September 18, 2025 • 32 mins
When Diana Thomas became one of the first women in the United States to give birth through donor egg IVF in 1996, there were no guidelines, agencies, or contracts. It was determination and uncharted territory. Today, as Founder and CEO of The World Egg and Sperm Bank, she is on a mission to bring transparency, ethics, and rigorous standards to a rapidly growing and often misunderstood industry.
Episode Highlights
- Diana’s groundbreaking 15-year journey through infertility and how it shaped her mission to protect and empower future families
- Eye-opening truths about the global egg donation landscape, including trafficking, exploitation, and overlooked legislative gaps
- Why transparency and rigorous screening are critical—and the essential questions every hopeful parent should ask their clinic
- Practical advice for women navigating fertility challenges, including how to advocate for themselves in an emotional and complex process
Whether you are navigating fertility yourself or want to understand an industry that touches millions, Diana’s insights are both eye opening and inspiring.
Links and Resources
Connect with Diana Thomas on LinkedIn
Connect with the The World Egg and Sperm Bank on LinkedIn
Learn more about The World Egg and Sperm Bank
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I give out a book that's called Passport.
It says ask these questionswhen you go into a clinic.
I think it's education andspeaking out and as a mother of
donor children, I know what'sgoing to happen down the road
and I really want people tothink you know, people prepare
for what school their kids aregoing to go to, but they don't
know where the genes came from.
(00:21):
You know, we have to getsmarter.
I think that women are nottaught to discriminate about
these things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome back to the show.
Hope you're all having a greatweek so far.
In this week's episode we'recovering a topic that affects
many women.
In fact, one in six womenglobally deal with infertility
and even if maybe this is notsomething you've dealt with
directly, you probably have awoman or no woman in your life
who's dealt with infertility.
Today's guest is Diana Thomas,and she is one of the first
(01:03):
women in the United States tohave given birth, back in 1995,
to a child through egg donationand using IVF and egg donation.
And what Diana went on to doafter her experience trying to
go through the process ofidentifying a solution for her
(01:23):
infertility and back in theearly 1990s there were far fewer
solutions for women than thereare today.
So, based on that experience,diana founded the World Egg and
Sperm Bank and really has beendedicated to helping women and
men have safe egg and spermdonations in order to give birth
(01:44):
to children.
In this episode Diana talksabout her experience and it is
so inspiring to see how she tookthis very difficult experience
that she went through and hasreally turned it into a way to
help other people who aredealing with something similar.
She talks about the realitiesof egg donation, the dangers of
(02:07):
international egg trafficking,which I did not even know about,
and the misinformation that canput families at risk.
She also shares tough questions.
Every couple should ask theirdoctor or their clinic and
advice that she wishes that shehad when she began her own
journey.
In this eye-openingconversation, you will learn so
(02:32):
much more and even hopefullygive someone in your life some
hope and some information thatmight be useful to them.
Diana's advocacy and herinfluence in the industry, I
think, has been unbelievablystrong, and I am excited for you
to hear my conversation withDiana Thomas.
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Diana, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you very much.
I'm excited to be here.
Great Well.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I am excited to talk with you because in doing a bit
of research about you and yourbackground, I found your story
fascinating and I want to start,if we can, with where your
journey started here, with whatyou're doing today.
In 1996, you were one of thefirst women to use IVF in vitro
(03:20):
fertilization to give birth to achild in the US, or is that
worldwide?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I had the child in the US but the first hundred
babies with donor eggs.
Ivf was around a little bit butthis was the first introduction
of donor egg into IVF.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
That's amazing.
I do want to talk a little bit,if we can, so that people
understand the space a littlebit more In terms of your
journey.
It sounds like IVF had beenaround and I don't know kind of
how long it had been around, butthe fact that you were one of
the first to conceive and have achild through a donor egg, how
(04:01):
did that process come about foryou, Because you are obviously
one of the first to do that, I'massuming it was very new
territory.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow that came about?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I went through 15 years of infertility treatments,
starting in the 80s, and it wasbasically my whole journey
through IVF mirrored the veryearliest days of the existence
of IVF.
For the next 20 years it wassomething of a poster child for
every new treatment that camealong because it was so new.
(04:33):
They really didn't know how totreat women who were infertile
and they called a lot ofinfertility unexplained
infertility and I started offwith all sorts of low-level
technology.
For years they considered thisa woman's problem back then,
when half the time infertilityis related to the men.
But at that time it was awoman's problem and it was
(04:57):
usually because they hadendometriosis.
That's all they pretty muchknew at the time.
So I went through, I think,three laparoscopies to remove
endometriosis, which was reallyvery minor and wasn't really the
problem for me.
That's all they knew.
But I went through othertechnologies for a long time and
it was in those early days.
(05:17):
It was quite a journey.
All the shots wereintermuscular, they were painful
, you'd have all sorts ofshortcuts and even the
medication which is nowpharmaceutically produced since
the mid-90s was actuallyextracted from the urine of
menopausal nuns in Rome.
They used to have nunsurinating buckets in Rome
(05:42):
because the Vatican was actuallyinvested in Sirono, the
pharmaceutical company.
I know this sounds insane, butthere's actually.
There's stories about this.
It would take 10 days for 10women urinating in a bucket for
a single treatment for women inthe US because they were
(06:02):
extracting follicle stimulating,hormoneimulating hormone, which
women produce in menopause, andthey decided to go with nuns
because they were also usuallydisease-free because they were
not having intercourse.
Things have been really, reallychanged.
I mean, it was just very earlyon.
There were no donors, there wasjust not a lot going on until
(06:26):
my late 30s and I was told thatthere was really nothing left
for me to do except a donor egg.
And I said, well, what's that?
And they said, well, you know,we really don't know that much
about it, but you'll just haveto figure it out and find a
donor because there were noagencies, and find a donor
(06:46):
because there were no agencies,there were no guidelines, there
were no contracts, there were nolaws, there was no FDA auditing
, there wasn't anything.
