May 1, 2025 • 26 mins
A new series from the Big Take podcast investigates the booming market for human eggs.
In this episode, host Sarah Holder and Bloomberg’s Jessica Brice focus on the Kemptons, an Australian couple who needed donor eggs to get pregnant. They wanted access to a market they felt offered transparency. They especially wanted information about potential donors. What followed was an around-the-world quest to create a family — filled with promise, gutting losses and extreme cost.
Read more: The Egg
Listen to the rest of the series: The Human Egg Trade: Episode 1 - The Lie
The Human Egg Trade: Episode 2 - The Theft
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Justa heads up before we get into today's episode, I
want to let you know that it includes a description
of miscarriage, so take care while listening. Alice Kempton has
pretty much always known she wanted to have kids, and
since she was sixteen, she's also known that she'd need
help to make it happen.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I found out that I would need IVF treatment, and
it was all a blur because I hadn't even kissed
a boy, so it was something my mum had to
process then more than me.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Alice had been born without ovary's so if she ever
wanted to have a child, she would need to use
an egg from another woman.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hearing that I in inverted commas can't have kids naturally
got me thinking from that age, well that's something I
really want.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And when she was twenty nine, she met someone who
really wanted it.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
To The dream was always for me to have a
family with a person I loved.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
This is Paul Kempton, Alice's husband. They met through Paul's brother.
Paul was the best man at his wedding, Alice was
a bridesmaid and they connected on the dance floor. Within
a year of dating, Alice told Paul that if they
wanted to have kids, she'd need a donor egg to
get pregnant. No.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
I certainly didn't know much, if anything, about IVF, let
alone a donor. But if you love someone and you
love them a lot, and that's someone you want to marry,
then you'll do whatever it takes.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
The cost of IVF can vary wildly depending on where
you live, the kind of reproductive assistance you need, whether
you have insurance that covers fertility treatments, and whether travel
is involved. If you need a donor egg, like Alice,
it can increase costs even more. In Australia, where the Kemptons,
there are very limited options for egg donation. The country
(02:04):
has some of the most restrictive regulations in the global
egg market. In an effort to prevent exploitation, eggs must
truly be donated there, meaning donors must give up their
eggs altruistically. No payment for the donation is allowed. That
means that finding a donor in Australia can be really hard,
and donation almost always happens between people who know each other.
(02:28):
For Alice and Paul, there was only one family member
they could ask Alice's cousin.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I wrote a really long letter, not because I was
potentially worried about the result, but I wanted to let
her know my true wives not if turn thirty and
we should have kids and you need to help me.
It was this was going to be the biggest gift
someone could give. I sent the letter and I was,
(02:55):
you know, probably nervous as a wered, but still excited
as well.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So not nervous.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And anyway, very soon she said, I have been waiting
for this letter for so long, so it was magical. Yeah,
it was.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Alice knew the process wouldn't be easy, but they'd do
it together.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I was very keen to live every injection with her
and make sure each step of the way. She constantly
knew that this was the best thing she was ever
going to give someone else. You know, and I'll be
a shoulder to cry on. I'll be a late night
phone call, like anything you're going through. I want to
pretend I'm going through because I can't be the one
(03:41):
at that stage in the early process having the drugs.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So Alice, her cousin, and Paul started IVF and the
path ahead of them while not without challenges, looked promising.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
This beginning was awesome. My cousin was super fertile for
a geriatric. She's exceptionally healthy. Yes, she's considered geriatric in
the IRVF world. So we would laugh about those words
going around the room because.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
She was just like in her mid thirties.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Exactly, and I was blow thirties.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So we we were just positive the whole way until
it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
This is episode three of The Human Egg Trade, a
special series from Bloomberg's investigations team and the Big Take
podcast about the booming global market for human eggs. A
team of Bloomberg reporters across five continents and eleven countries
have spent the last year trying to understand how human
eggs are donated, bought, sold, and moved around the world.
(04:45):
We've covered how a teenage girl was lured into the
egg trade in India, and how police say women's eggs
were stolen in Greece, cases where egg donation led to
exploitation and violated local laws. In this episod pisode, we
focus on one couple whose experience navigating the fertility industry
as egg recipients brought them a different set of challenges.
(05:08):
They wanted access to a market they felt offered transparency.
