Episode 113: Bringing Joy to Others: POV of a Gestational Surrogate and Egg Donor

One thing always leads to another, and in Eloise’s case, her actions illuminated a path of happiness and health for one family after another. Eloise Drain, founder of Family Inceptions and Reproductive Advocates for Multiethnic Professionals (RAMP), started by donating her kidney to her cousin, and eventually Eloise found herself as a gestational carrier for many grateful couples over the years.  

In this episode, Eloise talks about the process of being an egg donor and gestational carrier, as well as the ups and downs that come with it. During her journey, Eloise noticed the discrepancies in healthcare for women of color when she was told that “black women don’t have fertility issues.” This influenced her to create Family Inceptions, an agency that seeks out surrogates or egg donors that carefully places them with others who are a perfect match for them, as well as RAMP, an agency designed to prioritize minorities in their family building journey.  

Guest: Eloise Drain, Family Inceptions, Reproductive Advocates for Multiethnic Professionals

Host: Dan Bulger 

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Here are some highlights from this episode: 

Tackling the myth surrounding infertility:
5:31 – 6:02 

Dan Bulger: The myth is black women don’t experience infertility. And you know what, let’s go a little bit stronger than that; the myth that black women don’t experience infertility is simply not true. It’s false. Black women, White women, Asian, Hispanic, all kinds of women can experience infertility. That’s not enough because in fact, all kinds of people can experience infertility. It’s a male issue as well. There wasn’t as much conversation about this in 1999. But hopefully now 20 plus years later, everyone understands this much better. 

The process of becoming an egg donor:
8:52 – 9:55 

Eloise Drain: For a woman to become an egg donor, she must be willing to go through a lot of different testing and hormone injections. There are risks being the donor and it’s not as simple as a man going through and donating. It’s a big deal and it’s a long process. When somebody decides to become an egg donor, they are giving a part of their DNA to another human being, and they need to be comfortable with knowing that one day, potentially, there could be another human out there with the same DNA that they have.