There was an article recently in the Huffington Post about a woman who donated her eggs to make money so she could travel. It reminded me of the time I thought about putting my uterus to good use and not just use it for sexy stuff. I am a humanitarian after all. And I was also between jobs.
Several years back, (or a decade plus), when I still thought that I was producing the eggs of a twenty-something, I found a website advertising for egg donors. I thought, hey, I’ve got eggs, they’re not doing anything this month, why not. Besides, I wasn’t running a charity. This wasn’t a free ride. My eggs should earn their keep, or extraction. Whatev.
I would think that most women, who are considering something as intimate as egg donation, would do their due diligence and bone up on both the application process and the medical ramifications. Not this broad. Like a lot of things I do, and or try, I walk in heart first.
I found what looked like a reputable company online and was immediately drawn to the following statement. “All of our donors are given beautiful headshots.” Wait. What? A free headshot. It’d been awhile since my last one.
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However misguided, in the past, my focus was always more on the headshot, rather than actually auditioning and trying to book a job.
I immediately called the number on the website because my hair was looking exceptionally bouncy that week and I wanted to jump on it.
A genial woman on the other end answered. We exchanged a few pleasantries and then she launched into some basic questions.
“Are you married?” No.
“Do you have any kids?” No.
“Have you ever had an abortion?” No.
There was a pregnant pause. (intended) She continued.
“That’s unfortunate.” Excuse me? I thought to myself.
“You see an abortion lets us know that your ovaries are working.” It was at this moment that I decided to summon up all of those years of acting training.
“Oh, those abortions. I’m sorry, I misunderstood. It’s just not something that I like to talk about. But yeah, I’ve had like, what, three. I guess my ovaries are working overtime.”
And this is why I never called myself an actress and concentrated on photos.
There was a slight pause, as she was probably trying to regroup. “Uh, yeah, we want a sign of fertility not irresponsibility.” Click, and the phone went dead.
Of course my feelings (and those of my eggs) were hurt. It wouldn’t have made a difference but I decided to look a bit more closely at the website.
Simply frightening. Apparently donors are no longer called egg donors. The women that this company wanted to attract, extract from and have join their elite circle, are called Superdonors. Not unlike the fashion Supermodels of the 80’s, and then the Uber Models of the 90’s.
These Superdonors were considered their Premier Donor Angels. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from reading on.
These Angel egg donors were described as beautiful and accomplished women with special qualities. They went on to say that their donors could be actresses, models, talented musicians, athletes or an intelligent woman who has or is working towards a higher educational degree.
It appeared that they were only interested in welcoming perfect model-like egg donors. These Premier Angles would ensure that couples would produce pretty people, who played the violin, and ran track.
Egg Supremacy? Selective Breeding? This was reading a lot like what that guy, you know the one, was trying to do during WWII, what was his name? Maybe this was a reach, but the total removal of the Jews, and here, the total removal of tone deaf and uncoordinated ugly babies. You decide.
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