I had to first of all find anegg donor.
Then I had to create all thedocuments I wanted about her
medical history, consenting herabout the process, telling her
that this was going to be anopen identification, I'm the
(07:06):
person that she'd be donatingfor, because I just can't lie to
somebody, take their egg andsay, oh, you're just donating to
somebody.
It was a very intimate processfor me because I interviewed
women.
I finally found a woman that Idecided you know, I'm just
looking for somebody with asimilar spirit.
And so I took her back to thedoctor and the doctor said okay,
(07:31):
we'll do egg retrieval andtransfer the embryos that are
made into your uterus.
I sat there and held her handduring retrieval and got to see
the embryos in the lab when theywere first fertilized.
These are things would neverhappen today.
They would just never allowthat today.
So it was yeah, it's crazy.
(07:53):
Then they said doctors asked mecan you find donors for other
women, some of our otherpatients?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
That I mean what a what a journey and to be of the
first to do this, and just theprocess.
I can imagine how overwhelmingthat process must have been,
because it was like, all right,well, go ahead and find yourself
an egg donor.
(08:19):
Where do you start?
How did you even think to gothrough that process to find
women who might be willing to beegg donors?
I'm fascinated, as one of thefirst that you had to come up
with this, you know if youreally want something in life,
(08:39):
you just figure it out.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Determination is part of getting where you want to go
, and it means failing.
I failed so many times in IDFand in vitro for years, and it's
about picking yourself up andmoving forward.
But the women have to be intheir 20s and so I went to the
university which is ASU, whichis Arizona State University,
(09:03):
which is the third largestuniversity campus in the country
, and I just put an ad in astudent paper and I was even
shocked.
Anybody would even understandit enough to answer the ad.
But I had six people answer thead and I met with them all and
some said no, but we ended upwith one woman and it all worked
(09:24):
out really well said no, but weended up with one woman and it
all worked out really well.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Well, you just need one that works.
I guess that's the truth.
But wow, so you had six answerone that ended up working out
and you were able to conceivethe child your son is that right
and gave birth unbelievableyeah.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, it was a gift.
I mean, these women are justamazing who help other women.
It's just so grateful.
I had another woman who helpedme have my twins in the year
2000.
I met her twice, with twodifferent women and the three
siblings.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yes, that's amazing.
That's amazing so in terms oftoday.
So fast forward.
So this was 1996 and then maybelate 90s when you had your
twins, or early 2000s when youhad your twins.
You now have three children andyou were asked by doctors to
(10:28):
help with other patients rightwho were looking for egg donors,
with other patients right whowere looking for egg donors, and
you were able to start theconsulting agency which is now
your company.
Tell us a little bit about yourcompany today.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Well, we are really one of the only egg banks that
comply with legislationworldwide and it's very
complicated.
We have to watch family limitsand I probably adhere to about
45 pieces of legislation notguidelines, but legislation
around the world and eachcountry has a different set of
criteria for each donor.
(11:03):
When I began the egg bank, theAmerican Society of Reproductive
Medicine decided that this wasexperimental.
So I went outside the countryand I went to Australia and
Canada and the UK and startedworking with women there and we
started freezing eggs andshipping them around the world,
because the US was stillconsidering it experimental and
(11:27):
basically most of the industrycaught up to what we were doing
and they really didn't like it.
That two women in the countrywere the only two that were
freezing eggs and me andChristina Jones in New York kind
of got halted and I think afterthe rest of the crew figured
they had caught up, all of asudden it wasn't experimental
(11:48):
anymore and that was in 2012.
I had been doing it for eightyears before they came on board.
So we do everything in our onelocation, where other egg banks
farm out all their procedures tojust dozens of other locations.
I mean there's reasons why Iformed the model that I did.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I know that the industry really has evolved a
lot and you've talked about theneed for transparency in egg and
sperm donations.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat you've set up?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
and why you've set it up.
I decided that I was going toscreen all egg donors to the
highest worldwide, that any ofthe sperm and eggs could go
anywhere in the world.
I didn't have to startsegregating them into different
legal categories and the needfor transparency, you know,
(12:45):
having everything in onelocation so I don't farm out to
embryologists all around theworld or other clinics or other
people who are screening andother.
Everything is done our onefacility.
So every donor walks in ourdoor.
We know who they are, we cantrace them, we do ID checks and
our staff gets to know them andwe do interviews and they get
(13:08):
through genetic counseling andthey go through psychological
counseling so that they arereally aware of what they're
involved in.
They go through medicalconsenting with our staff, our
medical staff.
But we can trace it all the wayfrom her walking in the door
through egg stimulation, throughegg retrieval, through egg
(13:28):
freezing, through shipping theeggs.
So we track everything and wedouble witness every time the
egg or the sperm are moved ortouched.
And the eggs.
So we track everything and wedouble witness every time the
egg or the sperm are moved ortouched.
And the paperwork.
I know you hear about thesethings in the press, about the
wrong embryo got transferred tosomebody or you know all that
kind of stuff going on.
We eliminate that problem.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the
hurdles that face women and mencouples who are willing to
donate eggs and to have you knowappropriate candidates to
(14:21):
donate eggs.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
We go through a huge paring down so donors can apply.
They go through screening.
Every step of the screeningprocess they have to pass.
They have to have certaingenetic history that doesn't
show generation after generationof cancer.
There's so many criteria.
We can start with a hundredwomen and end up with five.
Wow, very outset.
(14:56):
It's a lot of work to reallyget to be able to stand behind
what you're telling people.
You have to be careful, youhave to be honest and you do
have to be transparent and youreally do have to make sure
these women and men comply withlegislation worldwide.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, I mean, that's unbelievable.
I would not have thought thatthe funnel, so to speak, would
take us from a hundred willingbecause these are all women who
say, yes, I'm interested inbeing an egg donor to get from
that 100 down to five who areviable.
