Advertisement
Home News Real Life

Pregnancy twist: I’m not my baby’s mum

This Auckland mum is fulfilling her partner's fatherhood dream - with another woman's egg

At 46 and with two grown-up kids, Donna Postlewaight thought the next newborn she’d hold in her arms would be a grandchild. She was so certain that her childbearing years were behind her, she had even had her tubes tied. Then she fell in love with Erich, who is 14 years her junior, and a heartbreaking battle to get pregnant began.

Advertisement

Donna and Erich (32) fell in love at work and on their first night together, Erich told her of his dream to become a father. “Erich made it clear that he wanted children and asked if I was prepared to go down that track again,” says Donna. “I decided that, yes, I was. I knew that I wanted to have a child with Erich.”

The couple spent two blissful years together before they decided to start trying for a baby. Donna was in her early forties but confident she was still fertile. After having a tubal ligation years earlier, Donna warned Erich that her chances of conceiving were reduced.

Believing her own eggs would still be fertile, she hoped that doctors would be able to reconnect her tubes. But scans showed they were too damaged. Fertility treatment was the couple’s only option.

Donna and Erich discovered they didn’t qualify for any funded IVF cycles because Donna was over 40 and had voluntarily had her tubes tied, so their only hope was private IVF at a cost of $12,000.

Advertisement

“It’s a huge amount of money. We didn’t manage to save it up beforehand because we were running out of time. We’re still paying off credit cards,” explains Donna. “I thought fertility wouldn’t be an issue because I conceived my kids the first time I tried.”

Sadly, despite the expensive treatment, the eggs Donna produced were not healthy enough to be fertilised. “Doctors warned us that because of my age it was going to be a hard slog,” she says. “The specialist said we could try again using my eggs but it was a case of spending another $12,000 on something with a just a 3% success rate. We’d have taken that chance if we had the money, but we didn’t.

“Then we found out that if we had a donor egg, the chances were almost 50/50 that I’d get pregnant.” But finding an egg donor was not as straightforward as it seemed. Donna wanted the egg to come from someone who looked like her but couldn’t think of anyone she knew that fit the bill.

Then, one day at work, a colleague she had confided in pointed out a 38-year-old workmate who had similar skin, eyes, and build to Donna. Although friendly, they weren’t mates, and Donna wondered if she dared ask. “I emailed her and said, ‘Could we get together? I’ve got something really personal to ask you.’ And she was fantastic right from the start. She didn’t freak out and she was so supportive. “She told me she was going to talk to her husband. He just told her, ‘They’re your eggs – you can do what you like with them.’ They’ve been together for 20 years and aren’t interested in having children. When she agreed to help us, it was wonderful – such a selfless gift.”

Advertisement

Donna and her donor, who doesn’t want to be named, had to take fertility drugs at the same time to get their cycles in sync. The donor produced several eggs and two of them were considered viable enough to be fertilised with Erich’s sperm and implanted in Donna’s womb. Waiting for two weeks to find out if she had conceived was like torture, says Donna, who knew it was her last chance to make Erich a dad. “We went to the beach for my birthday and I just had this feeling I was pregnant,” she recalls. “I had the blood test, and a few hours later, I was told it was positive.  I screamed! I wasjust beside myself.”

Now heavily pregnant, Donna admits it can be hard knowing the baby she is carrying is not a blood relation. “We had a scan at 22 weeks and the sonographer said, ‘She’s got her mum’s mouth.’ I instantly thought, ‘No, she hasn’t.’ But I’ve carried her for eight months and every time I feel her kick, I know she’s mine. I can’t wait to meet her.”

Erich also admits he would have preferred the baby to be genetically related to Donna but is still rapt to be expecting his first child. The couple have decided to tell their baby, a girl, about her parentage. They also want her to grow up knowing the egg donor and her husband. They know the donor will feel some kind of bond with their daughter too.

“She’ll be thinking, ‘That’s part of me,’ and that can’t be changed,” says Donna. The expectant mum has no regrets, but says asking someone she hardly knew if they would give her an egg was one of the hardest things she’s ever done. “But now I’m so glad I did it,” she beams.

Advertisement

Becoming an egg donor

A woman wishing to donate eggs should be between 21 and 37 years of age, have no serious inheritable diseases, and have completed their own family.

After blood tests, health checks and interviews with a fertility specialist, a counsellor and a fertility clinic coordinator, prospective donors are given a three-month stand-down period in which to think things over and perhaps change their minds.

Donors can describe the sort of people they’d like their eggs to go to and choose from profiles of potential recipients. It is illegal to receive monetary payment for human eggs in New Zealand.

Advertisement

The process has three stages:

1) oedication is injected into the donor, stimulating the ovaries to produce several eggs.

2) The eggs are then collected in a minor surgical procedure. As with any medical treatment, there are risks involved.

3) The eggs are fertilised with sperm via IVF and implanted in the recipient’s womb. The recipient is recognised as the legal mother of the baby.

Advertisement

Further information is available from fertility clinics.

Related stories


Get The Australian Woman’s Weekly NZ home delivered!  

Subscribe and save up to 38% on a magazine subscription.

Advertisement
Advertisement