Justine Griffin, a young Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporter, decided to donate her eggs for altruistic reasons, in memory of a friend who died. But once Griffin got caught up in the process, she says, she found out “the doctors were there for my eggs and not for me.”
In this three-part series about her experience, Griffin talks about both the positive and the negative. Taking multiple hormones caused excruciating migraines; her hair fell out in clumps. Eventually she developed a cyst on her ovary that ruptured, she wrote. Throughout all of this, she reports a lack of support from her contract organization as well as her doctors.
Griffin also details the stories of other donors. One woman had so little trouble that she donated five times. But one developed severe endometriosis symptoms, and another experienced symptoms of early menopause.
Despite the many troubles Griffin experienced during her egg donation cycle, she still does not regret the decision, she wrote.