And can I just ask because I'mcurious about how much of it is
(15:28):
health-related issues, physicalhealth in terms of what you said
, family history, manygenerations of cancer, for
example, versus like apsychological maybe, evaluation
versus they're just the womendeciding that it's not for them.
I'm just curious if there isone bucket where you really find
(15:51):
that people kind of fall off.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I think it's after interviewing and educating
donors and consenting them.
That is one place they fall off.
Because we will only work withopen identity donors too.
One of the things I'm not justconcerned about the parents, but
I'm concerned about the donor,conceived children, and when
you're trying to get pregnant,all you're thinking about is the
baby in your arm.
You're not really thinkingabout when they're eight years
(16:19):
old and they're going to askquestions, what you're going to
say.
Because my children are 28 and24, I've been through the whole
gamut of walking into a doctor'soffices and the doctor saying
well, he seems to have a historyof migraine in your family.
And I go well, it's not myfamily but the egg donors does.
It's that knowledge for thebenefit of the child as well.
But the other bucket, I think,is genetics, because we now look
(16:44):
at 6,000 recessive traits.
You know, like cystic fibrosis,for example, can have, I don't
know, something like 400mutations.
But you can't have the samemutation on the female side as
the male side, or the chances ofhaving CF really increases
exponentially.
It's not engineering children,it's really eliminating disease
(17:07):
from children.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, those are very real and it's such an important
thing for people to know and beaware of.
Going into that with your eyesopen, I think, makes so much
sense, absolutely.
When you talked about the factthat you do have a drop-off once
people are educated about yourprocess and understand that
(17:31):
there has to be some sort ofidentification associated, and
you get drop-off there in termsof women maybe not wanting to be
identified, is that becausethey don't want to be identified
later, when the child is older,let's say?
Or is it just that they don'twant the details of who they are
(17:52):
from a medical standpoint to beshared early or at different
points for that child's life?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
as they grow up.
Well, first of all, we give allthe information that we know
about the donor, with thedonor's permission, to the
intended parents who buy hereggs.
So they have a lot of genetichistory, they actually have the
genetic reports, they have a lotof information history, they
actually have the geneticreports, they have a lot of
information and the lawsbasically state that unless
(18:24):
there's a real urgent need, thatthe child cannot contact the
donor until the age of 16 or 18,depending on the country, and
we have a whole protocol set upso that donor doesn't get called
out of the blue.
They go to a psychologist andthe psychologist talks to the
donor and then talks to thechild and talks to the parents.
Then there's a meeting and I'vehad a few of those because
we've been doing this longenough that we've had some
people in Australia whosechildren are 18 years old, and
(18:46):
it's just a great processbecause usually it's very
gratifying for everybody.
It's just like my children havemet our egg donors and you know
there's not a connection, and Ithink it's not just the donors,
though I think there's a fear onparents' side that oh my gosh,
it's not my genes.
Is the child going to love meand I think that's very natural,
(19:10):
a natural fear.
But anyone who's had a childknows that the bonding is
biological and there's nothingyou could do to not make that
child yours after you'repregnant.
Yeah, it works out.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Can you talk a little bit?
You've talked about thetrafficking in egg donations and
this being a real issue andincreasingly an issue, Can you
first explain to our audiencewhat is trafficking and
donations?
Why is it becoming an issue?
Well, boy.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Easy to say.
Basically, it's a lot easierfor doctors to recruit donors in
Cyprus and any developingcountry where there's a
migration of populations, whichare usually women and children
who suffer the most in thesemigrations, but they're poor, so
they're willing to do thesecycles for almost nothing.
Some of them even never do seetheir money.
(20:05):
There's Uzbekistan, kazakhstan,there's South Africa.
They're coming from Argentina,from immigrants who go to Spain
and then they come from Spainand it just creates this
quagmire, this subterfuge aboutwhere these eggs are coming from
, how these donors are treatedduring a cycle.
(20:28):
We don't know what kind ofmedications they're getting.
Are they all being dangerouslyhyper-stimulated with medication
?
How many cycles are they goingthrough?
In the US it's maximum of six.
I mean I've seen documentscommonly that they go through 26
in Prague, in Ukraine andWrocław, georgia, Brazil.
(20:50):
So India, india.
I mean there's an article outabout a 12-year-old who they
retrieved eggs from in India, 12years old.
So they met her at a wateringhole and they have brokers who
bring them into clinics anddress them up to look older and
wear a wedding necklace and theyhave a fake husband coming in
(21:13):
and that I mean can you imaginebeing the woman in New York who
gets the egg from a 12-year-oldchild and doesn't even know it?
No, I mean, how do you tellyour child later?
And I mean there's a lot oforganized crime involved in it
and you can go and read this inthe State Department documents
and they actually refer to womenas renewable resources.
(21:35):
So they go from egg donation,prostitution, dancing, they just
kind of circulate them.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So what is the limit?
In the US you said it's sixcycles.
That is the limit for a womanfor egg donation, for a donor to
donate her eggs.
Yes, and some of thesetrafficking are you looking at
as potentially a woman havingmore than six cycles?
Is there documented knowledgeor information that shows that
(22:07):
it's significantly more than six?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Indiana, who went to a clinic in Ukraine and
documented this for 18 monthsand was up to 26 cycles with one
donor there.
But it's I mean, bloombergMagazine produced a year-long
investigation with seveninvestigative journalists around
the world and tracked the eggsfrom Argentina into California
and it's documented in a lot ofplaces.
But people here really don'twant to see it.
(22:41):
They want the baby and theydon't really want to know.
And doctors really engage inthis because they're paying
$5,000 for six eggs from anothercountry and then they're
turning around and selling themto women for $20,000 in this
country.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
What are the egg donors getting In this instance?
You said the doctors are paying$5,000.
The women who are wanting theeggs are paying $20,000.
What are the women who areselling their eggs, so to speak?
What are they?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
getting.
I think it depends on thesituation, but I say mostly it's
nothing to $200.
And there are some places thatwill pay up to $1,000.
