Desperate couple turn to Facebook to find egg donor

Lorraine and Barry Minister have been struggling with fertility issues for almost 10 years.

A Wellington couple battling infertility have turned to Facebook in their hunt for an egg donor.

Lorraine and Barry Minister took the unusual step of using social media to advertise, after two failed IVF attempts.

The couple have been struggling with fertility issues for almost 10 years and have a daughter, almost 3, who was conceived with the help of fertility drugs.

They turned to social media as they didn't want to spend up to a year waiting for an egg donor. "With infertility, it's a pretty powerless journey. I feel much better being proactive," Lorraine said.

The couple used ovulation-inducing drug clomiphene to conceive their daughter. But Lorraine is no longer responding to that treatment. An ectopic pregnancy damaged one of her fallopian tubes and even the highest dosage of drugs could not give her any of her own eggs to use for IVF.

Medical director of Fertility Associates' Wellington branch, Andrew Murray, said there was a huge shortage of egg donors here. Each year the clinic treats about 100 women.

Women wait up to a year to be matched with a donor via Fertility Associates' waiting list. Others try to recruit their own, and a significant number go overseas.

Murray said countries where it was legal to pay egg donors, such as the United States, had many more donors. Last year, 30 Fertility Associates patients went to San Diego for treatment.

In New Zealand, donors can be compensated for expenses but only up to $400. Murray said that was not enough. "It should be more like $2000," he said. "They take time off work for medical appointments, counselling, blood tests and scans.

"They're not doing it for the money, they're doing it because they want to help but we still need to do better by them."

Donors, who must be non-smokers aged 21-37 of a healthy weight, have no obligations to the baby but must be identified to the child when it turns 18.

Lorraine Minister hopes her story will encourage more egg donors to come forward.

"How many people can say they helped another couple get pregnant and have a baby? You're helping bring more love into the world."