They especially wanted information about potential donors. They wanted the
best they could afford.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
They call their son a quarter million dollar baby.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That's Bloomberg investigative reporter Jessica Brice, who spoke extensively with
the Kemptons.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
They say, by the time they finished the process with him,
they'd spent about a quarter million dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And did they go into debt. They did go into debt.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Today on the show, the exhilarating promise, gutting losses, and
extreme cost of one family's journey through the global IVF
market will continue after the break with twenty donated eggs
from Alice's cousin Alison. Paul's IVF journey was off to
(06:02):
an auspicious start with paul sperm. Those twenty eggs made
nine viable embryos.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
We put a fresh transfer in.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I was fitting healthy, The embryos were looking awesome according
to the embryologist. And I was pregnant, you know, at
the ten day blood test, and then at the two
week and the three week, in the four and the
five and the sixth and the seven and they ate,
and then there was a heartbeat, and then two weeks
later another heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
At fourteen weeks, they went in for a checkup. Paul
had been out of town during the first two scants,
so it would be the first time they'd see their
baby's heartbeat together. Alice works as a veterinarian, so she
knows how to read an ultrasound.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And so from the minute that lady put the probe bond,
I didn't say heartbeat. And Paul was sitting next to
me and he hadn't been in one yet, and he's
holding my hand, and I was like, I remember, just
it's dead.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's dead, it's dead. And Paul was still asking questions, Oh,
what's that? What's that?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
And the lady obviously has to do a thorough scan,
so she still has to on her report, right, what's
in the top right, the top left, the bottom right,
the butt?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And I was like, get off my tummy, you know,
and just tell me what I know.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
I still remember it very clearly. That first first loss
was really hard, and I knew it would be really
really taxing and heard on OL and obviously for both
of us, but you know, I felt like, you know,
keep positive, keep the faith.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The captains still had eight viable embryos, so they tried
again and again and again. Over eighteen months, Alice went
through a total of seven IVF cycles. She got pregnant
five times, and she had five mess carriages.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And they were horrendous.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I became a very bitter person and very glass half
empty when that was not me prior for probably the
next year. So I definitely went through what did I
do to lose this?
Speaker 6 (08:14):
You know?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Did I do too much core exercise? Was it playing tennis?
Or what did I eat or what?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Like?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
What you idiot? You didn't get enough sleep?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Did I kill this? You know?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
So that is a horrible self reflection to do, but
everyone would do that. I feel I've never met someone
that has a miscarriage without questioning that.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
People around her, people close to her, started to ask
if she and Paul were going too far.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I had beautiful friends and found me to lean on.
But even by this stage, you know, your seventh one,
when you've got so far, I kept getting pregnant. Families
even starting to say, are you guys flogging a dead horse?
You know, like, what's what's your thought process here? And
then you just keep looking at them in the and
say I've got pregnant. Specialists say I'm not flogging a
(09:05):
dead horse. And the highs to the carrot dangling is
to gold, you know, so you press on.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Eventually there were no embryos left, and when Paul and
Alice asked her cousin if she'd donate another round of eggs,
she told them she couldn't go through it again. Alice
and Paul had gone as far down the IVF path
as they could. Given their circumstances and Australia's restrictions, They
didn't know anyone else they could ask. They decided they'd
(09:38):
need to go abroad. That would mean new possibilities, but
also navigating new regulatory frameworks. It would also mean new costs.
That's after the break in their home country Australia. Alison
(10:01):
Paul Kempton had gone as far as they could to
have a child through IVF, so they decided to look
at clinics in other parts of the world. They both
have fair hair and fair skin and felt it was
important for their baby to look like they did. They
also wanted a donor who shared their active lifestyle, who
had no history of family illness and whose eggs had
already been used to conceive a child. So you looked
(10:24):
at every single potential country outside of Australia that you could.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yep, we looked at names of clinics.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I have probably forty emails to different clinics in Europe,
about ten to South Africa and lots to America before
we in Inverticomas made a decision to just chase the
American tree because financially it's in a world of its
own for IVF, but for really valid reasons.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
The Kemptons had a lot on the line, both emotionally
and financially. They'd already spent a little more than thirty
thousand dollars for IVF in Australia.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Since we were thirty. It's been IRVF. You know, should
we could? We can?
Speaker 5 (11:08):
We?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Or is it better for that? While friends were going
on holidays or getting houses or you know, equals in
your profession doing all that, You're like, oh, I really
want to, but our whys is so real?
Speaker 5 (11:22):
There?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Why making a family? So even though the US would
easily be the most expensive place to get treatment of
the countries they were looking at, they decided to stretch
for it.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
It was the transparency that America has the level of
pre qualifying donors and the information you could get on
them and their family and their siblings and their grandparents.