And there are actually some ofthese donors who figured out
that they can do this over andover again and they fly from
Russia to California, to Florida, to another country, and every
(23:36):
time they fly they get elevatedfees for having their proven
donors.
They've had a lot of eggsproduced or they had a child
that came from their eggdonation.
So some people actually marketthemselves as well.
But it doesn't matter, theprice is still cheap to the
banks here.
(23:56):
And then everybody says, well,where did you get that egg?
And then everybody says, well,where did you get that egg?
And the bank says, oh, fromCalifornia.
But they don't tell you thatthe donor was flown from Russia
to California and that she liedat the border and was giving
documents to lie at the border.
And sometimes they don't makeit through the border.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
So Does that also mean that from a health
standpoint, given some of thewhat we were talking about
earlier that your company doesin terms of the rigor around the
, both physical, psychologicalhealth and looking at that
frequently just overlooked, ordo they still accurately get
(24:39):
that information and aren't ableto pass that along to the
families that are buying theseeggs?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
From what I've seen, there's a lot of false data, a
lot of fake profiles.
There's a lot of paperworkthat's completed that isn't
accurate.
We don't even know.
There's no auditing in othercountries.
The FDA at least audits us inour clinics for infectious
disease testing, but do we knowthat the blood from that woman
with a report that was sent overfrom Ukraine is the same woman
(25:09):
whose eggs?
Do they match the eggs?
Do they have somebody sitting inthe corner of the room that has
no infectious diseases, drawingblood all day while the other
eggs are being shipped out,there's nobody to check and when
the women are mistreated.
These are not countries thatwomen have voices in.
They can't go to the police andsay I was just abused.
(25:29):
There's no place for them to goin this country and we will
only work with donors from theUS who are residents or have
green cards and live here.
But they could sue me.
You know what are they going todo in another country.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Right, right.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you and World Egg and Sperm
Bank are working to try toshape the future of this space?
For me.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I feel a personal obligation to speak up.
I have to talk about this.
I have to.
I enjoy these kinds of forumsbecause if somebody's trying to
have children which is usuallylike one in six women have
difficulty having children, theyshould be aware of this.
They're walking into thisreally convoluted space where
(26:17):
there's so much misinformationon many websites and everyone
will claim transparency and thefirst and the best and the
quality controls, but if youdon't know what's going on in
the background, it's so hard fora consumer to know or to ask
the right questions.
I give out a book that's calledPassport.
(26:37):
It says ask these questionswhen you go into a clinic.
I think it's education andspeaking out and as a mother of
donor children, I know what'sgoing to happen down the road
and I really want people tothink.
People prepare for what schooltheir kids are going to go to,
but they don't know where thegenes came from.
You know, we have to getsmarter.
(26:58):
I think that women are nottaught to discriminate about
these things sometimes and ifdoctors, who women trust so much
, don't know what's going on,they don't know what egg banks
sometimes where these women gotthe eggs.
They just know the eggs aregoing to show up in their lab.
So there are some people thatknow and some people that don't.
And to some doctors an egg isan egg and to some doctors it's
(27:19):
very important that you know thesource.
So unless they're being askedand unless people are educated
to answer it, I quit.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, it's kind of astonishing to me.
I just wrote down what you saidabout how people will prepare
for what school the child willgo to, but they don't know some
of the basics on the genetics ofthis egg donor.
It's kind of astonishing, right.
Do you think people arestarting to understand the
importance of what you seem tohave known for a long time?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
You know it is slowly getting out there.
I mean I've had clinics nowfrom the UK come up to me at
conferences and say, oh, haveyou heard about this imported
egg thing?
And what do you guys do?
Do you import your eggs?
And you're the only one talkingabout it.
So I know it's already gottenaround to somebody who's coming
back to me and asking me thequestions I want them to ask.
Think it's just going tobenefit everybody and I think
(28:15):
until there's a couple oflawsuits widely distributed
lawsuits around a child beingborn with a disease that the
paperwork says doesn't exist andthat grows larger and broader I
think doctors will payattention a lot more when
(28:36):
lawsuits start coming outbecause they're worried about
losing their practice at thatpoint.
But do I want to help thispatient with her cycle with
these imported eggs or do I wantto lose my practice?
Is probably what it's going tocome down to before people start
really paying attention.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean I'm kind of astonished that hasn't happened
yet.
I mean, honestly, just givenwhat sounds like a flood, so to
speak, of these egg donors thatare coming from places that are
not being checked, that this hasnot happened is kind of a
miracle in a lot of ways.
If you could go and give womenwho are struggling with
(29:15):
fertility one piece of advice,what would you tell them there's
so much.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I think, first of all , they could read my website.
It's very educational, but Ithink that they have to discern
and some of that is really allabout them confronting the
practice that they're in andasking the right questions.
Because if they start lookingaround themselves, I would
suggest you know people doresearch, but that's not really
going to do much good because Ican't tell you all the garbage I
(29:44):
see on websites and I don'tknow how anyone can distinguish
between reality or not.
You know there's a loophole inthe FDA that allows these eggs
in and I think that peopleshould be lobbying their
Congress people to close thatloophole.
There's nobody paying attentionthat can actually stop it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
So make sure that you are working with a reputable
source.
Know what you're getting into,which is where your company
comes in.
Diana, if people want to followyou, learn more about the work
you're doing, what is the bestway for them to do that?
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
We post questions all the timeonline and we'd be happy to send
people information, but it'sgoing to be one of these things
where women talk to women andthey tell stories and they
connect through non-traditionalmeans to talk to each other,
because it doesn't seem to bebeing picked up in the press and
(30:40):
or on TV, or doctors don't wantto talk about it too much
because so far it's not causingthem much trouble.
It's just, I feel so for womenright now in this, in this mess,
because the misinformation manit's just, it's just everywhere.
It's so hard.
It's really all about bringingit down to you and your
(31:03):
physician and make sure that youare asking your physician and
they have to answer yourquestions and they will give you
the right answers, becausethese doctors really want to
help women but they just don'tknow where these things are
coming from and the more womenthat ask them, the more they're
going to listen and find out.
