A Look At PVED In 2012

Did you know we are the largest private community online?

Did you know that PVED assisted over 9,000 intended parents and parents in 2012 with clinic and agency referrals, mental health referrals, legal referrals and other industry professional referrals?

Did you know we answered over 18,000 pieces of email and messages in our private forum in 2012?

Did you know we answered over 1,000 telephone calls in 2012?

Did you know PVED assisted with over 30 embryo donation matches?

Did you know that PVED sent out over 350 quilts and 350 books to new parents?

Did you know that PVED is launching a brand new interactive website with three new information packed sections for our community members?

Did you know that PVED is still a free educational and support service accessible to its members 24/7 365 days out of the year?

We need your help -- 5, 10, 25, 50, or more whatever you feel you can give -- this money helps us do things like:

Keep the lights on, the internet on, the website supported, books, quilts, postage, literature, PVED meetups,  and helps us meet our payroll.

Every little bit helps -- all of you could give just ten dollars that would translate into a whole lot of money!

Give today -- we love helping you all!!

www.pved.org click on donate at the end of the page.  Or write a check and mail to:

PVED
Box 597
Scappoose, OR 97056

Donor Porn

By:  Marna Gatlin, Founder, PVED with Carole Lieber Wilkins, MFT

Controversial title wouldn’t you say? When I first heard it and then wrote the words down it made my face turn red and giggle like a school girl.

Some of you are wondering where this is going and the mere title of this blog post is making you shift uncomfortably in your chair and looking around to see whose looking, right? Yeah, I thought so.  But you know what?  That’s the way it is when you engage in donor porn.

What the heck is donor porn you might ask?  Well, hang on; I’ll get to that in a minute. But first I want to set the scene (my guess is this could be any of you).   

You’ve decided to make the leap and build your family through egg donation. It’s taken a while but you are truly at a place and you’ve said to yourself “I can do this! I am ready!  Let’s go!” And while you might be excited, scared and hopeful the reality of selecting an egg donor has hit you right between the eyes and frankly, it’s overwhelming. So what do you do?  You do what any resourceful person does when they are practicing their due diligence – you do your research and begin looking at egg donor agency donor data bases, or if you are lucky your clinic has a nice data base that their patients got you to look through.

It may start innocently enough – you have kind of an idea in your head what you are looking for in an egg donor as you being your search.   The first egg donor looks lovely; you may like the shape of her eyes, and her smile.  However, as you scan her profile you see she’s only 5 feet 2 inches tall and the shortest person in your family is 5 feet 8 inches tall.  How would you explain to your extended family a really short child? So you pass on her and you go to the next donor. 

The next donor is the right height but her nose and the shape of her face is much different than yours, and you really wanted an egg donor who was attending college as that’s important to you.  Time has passed and before you know it, its midnight and you’ve looked over twenty egg donor profiles and you are just as unsure as you were when you first sat down. The smart part of your brain tells you to turn in for the night and you do – before you know it, it’s time to wake up and face the day and with a fresh set of eyes you find the right donor for yourself and before you know it you’ve called your clinic reserved your egg donor and you are well on your way to cycle.

Or are you?

All day long you feel really great about your choice.  You can’t wait for the two of you to begin cycling, taking medication, your donor to have her egg retrieval and you to have your transfer!  This is really going to happen and you are so excited! Until for some ungodly reason you decide to take one more peek at the donor data base you selected your donor from and before you know it you are in the data base pouring over egg donors again and you see another donor that you think you might like better.  The wheels begin to turn and you begin to second guess your choice, and what if yourself.  Your partner may even see you at the donor data base and might even say “Hey what are you doing? I thought we already agreed up our egg donor.”  And you feeling a tad sheepish may just smile and say “Oh of course we did I was just looking…”  And you both go to bed still feeling good about your egg donor choice, but in the back of your mind you might be wondering….

This goes on for days --- The overwhelming desire to continue to look at your clinic or agencies data base and pour over donors especially after you have made your donor choice and committed to your donor selection.  There’s a term for it – it’s commonly referred to as “Donor Porn”

Why do we do it? 