And that was what certainly got me over the line
and got us over line in terms of going down
(11:54):
that path.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Once they decided on the US, the next up was
to find a donor, and Alice says American doorner agencies
had a dizzying number of options.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
At first, I was going to design a child, so
I was looking for Feeno type only, and I was
just like, they're going to be smart, they're going to
be athletic, and they're going to be tall and good looking,
and you know what, Bugat, I'm going to find it.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
But it wasn't just photos. She was also sifting through
family medical histories.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I was definitely looking at photos at first for months,
and then after a photo I would read and as
I said, extensive medical and I'd be like, oh, wow,
that poor family. You know, her cousin and her cousin's
mum have both had breast cancer, you know, and we
know that there is a breast cancer chain. So that's
when I might say Oh, maybe not, because we can
(12:47):
have that choice. And you know that he's horrendous to
people that have to go through that. But if I
can avoid that, we're so lucky.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Alice says she spent seven months spinning her wheels, struggling
with the weed of the choice she was making. She
was working full time and spending four hours a day
looking at donor profiles. She says it was like a
dating app. You could just keep swiping and swiping and
swiping without making progress. She went to her therapist for advice.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I said, I'm going crazy. How am I going to
make this decision?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Like what if I have to look my kid in
the eye and say, I'm so sorry I made the
wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I was that the guilt is already there, and because
you could lego piece this potential designer child together, Paul
would find me up at three am.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You know, just scroll, I think, you know, And I
was exhausted.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Her therapist told her to stop looking at photos and
focus on what was really important to them. And then
one day Alice came upon a profile that seemed special,
right somehow? Do you remember what it was about her
profile that kind of stood up to you.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yeah, absolutely her name, because most donors are donor A
two one four seven and you never find out their name.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
And there was even on the email you don't know Karen.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I was like, oh Karen, cool name, love it, go girl.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Alice took a quick peek at Karen's photo and then
skipped to her medical history, no red flax.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Then I went back to her profile and we reguarded
to read first, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, she likes pizza. This is so cool.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
She loves running, like this is my girl, and I
can't wait to tell Paul. And then I looked at
photo and she just a smile. She's this You could
see her jumping out it. You're saying, let me help you.
So I vividly remember that, especially because it's on top of,
you know, eighteen months of trawling and getting very close,
you know, like we had spreadsheets about whether it was
health GPA, and then it was literally like what that
(14:42):
spreadsheet clear, We've found Karen. Paul needs to wake up,
I need to shut we need to get onto this
because she's going to be snapped up.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
So Karen Pets is a model from Argentina.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Karen has spoken at length with her colleague Bloomberg reporter
Jessica Brace.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
She's tall, she's charismatics, she's really smart, she's very nice.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And she's she's gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And she's also a superproducer. A super producer, a donor
who produces far more than the typical fifteen to twenty
eggs each cycle.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Her first donation was in January twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
She was twenty six years.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Old, and she flew to Los Angeles. She was paid
six thousand dollars. She the retrieval yielded forty five eggs,
and somehow word got out. She still doesn't know exactly
how word got out. But within a week or two,
this agency called Growing Generations called her up and they said, oh,
(15:38):
we want to represent you.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Which meant she could charge a lot more per cycle,
tens of thousands of dollars. But Karen told Jessica it
wasn't just about the money.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
This sort of gives her more purpose in life. We
spoke to a lot of egg donors who are very
open about saying I only do this for the money.
It's an easy way to make a lot of money,
and that's not necessarily Karen's case, although she does get
paid and compensated very well, just because she is, you know,
(16:08):
such an elite donor.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So elite that the Kemptons worried lots of other people
might want Karen's eggs too, so they rushed to reach
out to her agency before someone else did.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
And literally, Paul, I can't remember how long you looked
at her profile, but.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Then he's like, right, we need to, we need to,
we need to emig it.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I was like, I'm doing I'll do I'll do it,
I'll do it.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
A representative from the donor agency helped Alice and Paul
exchange letters with Karen, and once that went well, Alice
wanted to take it one step further.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I said, would she ever mate with us in scott
And she said, look, it's it's really not done, but
I've got to go back to Karen.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And Karen was for it.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
The meeting was booked for thirty minutes.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And it was just hysterical, like I talk a lot,
but so is Karen, and we were just and with
Paul like he was able to chime in. It wasn't
as it was just two girls with three of us
were just chatting.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Kenny Kenny Kenny.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Suddenly time was up. The donor agency said they had
to end the call.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And we were all like no.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Karen and the Kemptons were in They all boarded flights
to Portland, Oregon, Karen from Argentina and the Kemptons from Australia.
Alice says half her suitcase held presents for Karen. They
met for pizza. It was August of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Mating her was awesome.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
We literally, I think we walked up to each other
in the restaurant and gave each other a big hug
and then there was just no awkwardness. It wasn't like, oh,
what do you do in the afternoons? It was just
straighting to banter.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
The three of them swap numbers and started a WhatsApp
group chat. This was the kind of openness and connectedness
the Kemptons had hoped to find pursuing IVF in the US,
But in the back of her mind, Alice says she
had concerns. Not long before they made the trip to Portland,
Paul had been hospitalized with the flu, and they worried
(17:56):
the fever could have affected the viability of his sperm.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I had this parrot in my head, just saying, remember
Paul had the flu in Australia, so I was nervous
and really drilling the clinic question wise, like you know,
we're not questioning what Karen has to go through, but
like I'm going to say, you, for the six or
seventh time, we are happy to do a freeze all
egg cycle, like Paul really fried that sperm, you know,
(18:20):
like he was sick.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
The Kemptons didn't want to take any chances. They felt
like this was their only shot. They'd paid twenty five
thousand US dollars for Karen's fee, plus a seventeen thousand
dollars agency fee. Then there were fifteen thousand dollars in
travel costs to bring Karen to the US. The clinic
charged another forty thousand dollars for the procedures Karen's agg retrieval,
(18:44):
Paul's sperm collection, fertilizing the egg. Add in expenses for
their own plane tickets, hormones for both Karen and Alys,
several weeks of lodging, food, and a car. All in,
the Kemptons had accumulated a debt of more than one
hundred and seventy thousand dollar. Things had to go well.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
At the clinic, you have collection day, so that's go Karen,
go Paul.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And on Karen's side, things went extremely well. Fifty one
eggs with paul sperm, nineteen became embryos, and then the
kemptins waited for the results of their genetic testing to
come in.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
It was one of the worst old eyes I remember having,
because I could just distrain and agony of waiting.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
I was just punching through the motions, trying to enjoy myself,
but just petrified. Each day, I'm like counting down the
day until we actually knew.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Alis and Paul were at the gym when they got
the call.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I was on the treadmill, and.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
The nurses are just so lovely, so they start off
obviously very high, ellis how's your day, and then just wham,
you know, I'm sorry to say none had survived to
be viable, and I just I don't think I said anything.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I went silent. I got off the treadmill, cried, went
straight up to the room.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And then I didn't leave my computer. I just went
straight into you know, how did this happen?
