The Hidden Heart of Egg Donation: What the Nurses Who Will Be With You Want Every Future Donor to Know

Written by: Julia Gytri

If you’re thinking about becoming an egg donor, you’ve probably read a lot about the milestones of the process. There’s the application, the screening, all of the medications, the big retrieval. But you’ve likely read next to nothing about the people who will be walking beside you, hand in hand, the entire way.

Donor nurse coordinators are known as the calm communicators within a practice. They are usually heads-down, at the bedside, on the phone, forging trust in twenty-minute increments. Their care goes far beyond the years of training and certification required to wear their scrubs. They are the constant caretakers, the communicators whose dedication can be quietly found in the clarifying text at 9 p.m., in the second (and third) explanation of an injection, in the pause before a tough question.

But despite all of that in-process support, it’s rare that you ever get to pick their brains before you begin your egg donation journey. And it finally occurred to us that that’s actually an enormous oversight. There is a lot of helpful information they want you to know.

So in honor of National Nurses Week this year, we had our team nominate outstanding nursing professionals and asked those honored to share their most honest insights on the egg donation process from their perspective. We never could’ve expected to gain such an insightful window into the soul of reproductive medicine, and found their words particularly helpful (and touching) for potential donor candidates. 

Here’s what they want people to know.

Meet the Nurses in Your Corner

Throughout May 6-12, we’re spotlighting the tenured careers and experiences of donor nurses who, between them, have coordinated thousands of donor egg cycles:

• Carrie Baab, RN, Third Party Clinical Nurse Coordinator at Fertility Centers of Illinois
• Sara Boyd, WHNP-BC, Nurse Practitioner at Piedmont Reproductive Endocrinology
• Lori Knoop, RN, Reproductive Medicine and Infertility Associates
• Kathleen Shumake, BSN, RNC, Donor Nurse Coordinator at Shady Grove Fertility

For Lori Knoop in particular, this work isn’t just a job. It’s a return. “In the early stages of my nursing career,” she tells us, “I worked here… part of my job was working with egg donors and oocyte recipients. I loved my work, but after several years I made a career change to bedside nursing (labor and delivery)… Four plus years ago, after more than 15 years of night shift, I came back to where it all started, this time with the bonus of working with our Fairfax donors and the Fairfax team. It feels good to be back where I belong.”

When the person coordinating your cycle has actively chosen this work (chosen it twice, even, after a full career detour) you can feel it in the way they show up. That choice is often the first intangible thing a donor experiences, often before she even has a name for it.

What Egg Donation Actually Looks Like From the Inside

There’s a quiet stereotype about fertility nursing. Many think it’s merely procedural. Dosages, calendars, paperwork, repeat. It’s a misconception that frustrates Carrie Baab, because it vastly understates what donor coordinators actually do. “A major, frustrating misconception is that fertility nursing is not a ‘real’ or ‘clinical’ nursing job — that it is merely a luxurious, 9-to-5 ‘appointment scheduling’ role. This couldn’t be further from the truth,” Carrie stresses. “We act as the glue between specialized doctors, labs, embryologists, and pharmacies. We are educators, counselors, and technicians simultaneously.”

What that means for a donor, practically speaking, is that the nurse who picks up when you call about a sore injection site is the same person making sure the lab, the pharmacy, and your cycle calendar are perfectly in sync. Your nurse holds the whole picture and translates it into plain language when you need it.

It’s also why egg donation will feel different from most medical experiences. There is, almost always, one person (your person) for the entire journey, a dedicated person who not only knows exactly what they are doing, but cares about what is happening as it pertains directly to you.

They Are Paying Attention in Ways You May Not Expect

Ask any donor nurse what gets overlooked in their world, and the same answer comes back: the donor herself.

“I think sometimes the role of the egg donor doesn’t get the recognition it should,” Kathleen Shumake laments. “It’s a physical and emotional journey for all parties involved, but I think some forget that these young women are giving a piece of themselves to allow others to create a family.”

That recognition isn’t performative or surface-level. It changes how the nurses approach every interaction with you: every appointment, every voicemail, every check-in.

Lori emphasizes the deep connection she and her team make with each donor. “We truly care about everyone who walks through the door,” she shares. “We do our very best to make sure no one feels alone or unheard. We celebrate the successes, and our hearts hurt when success is not achieved.”

Sara Boyd echoes these sentiments. She’s seen how much this journey can ask of a person, and how easily that goes underappreciated from a cultural standpoint. “It’s not just a series of medical steps — it can become all-consuming, filled with constant appointments, daily injections, and an ongoing cycle of hope and uncertainty. Behind the scenes, [donors and intended parents] are balancing hormones, schedules, finances, and deeply personal fears, often while trying to carry on with everyday life,” she intimates. “Having witnessed this up close, I’ve come to appreciate the immense strength it takes — and the importance of compassion and understanding for those walking this path.”

For donors, from the moment you’re accepted into our program, you’re treated as someone making a meaningful decision, not as a candidate moving through a checklist.

