I put up a post on a local Hong Kong website/forum where mothers or mothers-to-be congregate, discuss, gossip, encourage others through motherhood. It is strangely beguiling, this online buzzing community of real, brave women. If this wasn't an online platform, I would have imagined a large cafe with a pretty courtyard full of flowers, tables all filled with pregnant women or women with 2-3 kids in tow, chatting about everything; some will be breast-feeding, some cleaning up the mess the screaming toddler is creating, some kissing a new-born softly on his head. And I would be the one who sticks out like a sore thumb: no kids, only a dog, finding a table where I can be left alone to read yet another book from Richard Dawkins.
That's the first step, this post. Hopefully someone will give me an idea where to start and where I can go to to lay my golden eggs.
Thursday 22 January 2009
Tuesday 20 January 2009
How the journey started
I will be 28 years old in 2009. Up till a few months ago, I have never heard of the term "egg donation".
"Egg donation? What eggs?! You mean eggs can be donated?" I thought when I first heard about it.
It was Dr T. who was visiting in Hong Kong over Christmas who started it all. This fascinating topic came about from our discussion about her friends trying to get pregnant with donated sperm. Apparently the donor laws in Australia have changed recently to include full disclosure of the identity of sperm and egg donors and hence, there have been a sharp drop in donors since. That's when I first heard about egg donation, and with genetics one of my main interests lately, I decided to read up on it.
Of course once I started, I could. not. stop. I just devoured all the readily-available information on the internet and in a matter of days, I decided I want to donate my eggs. The idea is quite.. ideal, for lack of a better word. Here I am, a perfectly healthy woman in her prime and with eggs that are "wasted" every cycle and I don't plan to have kids - I find it such an intimidating task, raising kids and caring for them, loving them and wrapping your life around their vulnerability, breathing life into them till they can walk, eat, tie their shoe-laces, think, decide, till they can fend for themselves - that's a good 18 years at least? That just terrifies me, this huge, enormous responsibility. So if I don't want to have any offspring, why deny someone else who want it so much?
I am a humanist and personally believe that there are too many people in this world. Overpopulation is no doubt, one of the reasons why global warming is accelerating, why there is so much famine and such an unfair unbalanced economy in almost all continents. Humans just don't know when to stop, eh? So donating eggs actually go against all my beliefs. Yet deep down, I know that parents who try so very hard to have kids are perhaps, on some basic standards, good parents because they are very prepared to have kids and it is most likely that the child will have a great environment to grow up in. I may be wrong, of course, but I'm pretty sure that in most cases, I am right. To have a child growing up in such an environment, he/she will have a chance to make a positive contribution to the world, no matter how small. And we all know how much this world of ours needs positive change now, more than ever.
What a rant! But there you go.
Now, how am I going to start donating my eggs in Hong Kong?
"Egg donation? What eggs?! You mean eggs can be donated?" I thought when I first heard about it.
It was Dr T. who was visiting in Hong Kong over Christmas who started it all. This fascinating topic came about from our discussion about her friends trying to get pregnant with donated sperm. Apparently the donor laws in Australia have changed recently to include full disclosure of the identity of sperm and egg donors and hence, there have been a sharp drop in donors since. That's when I first heard about egg donation, and with genetics one of my main interests lately, I decided to read up on it.
Of course once I started, I could. not. stop. I just devoured all the readily-available information on the internet and in a matter of days, I decided I want to donate my eggs. The idea is quite.. ideal, for lack of a better word. Here I am, a perfectly healthy woman in her prime and with eggs that are "wasted" every cycle and I don't plan to have kids - I find it such an intimidating task, raising kids and caring for them, loving them and wrapping your life around their vulnerability, breathing life into them till they can walk, eat, tie their shoe-laces, think, decide, till they can fend for themselves - that's a good 18 years at least? That just terrifies me, this huge, enormous responsibility. So if I don't want to have any offspring, why deny someone else who want it so much?
I am a humanist and personally believe that there are too many people in this world. Overpopulation is no doubt, one of the reasons why global warming is accelerating, why there is so much famine and such an unfair unbalanced economy in almost all continents. Humans just don't know when to stop, eh? So donating eggs actually go against all my beliefs. Yet deep down, I know that parents who try so very hard to have kids are perhaps, on some basic standards, good parents because they are very prepared to have kids and it is most likely that the child will have a great environment to grow up in. I may be wrong, of course, but I'm pretty sure that in most cases, I am right. To have a child growing up in such an environment, he/she will have a chance to make a positive contribution to the world, no matter how small. And we all know how much this world of ours needs positive change now, more than ever.
What a rant! But there you go.
Now, how am I going to start donating my eggs in Hong Kong?
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