Speaker 6 (20:06):
Mode?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And I'm going to find out how, and I'm going
to make someone accountable because we knew we'd never.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Be able to do it again financially, Like you know.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
We knew from before we even while you're still positive,
you're not talking about it because the thought that you
have to do it again isn't there.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But we both knew.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
We always knew America was our last chance. And I
remember just needing to walk, go for walk by myself,
giving our space and myself space. Like I just thought
it was very devastating at that point, and we thought
that was the end.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Really.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
One of the first things they did was let Karen
know what had happened.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I think her first words were, what can I do
to help?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
She was very quick to say I will donate for free,
like so quick, you know, it wasn't even me asking.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
She's like, well, I'll do it again.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The donor agency ultimately got involved and wouldn't let Karen
donate for free, but they did offer the Kemptons a
twenty percent discount on the agency fee. The clinic's medical
director said in an interview with Bloomberg, quote, we work
with compromised sperm all the time. We thought it was
a reasonable plan to move forward at the time, he
wrote the Kemptons to let them know how disappointed their
(21:18):
whole team was in the outcome, and the clinic offered
them a second cycle with Karen's eggs for free. Even so,
the Kemptons had to come up with more money for
Karen's second retrieval. Their debt was now approaching two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
We found out on New Year's Eve morning that we
had four genetically beautiful embryos.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And less than a year later, in late twenty twenty,
the Kempton's son, Rupert, was born.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
It was.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
The best best day of my life.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Like you know, it's just amazing to have fallen in
love with someone that you love so much, to go
through that heartache that we have over a number of years,
and then to actually.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Hold Rupert that to this day would be.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
The most happiest moment of my life. It's an amazing
thrill in an amazing achievement.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And in twenty twenty three, the Captains welcomed a daughter, Matilda.
Both Matilda and her brother were born from the embryos
created from Karen's second ag retrieval.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I've always loved having friends and seeing their kids.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And be like, oh that, that's a little bit of you, Like,
I love looking at that.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
And so I definitely look at Rupert and Matilda and
I'm like, where's Paul, Where's Karen, where's me?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Alice says she sees all three of them and the kids.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I'm headstrong. Yes, Matilda is headstrong. Karen might be headstrong Paul,
but it's her tweak on it, you know. So we
call Matilda Hurricane because she'll come in.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And Paul Rupert is a very.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Perfectionist, dedicated, He's a beautiful gentle. And then Matilda comes
in and is says, I'm knocking that over, you know,
here I come.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
In Australia, it's not uncommon for donor conceived people to
know the identity of their donors. Several of the country
states have passed legislation giving children the right to know
their heritage, and Alis and Paul have embraced that culture
with their kids. They have a world map up in
their home, so Rupert and Matilda can see where Karen
lives in Argentina and where the clinic is in Portland.
(23:26):
And they've been open with the kids about how they
were born.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
So we made a decision to make sure we had
picture books from the get go, like age appropriate books
as they go up and even it.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Was important to us for that truthness.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
And also we're really proud of how much we love Karen,
like we would not have our family without her.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So in the end, the time, the heartbreak, the money,
it all felt worth it, and the Camptons realize they're
lucky they were able to pay for it all. How
did you manage to find the money to fund this journey?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
I mean, over the course of our whole UF journey
it would be half a mil and over a number
of years.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
That's about half a million Australian dollars, which is just
over three hundred thousand US dollars.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
And a lot of that has been our own savings,
but we've had a fair chunk towards the end, which
involved the America which we've had to borrow. And you know,
rather see it as it as an upfront amount, you
sort of look at it over the course of your
whole life. I think you only live once and you
only have one chance of having a family. And yes,
(24:48):
it's a lot of money up front, but it's an
investment in your future. It's an investment in Your Life.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
That was the third episode in The Human Egg Trade,
our special series about the booming global market for human eggs.
For more in depth reporting on how the human egg
has become a precious resource traded around the world, read
The Egg, an investigation by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Big Take.
You can read The Egg on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg
(25:21):
dot com or in the January twenty twenty five issue
of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News.
