This is from the "just when you thought Egg Donation was complicated" department. 

When I represent egg donors in third party reproductive cases, I always suggest, strongly, that they prohibit Intended Parents from a "secondary donation" to another set of intended parents.  I want my client to have a clear understanding of where the donation starts and where their genetic contribution ends.      

One of the newest breakthroughs within the Egg Donation community is the ability for a Reproductive Endocrinologist to freeze unfertilized eggs for future use.  Now, women with questionable reproductive futures i.e. ovarian cancer, will be able to bank eggs for their later use.

Of course, the Egg Donor agencies are concerned that their business lifespan has been appreciatively shortened by these new techniques.  I am not convinced.  I suspect that the greatest marketshare for agencies comes from those women who need eggs because of their age, not because of ovarian loss. 

But what of those frozen eggs?  How does that change things beyond the obvious? 

We may see the technology only used by those women who anticipate illness.  They bank eggs for themselves and use them.  This homologous donation will be viewed no different that a pre-surgery blood donation to yourself.

If however, the percentage of live births as between fresh transfer and frozen gets closer, unfertilized egg banking may become popular in third party donation.  And, if the Clinics or the Agencies or the Attorneys do not limit how far the donation can go, the Donor will lose control over her genetic contribution. 

Thus, we have the possibility that a Donor would discover, ten or even twenty years from the date of donation that a child was recently born from her eggs.  I just don't know how I would respond to a frantic, emotional call from that Donor, now aged 43 with her own family.