Kitchen.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah Well, diana, I am grateful for the work that
you're doing and for theopportunity to share this with
our audience.
Thank you for the work you'redoing and for being a pioneer,
but also trying to bring theindustry along with you from a
(31:41):
transparency standpoint and alsoraising awareness about these
critical I mean.
There's nothing that seems tobe more important than doing
this and doing it correctly.
So thank you for the workyou're doing and thank you for
spending the time with us today.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well, thank you so much for giving me the platform
to talk about it.
I really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
I give out a book that's called Passport.
It says ask these questionswhen you go into a clinic.
I think it's education andspeaking out and as a mother of
donor children, I know what'sgoing to happen down the road
and I really want people tothink you know, people prepare
for what school their kids aregoing to go to, but they don't
know where the genes came from.
(00:21):
You know, we have to getsmarter.
I think that women are nottaught to discriminate about
these things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome back to the show.
Hope you're all having a greatweek so far.
In this week's episode we'recovering a topic that affects
many women.
In fact, one in six womenglobally deal with infertility
and even if maybe this is notsomething you've dealt with
directly, you probably have awoman or no woman in your life
who's dealt with infertility.
Today's guest is Diana Thomas,and she is one of the first
(01:03):
women in the United States tohave given birth, back in 1995,
to a child through egg donationand using IVF and egg donation.
And what Diana went on to doafter her experience trying to
go through the process ofidentifying a solution for her
(01:23):
infertility and back in theearly 1990s there were far fewer
solutions for women than thereare today.
So, based on that experience,diana founded the World Egg and
Sperm Bank and really has beendedicated to helping women and
men have safe egg and spermdonations in order to give birth
(01:44):
to children.
In this episode Diana talksabout her experience and it is
so inspiring to see how she tookthis very difficult experience
that she went through and hasreally turned it into a way to
help other people who aredealing with something similar.
She talks about the realitiesof egg donation, the dangers of
(02:07):
international egg trafficking,which I did not even know about,
and the misinformation that canput families at risk.
She also shares tough questions.
Every couple should ask theirdoctor or their clinic and
advice that she wishes that shehad when she began her own
journey.
In this eye-openingconversation, you will learn so
(02:32):
much more and even hopefullygive someone in your life some
hope and some information thatmight be useful to them.
Diana's advocacy and herinfluence in the industry, I
think, has been unbelievablystrong, and I am excited for you
to hear my conversation withDiana Thomas.
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Diana, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you very much.
I'm excited to be here.
Great Well.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I am excited to talk with you because in doing a bit
of research about you and yourbackground, I found your story
fascinating and I want to start,if we can, with where your
journey started here, with whatyou're doing today.
In 1996, you were one of thefirst women to use IVF in vitro
(03:20):
fertilization to give birth to achild in the US, or is that
worldwide?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I had the child in the US but the first hundred
babies with donor eggs.
Ivf was around a little bit butthis was the first introduction
of donor egg into IVF.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
That's amazing.
I do want to talk a little bit,if we can, so that people
understand the space a littlebit more In terms of your
journey.
It sounds like IVF had beenaround and I don't know kind of
how long it had been around, butthe fact that you were one of
the first to conceive and have achild through a donor egg, how
(04:01):
did that process come about foryou, Because you are obviously
one of the first to do that, I'massuming it was very new
territory.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow that came about?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I went through 15 years of infertility treatments,
starting in the 80s, and it wasbasically my whole journey
through IVF mirrored the veryearliest days of the existence
of IVF.
For the next 20 years it wassomething of a poster child for
every new treatment that camealong because it was so new.
(04:33):
They really didn't know how totreat women who were infertile
and they called a lot ofinfertility unexplained
infertility and I started offwith all sorts of low-level
technology.
For years they considered thisa woman's problem back then,
when half the time infertilityis related to the men.
But at that time it was awoman's problem and it was
(04:57):
usually because they hadendometriosis.
That's all they pretty muchknew at the time.
So I went through, I think,three laparoscopies to remove
endometriosis, which was reallyvery minor and wasn't really the
problem for me.
That's all they knew.
But I went through othertechnologies for a long time and
it was in those early days.
(05:17):
It was quite a journey.
All the shots wereintermuscular, they were painful
, you'd have all sorts ofshortcuts and even the
medication which is nowpharmaceutically produced since
the mid-90s was actuallyextracted from the urine of
menopausal nuns in Rome.
They used to have nunsurinating buckets in Rome
(05:42):
because the Vatican was actuallyinvested in Sirono, the
pharmaceutical company.
I know this sounds insane, butthere's actually.
There's stories about this.
It would take 10 days for 10women urinating in a bucket for
a single treatment for women inthe US because they were
(06:02):
extracting follicle stimulating,hormoneimulating hormone, which
women produce in menopause, andthey decided to go with nuns
because they were also usuallydisease-free because they were
not having intercourse.
Things have been really, reallychanged.
I mean, it was just very earlyon.
There were no donors, there wasjust not a lot going on until
(06:26):
my late 30s and I was told thatthere was really nothing left
for me to do except a donor egg.
And I said, well, what's that?
And they said, well, you know,we really don't know that much
about it, but you'll just haveto figure it out and find a
donor because there were noagencies, and find a donor
(06:46):
because there were no agencies,there were no guidelines, there
were no contracts, there were nolaws, there was no FDA auditing
, there wasn't anything.
I had to first of all find anegg donor.
Then I had to create all thedocuments I wanted about her
medical history, consenting herabout the process, telling her
that this was going to be anopen identification, I'm the
(07:06):
person that she'd be donatingfor, because I just can't lie to
somebody, take their egg andsay, oh, you're just donating to
somebody.
It was a very intimate processfor me because I interviewed
women.
I finally found a woman that Idecided you know, I'm just
looking for somebody with asimilar spirit.
And so I took her back to thedoctor and the doctor said okay,
(07:31):
we'll do egg retrieval andtransfer the embryos that are
made into your uterus.