I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by David Fox.
It was edited by Tracy Samuelson and Ken Armstrong. It
was fact checked by Naomi Ean and mixed and sound
designed by Alex Sugia. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven.
(25:42):
Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is
Nicole Beemster. Bor Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It
helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be
back next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Justa heads up before we get into today's episode, I
want to let you know that it includes a description
of miscarriage, so take care while listening. Alice Kempton has
pretty much always known she wanted to have kids, and
since she was sixteen, she's also known that she'd need
help to make it happen.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I found out that I would need IVF treatment, and
it was all a blur because I hadn't even kissed
a boy, so it was something my mum had to
process then more than me.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Alice had been born without ovary's so if she ever
wanted to have a child, she would need to use
an egg from another woman.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hearing that I in inverted commas can't have kids naturally
got me thinking from that age, well that's something I
really want.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And when she was twenty nine, she met someone who
really wanted it.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
To The dream was always for me to have a
family with a person I loved.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
This is Paul Kempton, Alice's husband. They met through Paul's brother.
Paul was the best man at his wedding, Alice was
a bridesmaid and they connected on the dance floor. Within
a year of dating, Alice told Paul that if they
wanted to have kids, she'd need a donor egg to
get pregnant. No.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
I certainly didn't know much, if anything, about IVF, let
alone a donor. But if you love someone and you
love them a lot, and that's someone you want to marry,
then you'll do whatever it takes.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
The cost of IVF can vary wildly depending on where
you live, the kind of reproductive assistance you need, whether
you have insurance that covers fertility treatments, and whether travel
is involved. If you need a donor egg, like Alice,
it can increase costs even more. In Australia, where the Kemptons,
there are very limited options for egg donation. The country
(02:04):
has some of the most restrictive regulations in the global
egg market. In an effort to prevent exploitation, eggs must
truly be donated there, meaning donors must give up their
eggs altruistically. No payment for the donation is allowed. That
means that finding a donor in Australia can be really hard,
and donation almost always happens between people who know each other.
(02:28):
For Alice and Paul, there was only one family member
they could ask Alice's cousin.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I wrote a really long letter, not because I was
potentially worried about the result, but I wanted to let
her know my true wives not if turn thirty and
we should have kids and you need to help me.
It was this was going to be the biggest gift
someone could give. I sent the letter and I was,
(02:55):
you know, probably nervous as a wered, but still excited
as well.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So not nervous.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And anyway, very soon she said, I have been waiting
for this letter for so long, so it was magical. Yeah,
it was.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Alice knew the process wouldn't be easy, but they'd do
it together.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I was very keen to live every injection with her
and make sure each step of the way. She constantly
knew that this was the best thing she was ever
going to give someone else. You know, and I'll be
a shoulder to cry on. I'll be a late night
phone call, like anything you're going through. I want to
pretend I'm going through because I can't be the one
(03:41):
at that stage in the early process having the drugs.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So Alice, her cousin, and Paul started IVF and the
path ahead of them while not without challenges, looked promising.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
This beginning was awesome. My cousin was super fertile for
a geriatric. She's exceptionally healthy. Yes, she's considered geriatric in
the IRVF world. So we would laugh about those words
going around the room because.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
She was just like in her mid thirties.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Exactly, and I was blow thirties.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So we we were just positive the whole way until
it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
This is episode three of The Human Egg Trade, a
special series from Bloomberg's investigations team and the Big Take
podcast about the booming global market for human eggs. A
team of Bloomberg reporters across five continents and eleven countries
have spent the last year trying to understand how human
eggs are donated, bought, sold, and moved around the world.
(04:45):
We've covered how a teenage girl was lured into the
egg trade in India, and how police say women's eggs
were stolen in Greece, cases where egg donation led to
exploitation and violated local laws. In this episod pisode, we
focus on one couple whose experience navigating the fertility industry
as egg recipients brought them a different set of challenges.
(05:08):
They wanted access to a market they felt offered transparency.