We ask ourselves as we continue to go back and look at the donor data base over and over looking and possibly hoping for that new special, perfect donor that our clinic or agency might just have.  Some days we can’t help ourselves as we fret, worry, and pour over donor profiles like we would a legal contract, or our medical files. For other’s it’s a powerfully heady experience – One mom said to me “It’s like window shopping to the extreme, to try on someone else’s genetics is a really big deal, and I wanted to be really sure.  This isn’t like buying a car you know.”

I commonly refer to this as “The Grass is Always Greener” syndrome.  You know the saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side” I think some intended parents get caught up in that through the chase of the perfect donor. When in reality their donor choice is probably the best choice for them.

Because this topic is so fascinating to me I contacted my friend and colleague Carole Lieber Wilkins a therapist based out of Los Angeles, California and this was her take on “donor porn”.

"The question is:  How do you choose someone to replace yourself?  The incessant searching for the perfect DNA replacement is a donor search gone awry.  Can there ever be a perfect candidate?  Even if you find a donor whose genetic makeup does not have many of the flaws yours has (diabetes, cancer), she doesn’t have your essence.  Put simply, she isn’t you.

Very frequently we mistake selecting a donor for selecting a child.  Your child will not be a clone of a donor anymore than your child would be a clone of you.  But we imagine if we select someone beautiful, our child will be physically attractive.  We mistake SAT scores with general intelligence.  How do you evaluate a donor’s EQ, her emotional intelligence, vs. her math scores on standardized tests?  We can’t.  So we keep going back to look again.  And again.  And again. "

The first step to recovery is what?  Admitting we have a problem right? So just admit it -- We’ve all engaged in it.  We’ve all done it.  And really don’t shake your head at me, we know you have. So how do we stop and become secure in our choices?

"Grieve your losses first.  Say goodbye to your imagined child because that’s the one you are hoping this fantasized donor will help you create.  Let go of the perfect embodiment of your partner and you.  Look for a donor you think you’d like to hang out with at Starbucks.  Try to select not a replacement for you, but someone you might be proud to know as your daughter (because, let’s face it, most ovum donors are of an age that they could be our daughters).  Select agencies that provide you with complete enough photos and profiles that you feel a sense of her and seem like you’d like her.  Many intended parents opt to meet their donors and discover they very much like these women as people.

You would most likely not select a porn queen to hang out with at Starbucks (with no offense at all to those in the adult film industry!)   So why choose her to help give you the material you need to complete your family?  Once you have grieved, and re-set your priorities, you’ll find you have lost the need to constantly keep going back to the Internet to look for the “perfect one.”"

Now we realize this is easier said than done.  But hopefully after reading this blog post a time or two you will get where we are coming from.  You will come to understand that there really is no replacing you.  There just isn’t.  You are unique and special in our own right.  And while we totally understand your why you might second guess your choices please don’t – believe in yourself, believe that the choices you are making regarding your donor selection are the right ones to make for you family.  And if you take anything away from this blog – remember this one small but important piece to all of this:

The baby you are meant to have is indeed the baby you are meant to have.

So in closing – Just close the page and just say no to donor porn.

About Carole -- Aside from being one of the most talented and brightest therapists on the planet Carole loves what she does, she takes the scary out of all things third party, and is the go to person regarding disclosure issues and having honest conversations with with you to help you have honest conversations with your child's origins.  Carole has written several pieces about talking to kids about egg donation, and has aided many many individuals become comfortable, and make peace with infertility issues especially revolving around third party reproduction.

Personally we at PVED think Carole is the bee's knee's and find her knack for helping others out of this world.

If you are in the greater LA area and would  like to contact Carole for a therapy session you can find her here: http://www.lafamilybuilding.com/index.html

Her official bio below.

Carole Lieber Wilkins is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in West Los Angeles, providing individual, couples and group counseling. specialist in the field of reproductive medicine, adoption and family building options since 1986, she became a founding member of Resolve of Greater Los Angeles in 1987 and served on the Board of Directors in various positions for the next 14 years.


Ms. Lieber Wilkins is well known for her work regarding disclosure of information to children, having helped hundreds of patients feel comfortable about talking with their kids about how they built their families. Many clinics and practitioners around the world distribute to patients her groundbreaking article, Talking With Children About Their Conception. She has lectured locally and nationally, on many subjects related to infertility. She has been the keynote speaker at several Resolve symposia, and a presenter at the professional meetings of the American Psychological Association, The American Society of Reproductive Medicine, Organon Nurses Symposia and Kaiser Hospitals.


