Patient Story

Advika tried many avenues to get pregnant in overseas clinics without success. Using donor eggs from the London Egg Bank in the UK was her last chance, and that led her to welcome her son.

When I reached 44, we realised that we had exhausted most avenues of having children, and time was running out for us. At the time, using donor eggs felt like a sad decision to make, as I felt I was giving up on my own eggs - but by then we really had no other choice.

We had already had many failed attempts at pregnancy with my own eggs, including four visits to overseas clinics, with all the stress and logistics that entails.

After making some positive changes to our lifestyle and relocation, we decided to give it one last try, this time in the UK.     

Our journey towards parenthood had been so emotional for many reasons, and it felt like after a long, long, roller-coaster ride it was time for the final roll of the dice.

When it came to choosing an egg donor, we looked at my nationality first. I’m of Southeast Asian descent, and that was the most important factor to us, so we chose a Southeast Asian donor from the database.

After all that time, we were surprised and delighted to discover I was finally pregnant, and we got ourselves and our family ready to welcome the baby we had wanted for so long.

When our son arrived, I had no problems whatsoever in bonding with him straight away. After carrying him for 9 months, I had loved him before he was even born. When he was finally here, I knew that I couldn’t possibly love him anymore, even if he had been from my own eggs.

Our son is my baby in every way, and we see the donor eggs as just a technicality. He looks like me, he loves me, and he depends on me.

We are planning to tell him one day about how we used donor eggs, but I think only as an aside from his story. When I was thinking about using donor eggs (which was difficult, but not as difficult as accepting never having children) it seemed really important, but now he is 3 years old it seems irrelevant to the joy of his being here.

We aren’t doing anything different to raise him because he was donor conceived. Sometimes I look at him, and I wonder if I can see any sign of the donor in him, but it’s just out of occasional interest.

Otherwise, he is just my son in every way.

When I think of the donor, it is with great thanks for what she made possible for us. What a wonderful thing she has done, I hope she is blessed with children of her own.

 If you are thinking about setting out on the donor egg journey yourself, I have some very simple advice. Do it.

If you are in a place where you can’t use your own eggs, then don’t hesitate. When your baby is born, where the egg ‘starter’ came from won’t make any difference to you. What you do need to do is make sure that you and your partner are in excellent health to give yourselves the very best chance.

Once you are healthy, then go for it – we certainly have no regrets.