They especially wanted information about potential donors. They wanted the
best they could afford.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
They call their son a quarter million dollar baby.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That's Bloomberg investigative reporter Jessica Brice, who spoke extensively with
the Kemptons.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
They say, by the time they finished the process with him,
they'd spent about a quarter million dollars.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And did they go into debt. They did go into debt.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Today on the show, the exhilarating promise, gutting losses, and
extreme cost of one family's journey through the global IVF
market will continue after the break with twenty donated eggs
from Alice's cousin Alison. Paul's IVF journey was off to
(06:02):
an auspicious start with paul sperm. Those twenty eggs made
nine viable embryos.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
We put a fresh transfer in.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I was fitting healthy, The embryos were looking awesome according
to the embryologist. And I was pregnant, you know, at
the ten day blood test, and then at the two
week and the three week, in the four and the
five and the sixth and the seven and they ate,
and then there was a heartbeat, and then two weeks
later another heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
At fourteen weeks, they went in for a checkup. Paul
had been out of town during the first two scants,
so it would be the first time they'd see their
baby's heartbeat together. Alice works as a veterinarian, so she
knows how to read an ultrasound.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And so from the minute that lady put the probe bond,
I didn't say heartbeat. And Paul was sitting next to
me and he hadn't been in one yet, and he's
holding my hand, and I was like, I remember, just
it's dead.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's dead, it's dead. And Paul was still asking questions, Oh,
what's that? What's that?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
And the lady obviously has to do a thorough scan,
so she still has to on her report, right, what's
in the top right, the top left, the bottom right,
the butt?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And I was like, get off my tummy, you know,
and just tell me what I know.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
I still remember it very clearly. That first first loss
was really hard, and I knew it would be really
really taxing and heard on OL and obviously for both
of us, but you know, I felt like, you know,
keep positive, keep the faith.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The captains still had eight viable embryos, so they tried
again and again and again. Over eighteen months, Alice went
through a total of seven IVF cycles. She got pregnant
five times, and she had five mess carriages.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And they were horrendous.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I became a very bitter person and very glass half
empty when that was not me prior for probably the
next year. So I definitely went through what did I
do to lose this?
Speaker 6 (08:14):
You know?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Did I do too much core exercise? Was it playing tennis?
Or what did I eat or what?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Like?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
What you idiot? You didn't get enough sleep?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Did I kill this? You know?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
So that is a horrible self reflection to do, but
everyone would do that. I feel I've never met someone
that has a miscarriage without questioning that.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
People around her, people close to her, started to ask
if she and Paul were going too far.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I had beautiful friends and found me to lean on.
But even by this stage, you know, your seventh one,
when you've got so far, I kept getting pregnant. Families
even starting to say, are you guys flogging a dead horse?
You know, like, what's what's your thought process here? And
then you just keep looking at them in the and
say I've got pregnant. Specialists say I'm not flogging a
(09:05):
dead horse. And the highs to the carrot dangling is
to gold, you know, so you press on.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Eventually there were no embryos left, and when Paul and
Alice asked her cousin if she'd donate another round of eggs,
she told them she couldn't go through it again. Alice
and Paul had gone as far down the IVF path
as they could. Given their circumstances and Australia's restrictions, They
didn't know anyone else they could ask. They decided they'd
(09:38):
need to go abroad. That would mean new possibilities, but
also navigating new regulatory frameworks. It would also mean new costs.
That's after the break in their home country Australia. Alison
(10:01):
Paul Kempton had gone as far as they could to
have a child through IVF, so they decided to look
at clinics in other parts of the world. They both
have fair hair and fair skin and felt it was
important for their baby to look like they did. They
also wanted a donor who shared their active lifestyle, who
had no history of family illness and whose eggs had
already been used to conceive a child. So you looked
(10:24):
at every single potential country outside of Australia that you could.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yep, we looked at names of clinics.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I have probably forty emails to different clinics in Europe,
about ten to South Africa and lots to America before
we in Inverticomas made a decision to just chase the
American tree because financially it's in a world of its
own for IVF, but for really valid reasons.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
The Kemptons had a lot on the line, both emotionally
and financially. They'd already spent a little more than thirty
thousand dollars for IVF in Australia.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Since we were thirty. It's been IRVF. You know, should
we could? We can?
Speaker 5 (11:08):
We?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Or is it better for that? While friends were going
on holidays or getting houses or you know, equals in
your profession doing all that, You're like, oh, I really
want to, but our whys is so real?
Speaker 5 (11:22):
There?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Why making a family? So even though the US would
easily be the most expensive place to get treatment of
the countries they were looking at, they decided to stretch
for it.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
It was the transparency that America has the level of
pre qualifying donors and the information you could get on
them and their family and their siblings and their grandparents.
And that was what certainly got me over the line
and got us over line in terms of going down
(11:54):
that path.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Once they decided on the US, the next up was
to find a donor, and Alice says American doorner agencies
had a dizzying number of options.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
At first, I was going to design a child, so
I was looking for Feeno type only, and I was
just like, they're going to be smart, they're going to
be athletic, and they're going to be tall and good looking,
and you know what, Bugat, I'm going to find it.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
But it wasn't just photos. She was also sifting through
family medical histories.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I was definitely looking at photos at first for months,
and then after a photo I would read and as
I said, extensive medical and I'd be like, oh, wow,
that poor family. You know, her cousin and her cousin's
mum have both had breast cancer, you know, and we
know that there is a breast cancer chain. So that's
when I might say Oh, maybe not, because we can
(12:47):
have that choice. And you know that he's horrendous to
people that have to go through that. But if I
can avoid that, we're so lucky.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Alice says she spent seven months spinning her wheels, struggling
with the weed of the choice she was making. She
was working full time and spending four hours a day
looking at donor profiles. She says it was like a
dating app. You could just keep swiping and swiping and
swiping without making progress. She went to her therapist for advice.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I said, I'm going crazy. How am I going to
make this decision?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Like what if I have to look my kid in
the eye and say, I'm so sorry I made the
wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I was that the guilt is already there, and because
you could lego piece this potential designer child together, Paul
would find me up at three am.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You know, just scroll, I think, you know, And I
was exhausted.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Her therapist told her to stop looking at photos and
focus on what was really important to them. And then
one day Alice came upon a profile that seemed special,
right somehow? Do you remember what it was about her
profile that kind of stood up to you.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yeah, absolutely her name, because most donors are donor A
two one four seven and you never find out their name.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
And there was even on the email you don't know Karen.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I was like, oh Karen, cool name, love it, go girl.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Alice took a quick peek at Karen's photo and then
skipped to her medical history, no red flax.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Then I went back to her profile and we reguarded
to read first, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, she likes pizza. This is so cool.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
She loves running, like this is my girl, and I
can't wait to tell Paul. And then I looked at
photo and she just a smile. She's this You could
see her jumping out it. You're saying, let me help you.
