A group of young South African women are due to arrive in Australia this month for an all-expenses paid trip of a lifetime – but there's a catch. They have to leave their eggs behind.
The fertile white women are coming to serve as egg donors for local IVF patients who are desperate for babies.
A new donor agency called Known Egg Donors, based in Cape Town, will fly the first group of four white South African women to Brisbane airport and pay to put them up in serviced apartments for at least a fortnight. A local chaperone will ferry them to medical appointments.
Australian IVF patients have paid $13,600 to the agency for fresh eggs from the donors, on top of their other IVF costs. The agency takes $3800, while the donors (who cannot be paid under Australian law) will receive up to $2500 to cover their living costs while here.
The new agency comes as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigates how IVF success rates are reported because of claims that women are being ripped off by paying up to $15,000 per IVF cycle and doing as many as 30 cycles in their bid to have a baby.
Known Egg Donors has so far matched 14 local IVF patients with donors signed up to the agency, which is working with popular IVF clinics Queensland Fertility Group. A second group of South African women is scheduled to arrive in April.
The donors, aged 21-30 years old, will undergo day surgery at the clinic to collect their eggs, either via needles through the vaginal wall or laparoscopy under a light general anaesthetic. The eggs will then be fertilised and the embryos transferred into the Australian patients.
Founder of Known Egg Donors, Genevieve Uys, an international egg donor for seven babies herself, said she came up with the idea when in Brisbane last year to donate eggs to a family she met in online forums.
It is an offshoot of her larger Cape Town operation Travelling Donors which was popular with Australian reproductive tourists in Thailand before stricter laws curtailed the industry in the wake of the Baby Gammy scandal in 2014.
Uys said the donors wanted to help others conceive and were not motivated by money, although the prospect of going overseas was attractive.
"This is not about hopping on a plane and coming on an adventure," she said. "A lot of thought is put into it and both parties know how much emotion is involved. It's not done on a whim."
Egg donations in South Africa must be anonymous if done through an agency, but that does not apply if they donate elsewhere, such as Australia, where donors must be known so children can trace their family history.
Australian IVF patients face a chronic shortage of local donors, with strict bans on paid or induced donations. There is not an Australian egg bank, like there is for sperm, although some clinics keep waiting lists of up to seven years long for donor eggs.
"We've been aware of the need for egg donors in Australia and it has just taken a really long time to navigate through the correct protocols and regulations," Uys said. "These are all donors who have said that they want to be known and they want to altruistically help couples in Brisbane. The donors and recipients are both really excited."
Australian clients of the agency receive a choice of donor profiles, including photos, biographical details and medical histories.
Once arrived, the donor women will undergo counselling with the recipients, medical checks, and undergo drug therapy to stimulate their ovaries. But they will also have time to do sightseeing, such as horse riding.
"The idea behind a group of girls is that they are together and are able to share in the experience. If they've never travelled before, they don't feel isolated or alone. Some of the girls make lasting friendships on donor trips."
Monash IVF started importing frozen eggs from the US-based World Egg Bank in 2013. However, fresh egg cycles are thought to have an increased success rate over frozen eggs.
Fertility Society of Australia head Professor Michael Chapman said this was the first he'd heard of an agency bringing international egg donors to Australia.
"It's hard to see that it's not a commercial arrangement and technically that is not allowed," Professor Chapman said. "An inducement to donate such as airfares, potentially violates the guidelines."
"Unfortunately there are desperate couples wanting to have babies and prepared to do anything and there are these organisations which will push back the limits of the law. Commercialism drives people to the edge of ethics and safety."
However, Ms Uys said her agency was no different from IVF clinics who charge $2000 or more to coordinate donors.
"Isn't it everyone's right to have a family?," Ms Uys said. "People who pass comment and judgement on someone's infertility journey really shouldn't because they don't understand what it is like to go 10 or 15 years without being able to have a child."
Queensland Fertility Group's Dr Warren DeAmbrosis said he thought Known Egg Donors was a "step forward" and complied with current laws.
"What I'd like to see is more incentive for local donors to up supply, such as much higher amount of compensation for time, effort and emotional toll."
Dr DeAmbrosis said he sends a lot of Australian women overseas for eggs and there was a six-year waiting list for donor eggs through his clinics.
"With the ageing reproductive situation, the demand is high and there are a lot of patients who can't access it because they don't have the money or the knowledge about what's out there."