Carole is a member of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Mental Health Professional Group, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a professional member of both Resolve and AFA. In addition, her own experience creating a family through adoption and ovum donation deepens her understanding of the challenges others face when exploring these complex family building options.

PVED Is Writing A Book: Authors Seeks Interviewees for PVED BOOK

Parents Via Egg Donation is FINALLY writing a long over due book about all of the aspects of egg donation.

We need your help (naturally)

We are in the process of researching a book for donor conceived families about everything there is to know, to do, and not to do regarding egg donation.

We are also interested in speaking to parents of children conceived through donor egg, donor insemination or donor embryo about your experiences talking with your kids about the facts of their conception. We are also interested in your experiences disclosing this information to family and friends.

If interested, please email the book writing team here. We can send you a short email questionnaire or arrange a brief phone interview.

Full confidentiality assured. When the book is published, you will receive a complimentary signed copy to those who participated. Thank you!

Marna Gatlin, John Helsa, and Carole Lieber Wilkins and the PVED Book Team.

The Differences and Similarities Between Adoption And Egg Donation

I had the opportunity to be a part of a panel on a radio show hosted by Dawn Davenport who is the Executive Director of Creating A Family which is a nonprofit organization that provides education, resources, and support for those touched by infertility or adoption.

On the panel with me was a gentleman by the name of Adam Pertman, Executive Director, with the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

To be honest I wasn't really sure how this was going to pan out. I have heard through the grapevine how similar yet different adoption and egg donation were, but still wasn't clear on terminology or philosophies.

As we began our radio show I was nervous. Here I was with this Executive Director from the Adoption Institute who works diligently to provide leadership that improves adoption laws, policies and practices - through sound research, education and advocacy - in order to better the lives of everyone touched by adoption. These folks are serious about their mission.

They work tirelessly:

•Offering lawmakers reliable information and practical perspectives to improve adoption laws;
•Providing the media with a trusted source of information;
•Encouraging employer support for adoption;
•Reducing barriers that impede adoption of children who need permanent families;
•Researching policies and practices that affect adoption;
•Educating policymakers and the public about the importance of giving adopted people access to information about their origins;
•Developing a legal framework to ensure access to genetic information and a clear delineation of parental responsibility for children born through reproductive technology;
•Promoting ethical standards for adoption professionals

And as I listened to Adam speak I found myself sitting up in my chair a bit straighter and nodding my head. He was saying the very same things many of us find ourselves saying as we go through our own personal DE journey. Both from an adoptive perspective and a recipient mother perspective we both share the same kinds of insecurities.

Will my child love me? Will I make a good parent? Why didn't my body work the way it was supposed to? How long will I grieve regarding the ability to have a genetic child? When my child hears his or her story about their origins will they become resentful. Will my child like his birth mother or egg donor more than me? When should we tell our child about their origins? Early? Late, or not at all?

What I am learning more and more is that those of us having our children via egg donation should really look at, embrace, and follow the adoptive parents module. As it stands DE is where adoption was regarding attitudes and secrecy 30 years ago. And to me that's very sad because there is nothing to be ashamed about regarding having a child via egg donation, it's a beautiful thing and just a different way to create or grow your family.

What separates the two of course is the pregnancy part. In my radio broadcast I touched upon Epigenics, and how pregnancy for recipient mothers is an integral and very important part of the process, and while at the end of the day the goal is to become a parent and raise a child I stated emphatically that it's very important that we recognize and validate this rite of passage for many women.

What we do need to establish is clear and consistent language, definitions and verbiage for this specific kind of reproductive technology. The adoption folks have their language, and it's clear, and concise. DE doesn't have that as of yet. We might think we do, but really we don't. We are still wrestling with what to deem the egg donor and a sperm donor. We know for instance in adoption that the woman who carries the baby and the man who has intercourse with a woman and a child results is a birth father. So what should we refer our egg donors and sperm donors as? Genetic parents? That in itself might seem very simple but how do we know egg donors or sperm donors want to be thought of as parents at all?

Food for thought - yes?