So I vividly remember that, especially because it's on top of,
you know, eighteen months of trawling and getting very close,
you know, like we had spreadsheets about whether it was
health GPA, and then it was literally like what that
(14:42):
spreadsheet clear, We've found Karen. Paul needs to wake up,
I need to shut we need to get onto this
because she's going to be snapped up.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
So Karen Pets is a model from Argentina.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Karen has spoken at length with her colleague Bloomberg reporter
Jessica Brace.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
She's tall, she's charismatics, she's really smart, she's very nice.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
And she's she's gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
And she's also a superproducer. A super producer, a donor
who produces far more than the typical fifteen to twenty
eggs each cycle.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Her first donation was in January twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
She was twenty six years.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Old, and she flew to Los Angeles. She was paid
six thousand dollars. She the retrieval yielded forty five eggs,
and somehow word got out. She still doesn't know exactly
how word got out. But within a week or two,
this agency called Growing Generations called her up and they said, oh,
(15:38):
we want to represent you.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Which meant she could charge a lot more per cycle,
tens of thousands of dollars. But Karen told Jessica it
wasn't just about the money.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
This sort of gives her more purpose in life. We
spoke to a lot of egg donors who are very
open about saying I only do this for the money.
It's an easy way to make a lot of money,
and that's not necessarily Karen's case, although she does get
paid and compensated very well, just because she is, you know,
(16:08):
such an elite donor.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So elite that the Kemptons worried lots of other people
might want Karen's eggs too, so they rushed to reach
out to her agency before someone else did.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
And literally, Paul, I can't remember how long you looked
at her profile, but.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Then he's like, right, we need to, we need to,
we need to emig it.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I was like, I'm doing I'll do I'll do it,
I'll do it.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
A representative from the donor agency helped Alice and Paul
exchange letters with Karen, and once that went well, Alice
wanted to take it one step further.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I said, would she ever mate with us in scott
And she said, look, it's it's really not done, but
I've got to go back to Karen.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And Karen was for it.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
The meeting was booked for thirty minutes.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And it was just hysterical, like I talk a lot,
but so is Karen, and we were just and with
Paul like he was able to chime in. It wasn't
as it was just two girls with three of us
were just chatting.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Kenny Kenny Kenny.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Suddenly time was up. The donor agency said they had
to end the call.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And we were all like no.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Karen and the Kemptons were in They all boarded flights
to Portland, Oregon, Karen from Argentina and the Kemptons from Australia.
Alice says half her suitcase held presents for Karen. They
met for pizza. It was August of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Mating her was awesome.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
We literally, I think we walked up to each other
in the restaurant and gave each other a big hug
and then there was just no awkwardness. It wasn't like, oh,
what do you do in the afternoons? It was just
straighting to banter.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
The three of them swap numbers and started a WhatsApp
group chat. This was the kind of openness and connectedness
the Kemptons had hoped to find pursuing IVF in the US,
But in the back of her mind, Alice says she
had concerns. Not long before they made the trip to Portland,
Paul had been hospitalized with the flu, and they worried
(17:56):
the fever could have affected the viability of his sperm.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I had this parrot in my head, just saying, remember
Paul had the flu in Australia, so I was nervous
and really drilling the clinic question wise, like you know,
we're not questioning what Karen has to go through, but
like I'm going to say, you, for the six or
seventh time, we are happy to do a freeze all
egg cycle, like Paul really fried that sperm, you know,
(18:20):
like he was sick.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
The Kemptons didn't want to take any chances. They felt
like this was their only shot. They'd paid twenty five
thousand US dollars for Karen's fee, plus a seventeen thousand
dollars agency fee. Then there were fifteen thousand dollars in
travel costs to bring Karen to the US. The clinic
charged another forty thousand dollars for the procedures Karen's agg retrieval,
(18:44):
Paul's sperm collection, fertilizing the egg. Add in expenses for
their own plane tickets, hormones for both Karen and Alys,
several weeks of lodging, food, and a car. All in,
the Kemptons had accumulated a debt of more than one
hundred and seventy thousand dollar. Things had to go well.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
At the clinic, you have collection day, so that's go Karen,
go Paul.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And on Karen's side, things went extremely well. Fifty one
eggs with paul sperm, nineteen became embryos, and then the
kemptins waited for the results of their genetic testing to
come in.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
It was one of the worst old eyes I remember having,
because I could just distrain and agony of waiting.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
I was just punching through the motions, trying to enjoy myself,
but just petrified. Each day, I'm like counting down the
day until we actually knew.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Alis and Paul were at the gym when they got
the call.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I was on the treadmill, and.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
The nurses are just so lovely, so they start off
obviously very high, ellis how's your day, and then just wham,
you know, I'm sorry to say none had survived to
be viable, and I just I don't think I said anything.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I went silent. I got off the treadmill, cried, went
straight up to the room.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And then I didn't leave my computer. I just went
straight into you know, how did this happen?