I sat there and held her handduring retrieval and got to see
the embryos in the lab when theywere first fertilized.
These are things would neverhappen today.
They would just never allowthat today.
So it was yeah, it's crazy.
(07:53):
Then they said doctors asked mecan you find donors for other
women, some of our otherpatients?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
That I mean what a what a journey and to be of the
first to do this, and just theprocess.
I can imagine how overwhelmingthat process must have been,
because it was like, all right,well, go ahead and find yourself
an egg donor.
(08:19):
Where do you start?
How did you even think to gothrough that process to find
women who might be willing to beegg donors?
I'm fascinated, as one of thefirst that you had to come up
with this, you know if youreally want something in life,
(08:39):
you just figure it out.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Determination is part of getting where you want to go
, and it means failing.
I failed so many times in IDFand in vitro for years, and it's
about picking yourself up andmoving forward.
But the women have to be intheir 20s and so I went to the
university which is ASU, whichis Arizona State University,
(09:03):
which is the third largestuniversity campus in the country
, and I just put an ad in astudent paper and I was even
shocked.
Anybody would even understandit enough to answer the ad.
But I had six people answer thead and I met with them all and
some said no, but we ended upwith one woman and it all worked
(09:24):
out really well said no, but weended up with one woman and it
all worked out really well.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Well, you just need one that works.
I guess that's the truth.
But wow, so you had six answerone that ended up working out
and you were able to conceivethe child your son is that right
and gave birth unbelievableyeah.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, it was a gift.
I mean, these women are justamazing who help other women.
It's just so grateful.
I had another woman who helpedme have my twins in the year
2000.
I met her twice, with twodifferent women and the three
siblings.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yes, that's amazing.
That's amazing so in terms oftoday.
So fast forward.
So this was 1996 and then maybelate 90s when you had your
twins, or early 2000s when youhad your twins.
You now have three children andyou were asked by doctors to
(10:28):
help with other patients rightwho were looking for egg donors,
with other patients right whowere looking for egg donors, and
you were able to start theconsulting agency which is now
your company.
Tell us a little bit about yourcompany today.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Well, we are really one of the only egg banks that
comply with legislationworldwide and it's very
complicated.
We have to watch family limitsand I probably adhere to about
45 pieces of legislation notguidelines, but legislation
around the world and eachcountry has a different set of
criteria for each donor.
(11:03):
When I began the egg bank, theAmerican Society of Reproductive
Medicine decided that this wasexperimental.
So I went outside the countryand I went to Australia and
Canada and the UK and startedworking with women there and we
started freezing eggs andshipping them around the world,
because the US was stillconsidering it experimental and
(11:27):
basically most of the industrycaught up to what we were doing
and they really didn't like it.
That two women in the countrywere the only two that were
freezing eggs and me andChristina Jones in New York kind
of got halted and I think afterthe rest of the crew figured
they had caught up, all of asudden it wasn't experimental
(11:48):
anymore and that was in 2012.
I had been doing it for eightyears before they came on board.
So we do everything in our onelocation, where other egg banks
farm out all their procedures tojust dozens of other locations.
I mean there's reasons why Iformed the model that I did.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I know that the industry really has evolved a
lot and you've talked about theneed for transparency in egg and
sperm donations.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat you've set up?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
and why you've set it up.
I decided that I was going toscreen all egg donors to the
highest worldwide, that any ofthe sperm and eggs could go
anywhere in the world.
I didn't have to startsegregating them into different
legal categories and the needfor transparency, you know,
(12:45):
having everything in onelocation so I don't farm out to
embryologists all around theworld or other clinics or other
people who are screening andother.
Everything is done our onefacility.
So every donor walks in ourdoor.
We know who they are, we cantrace them, we do ID checks and
our staff gets to know them andwe do interviews and they get
(13:08):
through genetic counseling andthey go through psychological
counseling so that they arereally aware of what they're
involved in.
They go through medicalconsenting with our staff, our
medical staff.
But we can trace it all the wayfrom her walking in the door
through egg stimulation, throughegg retrieval, through egg
(13:28):
freezing, through shipping theeggs.
So we track everything and wedouble witness every time the
egg or the sperm are moved ortouched.
And the eggs.
So we track everything and wedouble witness every time the
egg or the sperm are moved ortouched.
And the paperwork.
I know you hear about thesethings in the press, about the
wrong embryo got transferred tosomebody or you know all that
kind of stuff going on.
We eliminate that problem.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the
hurdles that face women and mencouples who are willing to
donate eggs and to have you knowappropriate candidates to
(14:21):
donate eggs.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
We go through a huge paring down so donors can apply.
They go through screening.
Every step of the screeningprocess they have to pass.
They have to have certaingenetic history that doesn't
show generation after generationof cancer.
There's so many criteria.
We can start with a hundredwomen and end up with five.
Wow, very outset.
(14:56):
It's a lot of work to reallyget to be able to stand behind
what you're telling people.
You have to be careful, youhave to be honest and you do
have to be transparent and youreally do have to make sure
these women and men comply withlegislation worldwide.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, I mean, that's unbelievable.
I would not have thought thatthe funnel, so to speak, would
take us from a hundred willingbecause these are all women who
say, yes, I'm interested inbeing an egg donor to get from
that 100 down to five who areviable.
And can I just ask because I'mcurious about how much of it is
(15:28):
health-related issues, physicalhealth in terms of what you said
, family history, manygenerations of cancer, for
example, versus like apsychological maybe, evaluation
versus they're just the womendeciding that it's not for them.
I'm just curious if there isone bucket where you really find
(15:51):
that people kind of fall off.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I think it's after interviewing and educating
donors and consenting them.
That is one place they fall off.
Because we will only work withopen identity donors too.
One of the things I'm not justconcerned about the parents, but
I'm concerned about the donor,conceived children, and when
you're trying to get pregnant,all you're thinking about is the
baby in your arm.
