The first person I told was my best friend, Irvin.

I confided in him as soon as I was sure I had been accepted into Weill Cornell's egg donation program, during a long evening of late night talks over a glass of wine on the couch in his Brooklyn apartment. He asked all the pertinent questions about individuals and families I might be able to help, what the process would be, and most importantly, when he would need to pick me up from the hospital.

Alvin is not a morning person, but on the day of my egg retrieval surgery in December 2017, he set three alarms and took the train from Fort Greene to the Upper East Side to get me home. Despite having the full support of my best friend, I asked him to be careful who he told about my experience and to let me decide when and how to be completely open.

"Just let me tell them," I said. In phone calls to family and long-distance friends, I omitted the entire experience, concealed my initial fear of hormone injections, omitted blood draws and ultrasounds at daily office visits, and even omitted postoperative pain and bloating.

From the first time I heard about egg donation at the age of 19, despite my desire to donate eggs, I thought that no one but those closest to me needed to know. After reading an article about a cancer survivor who became pregnant through egg donation, I was convinced that I wanted to help people create their own families. But even though I knew this about myself (just as I knew my eyes were brown), others were less accepting. When I mentioned to one family member that I might be interested in egg donation as a trial, she lectured me about "protecting my fertility" and told me to look up articles about women who regretted donating their eggs.

It took me five years to find the courage to go through with egg donation anyway. I needed to listen to my own voice, not to the voices of others. However, in the weeks leading up to my egg donation, I made the mistake of reading comments on articles by women who had shared their egg donation experiences. 'How dare you. I would never do that," someone always wrote. 'Don't you want children of your own? I wonder what my future husband would think.'

It seemed to me that women had an obligation to preserve their eggs only for procreation with a hypothetical spouse. As much as I disliked the idea, I still couldn't shake the feeling that what I was about to do would be considered wrong, or at least controversial, by people I knew and cared about As my body recovered after more than 30 injections and a dozen blood samples, the shame and guilt were gone.

It was then that I began to think about Angela. She was a kind, round-faced blonde with a serious, scientific mind, despite her bubbly personality. She was also the first woman I knew who told me she had had an abortion. She whispered it to me in a dark corner of a dark room at a loud college party, looking around to make sure no one else could hear. It was her right to want to keep the experience a secret, and I kept her secret. Years later, what I remembered was not the abortion itself, nor our intimacy in that moment, but the fact that she felt compelled to hide the experience out of shame, fear of judgment, and fear of social punishment, despite the fact that one in four women experience an abortion by age 45 (new tab). [miscarriage (opens in new tab), abortion (opens in new tab), egg donation (opens in new tab), parenting (opens in new tab), not having children by choice (opens in new tab). There are so many ways to be a woman in this world, so many paths, and yet none of them seem to meet society's standards. I wish that reflecting on Angela's experience in this way would have immediately brought some sort of grand realization about being an egg donor. Instead, I tucked it away and shoved it somewhere on a page in the back of my brain.

Then, in late 2018, over a glass of wine at a French restaurant, a colleague-turned-friend told me that he and his would-be husband were considering starting a family. They are beginning to look for an egg donor and a surrogate, he quietly added. I chuckled and was immediately thrilled for him. I couldn't help but say, "I'm actually an egg donor. I think that's wonderful." He stood up and hugged me across the table.

After that, the egg donation process became easier to talk about, even if only mentioned in conversations about pregnancy and reproductive choices. Many people were wonderfully supportive: it deepened my relationships and inspired another friend to become an egg donor. And while I can't say that I never faced criticism, what I can say is that over time, the criticism became less important and my story felt more relevant. This process has affected far more people than I could have ever imagined and I am proud to speak openly about it.

Now, every time I hear a woman shyly confess that she doesn't want children, or every time I hear someone close to me start IVF and go through a similar process (needles, hormones, emotions, hope, etc.) as I went through, I am ashamed to ask the community around me for support. I want to remind her that she shouldn't. I have had those feelings too, but sharing my experiences has given me far more insight, growth, and connection than I could ever hide.

Every person should have the ability to build their family the way they want it, thoughtfully and lovingly, based on what is right for them deep down inside. There are so many different ways to do this. As an egg donor, I feel fortunate to have found my eggs. And if anyone wonders if my future husband would be interested, you can ask him at his wedding this summer.

*Name has been changed.