We have chosen an Egg Donor. Unsurprisingly, she is Colombian. She has impeccable cheek bones. She is smart and healthy. I can’t reveal too much identifying information about her, but one factor that lead us to choose her from the Egg Bank over the other twelve or so Latina donors was that she listed Scrabble as one of her hobbies, with the added information, “I rarely lose.”

Bring it on Egg Lady.

Actually, the donor and I will probably never play Scrabble with each other. There are differing philosophies about “open” vs. “closed” donation. Our surrogacy agency is a big proponent of open donation, which is when the donor and the intended parents meet and exchange contact information. The intended parents may or may not share regular updates on the child’s life with the donor, but if the child eventually and at an appropriate age wants to contact the donor, he or she can. The agency believes this is the best way to answer a child’s questions about his or her origins and that he or she will feel more comfortable having the option to meet his or her biological mother.

Our IVF clinic feels that closed donation is best. They believe in a donor’s right to privacy and that the donor should have the right to move on with her life. She will process her feelings about donation and trust that the intended parents are raising their child in a loving environment. The clinic retains the genetic information on the donor, so there is no medical reason why it would be necessary to contact her.

We are open to either type of donation. Ideally, we wouldn’t meet the donor, but we would have her contact information in case the child wants to get in contact with her in the distant future. We want to think of this child as wholly ours and we don’t want to know the biological mother enough to wonder if he or she got some trait from his or her mother. At the same time, we aren’t willing to pass up a good, Scrabble-playing donor, based on her philosophy on open vs. closed donation.

Because this donor did not come from either the IVF clinic’s or the surrogacy agency’s donor pools, but from a third party, I am not sure what her preference is. But either way, we have chosen to work with her and we will work with her choice on this issue.