You're not really thinkingabout when they're eight years
(16:19):
old and they're going to askquestions, what you're going to
say.
Because my children are 28 and24, I've been through the whole
gamut of walking into a doctor'soffices and the doctor saying
well, he seems to have a historyof migraine in your family.
And I go well, it's not myfamily but the egg donors does.
It's that knowledge for thebenefit of the child as well.
But the other bucket, I think,is genetics, because we now look
(16:44):
at 6,000 recessive traits.
You know, like cystic fibrosis,for example, can have, I don't
know, something like 400mutations.
But you can't have the samemutation on the female side as
the male side, or the chances ofhaving CF really increases
exponentially.
It's not engineering children,it's really eliminating disease
(17:07):
from children.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, those are very real and it's such an important
thing for people to know and beaware of.
Going into that with your eyesopen, I think, makes so much
sense, absolutely.
When you talked about the factthat you do have a drop-off once
people are educated about yourprocess and understand that
(17:31):
there has to be some sort ofidentification associated, and
you get drop-off there in termsof women maybe not wanting to be
identified, is that becausethey don't want to be identified
later, when the child is older,let's say?
Or is it just that they don'twant the details of who they are
(17:52):
from a medical standpoint to beshared early or at different
points for that child's life?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
as they grow up.
Well, first of all, we give allthe information that we know
about the donor, with thedonor's permission, to the
intended parents who buy hereggs.
So they have a lot of genetichistory, they actually have the
genetic reports, they have a lotof information history, they
actually have the geneticreports, they have a lot of
information and the lawsbasically state that unless
(18:24):
there's a real urgent need, thatthe child cannot contact the
donor until the age of 16 or 18,depending on the country, and
we have a whole protocol set upso that donor doesn't get called
out of the blue.
They go to a psychologist andthe psychologist talks to the
donor and then talks to thechild and talks to the parents.
Then there's a meeting and I'vehad a few of those because
we've been doing this longenough that we've had some
people in Australia whosechildren are 18 years old, and
(18:46):
it's just a great processbecause usually it's very
gratifying for everybody.
It's just like my children havemet our egg donors and you know
there's not a connection, and Ithink it's not just the donors,
though I think there's a fear onparents' side that oh my gosh,
it's not my genes.
Is the child going to love meand I think that's very natural,
(19:10):
a natural fear.
But anyone who's had a childknows that the bonding is
biological and there's nothingyou could do to not make that
child yours after you'repregnant.
Yeah, it works out.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Can you talk a little bit?
You've talked about thetrafficking in egg donations and
this being a real issue andincreasingly an issue, Can you
first explain to our audiencewhat is trafficking and
donations?
Why is it becoming an issue?
Well, boy.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Easy to say.
Basically, it's a lot easierfor doctors to recruit donors in
Cyprus and any developingcountry where there's a
migration of populations, whichare usually women and children
who suffer the most in thesemigrations, but they're poor, so
they're willing to do thesecycles for almost nothing.
Some of them even never do seetheir money.
(20:05):
There's Uzbekistan, kazakhstan,there's South Africa.
They're coming from Argentina,from immigrants who go to Spain
and then they come from Spainand it just creates this
quagmire, this subterfuge aboutwhere these eggs are coming from
, how these donors are treatedduring a cycle.
(20:28):
We don't know what kind ofmedications they're getting.
Are they all being dangerouslyhyper-stimulated with medication
?
How many cycles are they goingthrough?
In the US it's maximum of six.
I mean I've seen documentscommonly that they go through 26
in Prague, in Ukraine andWrocław, georgia, Brazil.
(20:50):
So India, india.
I mean there's an article outabout a 12-year-old who they
retrieved eggs from in India, 12years old.
So they met her at a wateringhole and they have brokers who
bring them into clinics anddress them up to look older and
wear a wedding necklace and theyhave a fake husband coming in
(21:13):
and that I mean can you imaginebeing the woman in New York who
gets the egg from a 12-year-oldchild and doesn't even know it?
No, I mean, how do you tellyour child later?
And I mean there's a lot oforganized crime involved in it
and you can go and read this inthe State Department documents
and they actually refer to womenas renewable resources.
(21:35):
So they go from egg donation,prostitution, dancing, they just
kind of circulate them.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So what is the limit?
In the US you said it's sixcycles.
That is the limit for a womanfor egg donation, for a donor to
donate her eggs.
Yes, and some of thesetrafficking are you looking at
as potentially a woman havingmore than six cycles?
Is there documented knowledgeor information that shows that
(22:07):
it's significantly more than six?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Indiana, who went to a clinic in Ukraine and
documented this for 18 monthsand was up to 26 cycles with one
donor there.
But it's I mean, bloombergMagazine produced a year-long
investigation with seveninvestigative journalists around
the world and tracked the eggsfrom Argentina into California
and it's documented in a lot ofplaces.
But people here really don'twant to see it.
(22:41):
They want the baby and theydon't really want to know.
And doctors really engage inthis because they're paying
$5,000 for six eggs from anothercountry and then they're
turning around and selling themto women for $20,000 in this
country.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
What are the egg donors getting In this instance?
You said the doctors are paying$5,000.
The women who are wanting theeggs are paying $20,000.
What are the women who areselling their eggs, so to speak?
What are they?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
getting.
I think it depends on thesituation, but I say mostly it's
nothing to $200.
And there are some places thatwill pay up to $1,000.
And there are actually some ofthese donors who figured out
that they can do this over andover again and they fly from
Russia to California, to Florida, to another country, and every
(23:36):
time they fly they get elevatedfees for having their proven
donors.
They've had a lot of eggsproduced or they had a child
that came from their eggdonation.
So some people actually marketthemselves as well.
But it doesn't matter, theprice is still cheap to the
banks here.
(23:56):
And then everybody says, well,where did you get that egg?
And then everybody says, well,where did you get that egg?
And the bank says, oh, fromCalifornia.
But they don't tell you thatthe donor was flown from Russia
to California and that she liedat the border and was giving
documents to lie at the border.