When It Gets Hard (and It Sometimes Does), You Won’t Have To Carry It Alone

We’re not going to pretend egg donation is simple. There are days that feel never-ending. There are side effects that linger one beat past where you expected. There are moments, usually small, but sometimes bigger, when you’ll want to talk to someone who actually understands what you’re going through.

And Carrie is honest about that part of the work. “Fertility care is not always sunshine and rainbows. There are setbacks,” she says, “difficult conversations, and moments of real disappointment.” But she’s also clear about what helps both for her and, by extension, for the people she cares for. “Being a steady, compassionate presence for my patients matters. Sometimes what they need most is someone to listen, to provide clarity, or simply to walk alongside them through the uncertainty.”

When something feels off in a Fairfax cycle, the response isn’t a callback queue or a generic email. It’s a real conversation with the person who already knows your protocol, your history, and how you’ve been feeling that week. That’s the model. It’s why donors so often describe their nurse as the part of the experience they didn’t expect to remember most, and the part they couldn’t have done without.

Why They Keep Doing This Work (and What it Says About How They’ll Show Up For You)

Ask any of our nurses why they’ve stayed in donor coordination, and the answers aren’t clinical. They’re deeply personal.

For Kathleen, it’s the simple, repeating joy of seeing donors light up at a successful retrieval. “I love to share in the excitement our egg donors feel as they go through their cycle and egg retrievals. They are always so thrilled to know how many eggs were retrieved, knowing that means they can help that many families.”

For Lori, it’s a quiet gratitude that shows up in small daily moments. “Sometimes it is something big, but a lot of the time it is just the little things. I really love what I do. I am truly blessed. Life is good.”

For Carrie, it’s the sense that the field itself is pushing progress in the world of reproductive health and culture as a whole. She remembers a moment, years ago, when a physician in her practice initiated fertility treatment for a same-sex male couple well before that was standard or even widely accepted. She was proud to be part of it. “It reminded me that my work is about utilizing medicine to empower people to live their most authentic lives, breaking through archaic restrictions to foster inclusivity in family building.”

And for Sara, it’s something quieter, though unforgettable. When the days run long, she opens a folder she’s kept for years. “When things start to feel heavy, I find myself returning to a special folder in my email filled with notes and baby pictures from patients over the years,” she shares. “Each message is a reminder of the journeys we walked together — the challenges, the resilience, and the happiness that followed. Looking through those moments brings perspective and reassurance, grounding me in the purpose behind my work and reminding me of the lives that have been touched along the way.”

Somewhere, in someone’s email folder are photos of families made possible by donors who came before you. That said, as a donor, you’re cared for by people who chose this work, who are still moved by it, and who deeply believe in what it makes possible. That’s not the most measurable thing about a donor program. It might be one of the most important.

What Every Nurse Wants You to Know

At Fairfax, we know that you’re a whole person with hopes and dreams and ideals and values, not just a picture and set of genes in a database. 

But as Kathleen so beautifully put it, “I have the utmost respect for these donors, and I think it’s an amazing gift they are giving.” We have to share and echo that.

Carrie agrees, too. It’s the donors themselves, she says, who make the work worthwhile. “Their resilience, their hope, and their trust — that keeps me grounded. Even on the hardest days, that perspective helps me keep going.”

And Sara would add this: every donor she’s worked with becomes part of a story she carries forward. “[Fertility nursing] allows me to be part of some of the most meaningful moments in people’s lives. One of the most rewarding experiences is getting to meet the babies I helped families create — seeing hope, perseverance, and joy come full circle.” 

As a donor, you’d be helping families. Yes, that’s the headline, and it’s true. But you’d also be welcomed into a circle of people who are quietly, consistently going to take care of you while you’re doing it. And they may just turn out to feel like chosen family for life. After all, they didn’t become revered by our team for being average.

If You’re Curious, Here’s the Next Step

Becoming a Fairfax egg donor isn’t a quick leap. It’s an application, then a conversation, and then another, and then a thorough screening process… and so on. We go the distance to make sure our donors are so informed that there’s not a shadow of a doubt in their minds that this is right for them. If it’s right for you, and right for us, what awaits is a thoughtfully supported cycle, guided by a nurse who’d be your single point of contact the entire time.

If you’ve been quietly considering this and want to speak to a real person with no commitment or pressure, that’s exactly what our donor team is here for. 

Or, if you’d rather explore answers on your own time first, our donor FAQs are a great place to begin.

Fairfax Egg Bank is one of the largest and most diverse pools of rigorously screened, FDA-compliant frozen donor eggs in the United States, partnering with nearly 500 fertility clinics nationwide. Our purpose is a world where there are no barriers to having a family, and that starts with the donors who make every family possible and the outstanding nurses who care for them.

A heartfelt thank-you to Carrie Baab, Sara Boyd, Lori Knoop, and Kathleen Shumake, for the generosity of their time, their words, and the work they do every day. Your donors (and the families they make possible) are luckier than they could ever know.

 

 

About the Author

Julia Gytri is a multidisciplinary writer and healthcare advocate bridging the arts and public health through a hybrid career rooted in education, communications, and collaboration. Her mission is to improve the standard of care for those living with rare, stigmatized, and/or under-researched conditions through storytelling in every project she undertakes.