their egg donor. In some countries, they have egg donors, but the fertility center matches them with an anonymous egg donor that they don’t get to choose. Our program allows recipients the opportunity to select their egg donor—an anonymous egg donor that they connect with on some level—whether it be their egg donor resembles the parents, or they share common interests, dreams, and goals.
  2. Donor egg recipients are able to select from a registry of prescreened egg donors. We screen each egg donor applicant medically, psychologically, and physically (regarding their fertility), prior to designating them as an egg donor qualified for selection. The alternative is to have a database of women who are interested in donating, but likely not medically eligible. This ensures our egg donors are selected quickly—there is no ambiguity or waste of time for both donors and recipients.
  3. SGF offers a Shared Risk 100% Refund Program. This Program is unique to SGF, which is why couples travel from all over the world to see a physician at SGF. Egg donation is not an inexpensive way to have a baby—but for many, it is the best and only option for them. In the rare case, donor egg treatment doesn’t work, adoption remains an amazing option, which is why the Shared Risk Refund exists—so patients don’t have to limit their choice based on financial reasons alone.

SGF Egg Donors in America Help Change Lives

Because our egg donor program is anonymous, recipients never have the chance to meet their egg donor (unless it is a known egg donor, typically a friend or family member). Like Niamh, they are incredibly grateful for their egg donor but aren’t able to express their sincere gratitude. To say ‘thank you’ to her egg donor, Niamh wrote an open letter to her, to express how her donor impacted her life, and how much she was given.


If you want to change the life of a family, apply today or call 1-877-DONATE-EGGS to learn how to start your journey. Egg donation is an amazing gift.