Did Elizabeth Edwards use donor eggs? [View All]

[liberalpragmatist]

This article in Slate speculates that Elizabeth Edwards probably used donor eggs.

http://www.slate.com/id/2108863/

So how did Edwards have children at such a late age (late in reproductive terms, anyway)? It's likely she used donor eggs. By employing a younger woman's eggs, a woman can have babies well into her 50s. The process consists of finding a willing donor with desirable traits, supplying her with fertility drugs, extracting the multiple eggs that mature in her ovaries, placing them in a Petri dish with the man's sperm, and waiting for three to five days. A few of the embryos that result are then transferred to the woman's waiting uterus. The rest can be cryogenically frozen for later use, given to another couple, donated to science, or discarded.

Alas, no one but the Edwards family and their doctor—and maybe an egg donor, though most remain anonymous—can say for sure if donor eggs were used in the creation of Emma Claire and Jack. But reproductive endocrinologists agree that having babies with your own eggs at 48 and especially 50 is, well, just not going to happen: "The probability is 99.9 percent," said David Adamson, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based reproductive endocrinologist and clinical professor at Stanford University's School of Medicine. "If she hadn't, she'd probably say, 'No, I didn't use donor eggs.' " Adamson, who sits on the medical advisory board of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, added that in the 25 years he's spent treating thousands of infertility patients, he's only seen one woman of 45 and one of 46 give birth using their own eggs. Fecundity starts to drop off long before that, he says. At 35, one in four women trying to have a baby will run into difficulties. At 40, about half will fail to conceive naturally. Above 45, there are so few births using one's own eggs that no one keeps records of it, said Adamson. When it happens, you're in miracle territory.

If this is true I can understand the Edwardses' reluctance to be so public about this - they probably want this to be a private affair and to let their children know on their own terms - not from the media.

Even so, it raises some interesting questions. Should the Edwards talk about this more to spread public knowledge of the practice? Many women remain woefully uninformed, and many activists would like the Edwards to be more open about this, so make people more aware.

...her silence on the matter has some people miffed. "I think someone in her position can serve a great public good by being more outspoken," said Richard Silverstein, 52, a fund-raiser in Seattle whose wife, Janis White, used a donor egg to give birth to their son, Jonah, three years ago. White, now 48, is currently pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, also from donor eggs. Silverstein doesn't understand why Edwards—if she used donor eggs—doesn't speak up. "There's an enormous level of ignorance about egg donation," he said. "She could use the bully pulpit to clear some of it up."

Fady Sharara, a reproductive endocrinologist who heads the Virginia Center for Reproductive Medicine in Reston, Va., underscores the ignorance that surrounds issues of infertility. Somehow, says Sharara, women aren't getting the message about what happens to their fertility as they age. "A lot of my patients wait to come in until they're in their mid-40s because they think they have forever and can get pregnant very easily at 45. 'What about Geena Davis, who just had twins at 48?' they say. When I tell them these women use donor eggs, they get the biggest look of shock on their face."

What do you guys think? It does seem that people seem to be quite angry with me for posting this - I'm merely posting an article from Slate. Personally, I should note that I agree with most of you that this is a private matter and that if this is true the Edwardses are under no obligation to speak about how they reproduced - that's their own business. Even so, I found the article interesting, and am curious to see what other people's responses are.