Speaker 6 (20:06):
Mode?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
And I'm going to find out how, and I'm going
to make someone accountable because we knew we'd never.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Be able to do it again financially, Like you know.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
We knew from before we even while you're still positive,
you're not talking about it because the thought that you
have to do it again isn't there.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But we both knew.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
We always knew America was our last chance. And I
remember just needing to walk, go for walk by myself,
giving our space and myself space. Like I just thought
it was very devastating at that point, and we thought
that was the end.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Really.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
One of the first things they did was let Karen
know what had happened.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I think her first words were, what can I do
to help?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
She was very quick to say I will donate for free,
like so quick, you know, it wasn't even me asking.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
She's like, well, I'll do it again.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The donor agency ultimately got involved and wouldn't let Karen
donate for free, but they did offer the Kemptons a
twenty percent discount on the agency fee. The clinic's medical
director said in an interview with Bloomberg, quote, we work
with compromised sperm all the time. We thought it was
a reasonable plan to move forward at the time, he
wrote the Kemptons to let them know how disappointed their
(21:18):
whole team was in the outcome, and the clinic offered
them a second cycle with Karen's eggs for free. Even so,
the Kemptons had to come up with more money for
Karen's second retrieval. Their debt was now approaching two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
We found out on New Year's Eve morning that we
had four genetically beautiful embryos.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And less than a year later, in late twenty twenty,
the Kempton's son, Rupert, was born.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
It was.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
The best best day of my life.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Like you know, it's just amazing to have fallen in
love with someone that you love so much, to go
through that heartache that we have over a number of years,
and then to actually.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Hold Rupert that to this day would be.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
The most happiest moment of my life. It's an amazing
thrill in an amazing achievement.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And in twenty twenty three, the Captains welcomed a daughter, Matilda.
Both Matilda and her brother were born from the embryos
created from Karen's second ag retrieval.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I've always loved having friends and seeing their kids.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And be like, oh that, that's a little bit of you, Like,
I love looking at that.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
And so I definitely look at Rupert and Matilda and
I'm like, where's Paul, Where's Karen, where's me?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Alice says she sees all three of them and the kids.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I'm headstrong. Yes, Matilda is headstrong. Karen might be headstrong Paul,
but it's her tweak on it, you know. So we
call Matilda Hurricane because she'll come in.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And Paul Rupert is a very.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Perfectionist, dedicated, He's a beautiful gentle. And then Matilda comes
in and is says, I'm knocking that over, you know,
here I come.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
In Australia, it's not uncommon for donor conceived people to
know the identity of their donors. Several of the country
states have passed legislation giving children the right to know
their heritage, and Alis and Paul have embraced that culture
with their kids. They have a world map up in
their home, so Rupert and Matilda can see where Karen
lives in Argentina and where the clinic is in Portland.
(23:26):
And they've been open with the kids about how they
were born.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
So we made a decision to make sure we had
picture books from the get go, like age appropriate books
as they go up and even it.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Was important to us for that truthness.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
And also we're really proud of how much we love Karen,
like we would not have our family without her.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So in the end, the time, the heartbreak, the money,
it all felt worth it, and the Camptons realize they're
lucky they were able to pay for it all. How
did you manage to find the money to fund this journey?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
I mean, over the course of our whole UF journey
it would be half a mil and over a number
of years.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
That's about half a million Australian dollars, which is just
over three hundred thousand US dollars.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
And a lot of that has been our own savings,
but we've had a fair chunk towards the end, which
involved the America which we've had to borrow. And you know,
rather see it as it as an upfront amount, you
sort of look at it over the course of your
whole life. I think you only live once and you
only have one chance of having a family. And yes,
(24:48):
it's a lot of money up front, but it's an
investment in your future. It's an investment in Your Life.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
That was the third episode in The Human Egg Trade,
our special series about the booming global market for human eggs.
For more in depth reporting on how the human egg
has become a precious resource traded around the world, read
The Egg, an investigation by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Big Take.
You can read The Egg on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg
(25:21):
dot com or in the January twenty twenty five issue
of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News.
I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by David Fox.
It was edited by Tracy Samuelson and Ken Armstrong. It
was fact checked by Naomi Ean and mixed and sound
designed by Alex Sugia. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven.
(25:42):
Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is
Nicole Beemster. Bor Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and
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