And sometimes they don't makeit through the border.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
So Does that also mean that from a health
standpoint, given some of thewhat we were talking about
earlier that your company doesin terms of the rigor around the
, both physical, psychologicalhealth and looking at that
frequently just overlooked, ordo they still accurately get
(24:39):
that information and aren't ableto pass that along to the
families that are buying theseeggs?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
From what I've seen, there's a lot of false data, a
lot of fake profiles.
There's a lot of paperworkthat's completed that isn't
accurate.
We don't even know.
There's no auditing in othercountries.
The FDA at least audits us inour clinics for infectious
disease testing, but do we knowthat the blood from that woman
with a report that was sent overfrom Ukraine is the same woman
(25:09):
whose eggs?
Do they match the eggs?
Do they have somebody sitting inthe corner of the room that has
no infectious diseases, drawingblood all day while the other
eggs are being shipped out,there's nobody to check and when
the women are mistreated.
These are not countries thatwomen have voices in.
They can't go to the police andsay I was just abused.
(25:29):
There's no place for them to goin this country and we will
only work with donors from theUS who are residents or have
green cards and live here.
But they could sue me.
You know what are they going todo in another country.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Right, right.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you and World Egg and Sperm
Bank are working to try toshape the future of this space?
For me.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I feel a personal obligation to speak up.
I have to talk about this.
I have to.
I enjoy these kinds of forumsbecause if somebody's trying to
have children which is usuallylike one in six women have
difficulty having children, theyshould be aware of this.
They're walking into thisreally convoluted space where
(26:17):
there's so much misinformationon many websites and everyone
will claim transparency and thefirst and the best and the
quality controls, but if youdon't know what's going on in
the background, it's so hard fora consumer to know or to ask
the right questions.
I give out a book that's calledPassport.
(26:37):
It says ask these questionswhen you go into a clinic.
I think it's education andspeaking out and as a mother of
donor children, I know what'sgoing to happen down the road
and I really want people tothink.
People prepare for what schooltheir kids are going to go to,
but they don't know where thegenes came from.
You know, we have to getsmarter.
(26:58):
I think that women are nottaught to discriminate about
these things sometimes and ifdoctors, who women trust so much
, don't know what's going on,they don't know what egg banks
sometimes where these women gotthe eggs.
They just know the eggs aregoing to show up in their lab.
So there are some people thatknow and some people that don't.
And to some doctors an egg isan egg and to some doctors it's
(27:19):
very important that you know thesource.
So unless they're being askedand unless people are educated
to answer it, I quit.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, it's kind of astonishing to me.
I just wrote down what you saidabout how people will prepare
for what school the child willgo to, but they don't know some
of the basics on the genetics ofthis egg donor.
It's kind of astonishing, right.
Do you think people arestarting to understand the
importance of what you seem tohave known for a long time?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
You know it is slowly getting out there.
I mean I've had clinics nowfrom the UK come up to me at
conferences and say, oh, haveyou heard about this imported
egg thing?
And what do you guys do?
Do you import your eggs?
And you're the only one talkingabout it.
So I know it's already gottenaround to somebody who's coming
back to me and asking me thequestions I want them to ask.
Think it's just going tobenefit everybody and I think
(28:15):
until there's a couple oflawsuits widely distributed
lawsuits around a child beingborn with a disease that the
paperwork says doesn't exist andthat grows larger and broader I
think doctors will payattention a lot more when
(28:36):
lawsuits start coming outbecause they're worried about
losing their practice at thatpoint.
But do I want to help thispatient with her cycle with
these imported eggs or do I wantto lose my practice?
Is probably what it's going tocome down to before people start
really paying attention.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean I'm kind of astonished that hasn't happened
yet.
I mean, honestly, just givenwhat sounds like a flood, so to
speak, of these egg donors thatare coming from places that are
not being checked, that this hasnot happened is kind of a
miracle in a lot of ways.
If you could go and give womenwho are struggling with
(29:15):
fertility one piece of advice,what would you tell them there's
so much.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I think, first of all , they could read my website.
It's very educational, but Ithink that they have to discern
and some of that is really allabout them confronting the
practice that they're in andasking the right questions.
Because if they start lookingaround themselves, I would
suggest you know people doresearch, but that's not really
going to do much good because Ican't tell you all the garbage I
(29:44):
see on websites and I don'tknow how anyone can distinguish
between reality or not.
You know there's a loophole inthe FDA that allows these eggs
in and I think that peopleshould be lobbying their
Congress people to close thatloophole.
There's nobody paying attentionthat can actually stop it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
So make sure that you are working with a reputable
source.
Know what you're getting into,which is where your company
comes in.
Diana, if people want to followyou, learn more about the work
you're doing, what is the bestway for them to do that?
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
We post questions all the timeonline and we'd be happy to send
people information, but it'sgoing to be one of these things
where women talk to women andthey tell stories and they
connect through non-traditionalmeans to talk to each other,
because it doesn't seem to bebeing picked up in the press and
(30:40):
or on TV, or doctors don't wantto talk about it too much
because so far it's not causingthem much trouble.
It's just, I feel so for womenright now in this, in this mess,
because the misinformation manit's just, it's just everywhere.
It's so hard.
It's really all about bringingit down to you and your
(31:03):
physician and make sure that youare asking your physician and
they have to answer yourquestions and they will give you
the right answers, becausethese doctors really want to
help women but they just don'tknow where these things are
coming from and the more womenthat ask them, the more they're
going to listen and find out.
Kitchen.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah Well, diana, I am grateful for the work that
you're doing and for theopportunity to share this with
our audience.
Thank you for the work you'redoing and for being a pioneer,
but also trying to bring theindustry along with you from a
(31:41):
transparency standpoint and alsoraising awareness about these
critical I mean.
There's nothing that seems tobe more important than doing
this and doing it correctly.
So thank you for the workyou're doing and thank you for
spending the time with us today.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Well, thank you so much for giving me the platform
to talk about it.
I really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
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