As you would imagine, the recent Chicago Tribune article wherein I discussed the challenges ethnic Intended Parents face prompted much debate and dialogue. Yes, the article’s premise is one which all professionals in our field are all too aware…but really, there is a broader discussion to be had.

Why? Why are their fewer donors than hopeful parents-to-be? Why are there Asian, Jewish, Russian, East Indian and yes, Caucasian couples scouring the internet for months in consideration of finding their ideal donor…..for good reason, I suggest….good reason and positive indication of where we are with this family building option.

 In the years that I have devoted to assisting infertile couples, I have seen the stastics shift, significantly, as couples and singles make their way through varied family building alternatives.  Child-free living and adoption were typically given equal consideration to third-party reproduction but in the past several years I’ve witnessed a huge shift in the direction of egg donation. The success rates of egg donation are sky-rocketing, so much so that it is the most compelling (in some ways even more compelling than trying to conceive with the Intended Mother’s own eggs) alternative family building option and more and more folks are jumping off the adoption track, coming back to pursuing pregnancy after choosing a child-free life and leaving IVF sooner just so that they, too, can benefit from the advances in donor conception. This is a good thing. More babies are being born. More families are coming to be.

Still though, there remains the issue of fewer donors than parents. Why is that? Again, I think for good reason. As the clinicians have achieved greater advancement in medicine and technology, so too have the standards for donor selection increased. The clinics with the highest success rates, in my experience, are the same conservative clinics that have the highest threshold for donor acceptance. Perhaps one of the reason success rates are on the rise is because we have learned much about what the profile of the ideal donor should look like. At Prospective Families we turn away a good number of applications submitted, clinics too have their screening processes and, if there is a good partnership between agency and clinic, together we are limiting, appropriately so, those women who qualify as fit for donation.

 Yes, for those who are searching their wait is frustrating. I hope that those who hear my counsel understand, though, that the the quality of the donor pool (however limited) is what will bring to them, eventually, the right young women for their family building success….and success is a wonderful thing!!!